After the Charlie Ross performance

It started over three decades ago. It affected my religious views. It affected my way to look special effects and movies. It affected what kind of music I listen. It even affected what kind of a pen I used to do notes with. If it had a dark helmet on it, it probably worked a little bit better than other pens. 

This picture is from Same Bob, different day -blog. That picture probably tells more about the strenght of the brand than about the actual story. Which is to say, it is not a very easy story to tell. Even though it includes elements of fairly recognizable fairy tale elements like knights, chivalry, princesses, and to take it a little farther, I can also find dragons in the original trilogy.

So when we went to see this One Man Star Wars trilogy to the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin center, there was actually some one along us, who hadn't seen the original at all. I don't know if it made much more sense on the stage to others, when it's told by imitating characters and special effects, but I felt confuse sometimes thinking about what scene is this.

Nevertheless, Charlie Ross delivers the package by understanding that when performing trilogy on the stage, it's more about the capsulizing and paraphrasing than being accurate. Most of the comedy comes from drawing lines in your own head. Some of the most enjoyable moments were those which at first I didn't know what they were about. Hardest scene, I think, is the trench run of the first movie. It has lots of action, some dialogue, but as a writer or director of theatre, I would think twice before taking that challenge.

Now when you think of it, it is actually a pretty stupid scene, but during that time, it had the drama of a worlds colliding kind of war.

After the show, Ross took a small moment to recapture his career. Which was a very nice monologue about how he is amazed of the lenght of the show. Of course it was also about marketing his Lord of the Rings -trilogy. Which has now an official seal on it. Ross played it for three years before asking for permission. Same thing was with the Star wars. Thing that probably has changed more in the background, is Ross doesn't pay tributes to Lucasfilm any more. Now that money goes to Mickey Mouse.

Final points for the show: Four lightsabers, one star, and one helmet using the official Star Wars rating system owned by a magical castle in California.

Star Wars is coming to town

It is a very rare treat that a theater can use a well-known and heavily copyrighted material. For example, no group without money could do Tolkien or Matrix on stage without first consulting the copyright owners. Although, for example, George Lucas has allowed people to do fanfiction as long as they give out the proper disclaimer, and don't make money out of it. And in some rare cases, he even allows people to make living out of it.

And that's the beef of this post.

I think the first time that I found out about Charlie Ross, was by an accident. I was watching theater improves at Youtube (okay, I was watching cat and Star Wars videos when I accidentally wrote Cat Wars). At first Ross adapted the first Star Wars movie to be performed by himself, and with a good feedback, and a gracious nod from George Lucas himself, he started to tour with his show. The show naturally spread to cover the original trilogy as a whole. I believe I found Ross sometime between 2005 and 2006. And I dreamed about doing the same stuff in Finland, or even  better yet, produce Charlie Ross' show.

Yesterday somebody gave me a link to his homepage stating that this might interest me. Then I reacted as I normally do when I want to be obnoxious bastard, and shouted: "Old! I saw that dude at Youtube before you learned to write theater correctly (I still use the English version 'theatre' often, but bloggers proofreader always highlights it)". But just for the nostalgia, I decided to investigate guy's homepage, and then it struck me. Ross is going to be performing here in Dublin next month for a week. Jolly jeepers, gosh, gesundheit, bless you, and Holy patrimony I said, and my friend nodded with a unspoken gesture: "I knew this might interest me".

Here's a teaser. I believe this was originally made to promote Pepsi when the new trilogy was wasting people's time. I might be working. I don't have enough journalistic integrity at the moment to check my facts. So enjoy, and make your reservations, but not too soon, I still haven't gotten my own ticket. Tickets can be reserved from the ticketmaster. Show is played at the Gaiety theatre.