Past the slightly fractured map of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth and past the bare-bones stage comprised of a cave and a smallish-looking mountain, two actors are conversing loudly in faux British accents.
“We are Francine and Jack Peterson,” says the woman, clipboard in hand, “and we’re here today to make an adaptation of the ‘Lord of the Rings’ — but we forgot to write the screenplay.”
Taking suggestions from the audience, the woman scribbles plot details on her clipboard. Homeland threatened by unnamed evil? Check. Unnatural force driving a pair of lovers apart? Check. Tragic character flaw? Check.
“Now, we need an object of power.”
“Jockstrap,” someone in the audience yells.
“Okay then, a jockstrap of power it is.”
Minutes later, the characters jump on stage. They’ve fashioned a jockstrap out of what looks like a few white scarves and are ready to begin the show.
There’s something inherently funny about a jockstrap of power, and Robyn Okrant knows it. The creator and director of “Frodo-A-Go-Go: The Rings Recycled,” she’s a self-described “Tolkien geek” who has nothing but respect for Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy.
“I’m a big Tolkien fan and a big sci-fi fan,” she says. “I loved the movie but at the same time it was a little bit over the top, and I saw a great opportunity for something like this.”
What she created was an all-improv show that debuted at the Royal George Theatre Center in February and features a fluid mix of characters and scenarios taken from the Tolkien books and the Peter Jackson movies. Even the character’s names are parodied; hero Go-Go Gabbins’s travelling companions are Legoland (originally Legolas), Giblet (Gimli) and Paragon (Aragorn), among others.
The audience supplies key details and character histories. Plotlines vary, but there’s always an object of power that must be destroyed in order for life to continue.
“The audience directs the show, essentially,” says Okrant.
Audience input breeds interesting scenarios. Okrant remembers one show when the audience’s suggestion for the article of power (a ring in the Tolkien books) was a duct-tape bra. “Somehow, in those two minutes of prologue, my actors managed to get their hands on duct-tape and make a bra,” she says. “And it worked.”
Actors must adapt to the mood of an audience that ranges from groups of scholarly Tolkien buffs to pre-teen birthday parties to inebriated laugh-seekers. The key to success, says Okrant, is the actors’ commitment to the material.
“No matter what the thing is, it has the same importance to them that it does to Frodo. If it’s a duct-tape bra, then, dammit, the thing is evil and it has to be destroyed. I think it’s that much funnier when it’s taken that much more seriously.”
Parody isn’t just in the unscripted nature of the show but also in the appearance of the actors. Unlike his counterpart in Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” movies, whose short stature is the brunt of countless jokes, Giblet is played by six-foot-six-inch tall actor Scott Woldman.
“I thought it would be a funny role,” says Woldman, who’s also a junior high school teacher in Rolling Meadows, Ill. “I try to parody the way he moves, but I don’t actually try to make myself shorter.”
Woldman also dons a skin-tight unitard to play Ahem, the show’s counterpart to Gollum. “It’s not the most flattering costume, but I’ve had a lot of fun with the character,” he say. “Ahem never has his own storylines featured, so I get to be as crazy as I want and think of ways to help the other characters.”
Okrant’s casting also comments on gender in Tolkien’s books.
“I cast one woman as all of the three female roles because that was basically what Tolkien did,” Okrant says. “He had no use for women.”
Okrant didn’t know how her parody of Middle-earth (Midlandia in Frodo-A-Go-Go) would be received by hardcore Tolkien fans. But early in the show’s run, she got an email from a Tolkien enthusiast who had gathered responses from Tolkien fans who’d seen the show.
“I was shocked, because they were really gung-ho about it,” says Okrant. “They love these characters, and they get to invent their own little story and see what direction it goes in.”
The warped map of Middle-earth on the wall with locations like “Rigormordor” and “Tim Daffodil” is especially for those audiences, she says. “They get really excited by the map. I kind of insisted on that — being a Tolkien geek and wanting to do something for other Tolkien geeks. I know a true Tolkien fan when they’re on their way out, checking out the map and laughing. It just warms my heart.”
AZ Shoshani, the co-founder of the Chicago Fellowship, a Tolkien fan club that currently has more than 60 members, was leery when she first heard of the show. “My first reaction was, ‘Oh dear, what would J.R.R. say?'” she says. “But then some people (from the Chicago Fellowship) went and they thought it was absolutely hysterically funny. Part of being a fan is being able to laugh at oneself a little bit.”
“Frodo-A-Go-Go’s” run has been extended twice and is currently scheduled to end in September. If “Frodo” ends, Okrant may create another parody for the Free Associates Theatre Company, the all-parody theater company that houses Okrant’s show as well as “BS,” a spoof of “ER” that’s been running since 1995.
“I think if you’re honoring the material that you’re parodying, that’s when you’re the most successful,” Okrant says. “It’s really fun work to do because these characters that only exist in one piece of work get to exist outside that one film or book. If you have a character you love, they get to live on for just a little while longer.”
