Please note that even though I am critical of th performance at times, it was a children's production and I am very forgiving of children's performances. Being a frustrated actor myself I am just sometimes over critical about some things.
Here's their promo shot to remind you...
I went last Sunday. Fort Bend Theatre is a little 70 house theatre in Stafford, Texas near Houston. The show was “The Hobbit”.
First scene found us at Bilbo’s home. Gandalf (the only adult in the show) enters with Thorin and his 12 dwarven buddies. They convince Bilbo to join with them to defeat Smaug in the Lonely Mountain. Gandalf announces he must go and take care of a necromancer. The Dwarves were in fact 13 actors between the ages of 12 to 15 wearing Garden-Gnomish like clothing/hats and they all had beards that would put Moses to shame. Unfortunately, you could not see their mouths move when they spoke through the beards, and many of the actors played to the back wall more than the audience, so the dwarven scenes moved slowly at times.
Bilbo was played by a girl who wore enlarged rubber feet. She spoke to the floor and paced around quite a bit, and often was difficult to follow, but there were some good moments. The script was surprisingly well edited.
Upon the scene change in the darkness we are entertained by the Goblins who change the set. The set consisted of a big round door (one side was Bilbo’s door, other side is the entrance to a cave). The goblin stagehands would wave their swords and growl at the audience members during the scene changes. Once a girl dressed as the only elf in the show started a sword fight with the largest goblin in the pseudo darkness. It was actually well staged and fun to watch.
The next scene we see the dwarves out of food, ponies and luck as they climb over a ladder with a gray canvas tarp draped over it, complaining about Bilbo getting them in trouble. Then the Goblins show up and a sword battle takes place, soon the dwarves are rounded up and Bilbo runs away.
Bilbo ends up in Gollum’s cave. Gollum is an extremely thin teenage boy dressed in tights with a Bob Marley wig with most of the locks cut off. He spends the entire scene curled up in a cannon ball shape as he and Bilbo toss riddles at each other. Somewhere in the scene Bilbo finds The Ring and later slips it on, and escapes through the cave entrance that used to be a door. Whenever Bilbo slips on the ring, they had a special rectangular spotlight and an audible “ding” sounded to let you know he was invisible.
After the lights dim and the goblins torment the audience some more, the next scene finds Thorin and two of his companions locked in a cage. The trolls again bring out the one of the best moments in the show as they try to decide what to do with the Dwarves. (There seemed to be about six Goblins and the average age was 15-17 I figure). Some of the lines were funny, and they decide to sleep on their ideas of torture and painful death, and proceed with the activity in the morning.
Bilbo of course tricks the two Goblins on guard into fighting each other, and then whacks one on the head with a plastic club. Quite hard I must say. With both Goblins knocked out, the dwarves are freed and they run off.
Soon in the woods they run into a squad of the race of men with bows and arrows, played by some six or seven 15-16 year old girls. These girls were pretty tough, and decided the Dwarves were rude and did not want to go to the Lonely Mountain with the Dwarves.
So the Dwarves quickly find themselves at the rear entrance to the Lonely Mountain. They all think it is a good idea for Bilbo to go inside and take a peak. After another scene Goblin change, Bilbo is walking through the dragon’s lair and we can hear the dragon snoring. Smaug wakes up, and though Bilbo is invisible, can smell him and the two discuss why Bilbo is there.
The Dragon is a silver head with Red Glowing eyes and a long neck that protrudes from the rear curtain on stage. I heard after the fact there was supposed to be smoke on stage as well, but it did not work that performance. The Dragon was very well done and Smaug made the show most interesting.
Eventually, Smaug decides to go burn up the humans in Laketown and the Dwarves come running in barely escaping his breath. The curtain closes and in front of the curtains are the humans pretending to fight Smaug. “Bard” has one arrow left and knows Dragons have soft spots, and the lights dim as she is firing her ‘last arrow’ at Smaug.
The curtain open again and three days have passed and the Dwarves are digging through the treasure. Thorin finds a stone and remarks about how it is worth more than all the treasure combined. The dwarves get all excited because humans are spotted en masse coming up the hillside. Thorin and his brave band barricade themselves behind a quickly prepared wall of Styrofoam rocks.
The humans come up and want part of the treasure to pay for their destroyed village. They also announce the death of Smaug. Thorin is proud and greedy and does not want to share. Bilbo slips on The Ring and picks Thorin’s pocket and then displays the stone, offering it as his portion of the treasure for the humans. Thorin, a little peeved by this threatens the humans when Gandalf appears again. He announces that the necromancer is dead, but the Goblins are coming up and the Dwarves and Men (girls) better join forces and beat up on the Goblins. Thorin is so upset at this point that he points a crossbow at Gandalf and fires. The lights flash and we see Gandalf holding the arrow one inch from his face. He tosses the arrow aside and there is a bit more conversation, but in the end the Humans and Dwarves have at it, with the Stage Hand Goblins joining in in a huge battle scene where I saw at least three little actors die on stage. (I will note here the stage combat in all scenes was very orderly not chaotic, and they must of practiced it a lot).
Lights dim, and then come up with Bilbo lying on the ground, and one of the dwarves apparently lying dead on the Styrofoam rock wall. It is obvious at this point that the humans and dwarves have had enough of fighting each other, some one remarks that the Goblins have run away, and in come a dwarf and a human carrying the mortally wounded Thorin. In an interesting moment, they roll the dead dwarven body off the Styrofoam wall with a big thunk and lean Thorin up against it.
Thorin has realized his pride and greed caused much suffering, and apologizes and promptly dies.
Gandalf appears again by this time, and promises to escort Bilbo safely back to the Shire, very interested to hear about the mysterious Ring that was found. Thus ends the play.
After the play, the actors remained in the theater and did autographs. In a particularly nice moment, my daughter went to get Gandalf’s autograph, and he had a little pouch around his waist. He said, “Would you like to have a stone that I picked up while I was on the mountain?” and reached his hand in the pouch and held out some pebbles for her to choose one from. I thought it was a nice touch.
All in all it was a little long but interesting. The kid’s onstage did take some acting risks and that’s what kept it going. Also the adaptation was edited fairly well. My biggest complaint would be that they should of worked on the Dwarves’ acting skills more by having them play out more instead of looking at the floor or the back wall, especially with the beards to contended with. Bilbo should have been more energized, as should of the dwarves in general. The scene with the Goblins, the scene with Smaug, and the final battle was the best part of the show. We had a good time.
The next version of “The Hobbit” that I will see will be in a few weeks and it will be a musical (I think). Should be interesting….