Lord of the Rings – A Musical Tale: An all-singing, all-dancing Lord of the Rings? Why not

If actor Jemma Rix has a question about the dense mythology of Lord of the Rings, she knows who to go to.

One of her colleagues in the company of the musical stage production of J.R.R. Tolkien’s iconic story, opening in Sydney this week before it tours to Perth and Melbourne, has a Lord of the Rings tattoo.

“I’ve asked him a few questions and he always knows the answers,” she tells The Nightly.

Rix is in full golden costume for the character she plays, the royal elf Galadriel, who was made famous by Cate Blanchett in the Peter Jackson movies, and is now portrayed by Morfydd Clark in the Rings of Power streaming series.

It’s a special club she belongs to but it comes with a lot of expectations. The Lord of the Rings fandom is dedicated and passionate, but in the previews so far, the audience seems to be responding.

Some come decked out in cosplay, and standing in the wings of the stage, Rix and her castmates can hear rumbles of excitement at key moments, especially anything involving Golem.

The Sydney run is the first time the Lord of the Rings musical has been staged in Australia. It originally opened in 2006 but was revived in 2023 at the Watermill Theatre in the Berkshires, about 100km west of London’s West End.

The music is by Oscar winner A.R. Rahman (Slumdog Millionaire), Varttina and Christopher Nightingale with lyrics and book by Shaun McKenna and Matthew Warchus and is under licence from Middle-earth Enterprises.

Tolkien’s book is over 1000 pages and Jackson’s movies go for over nine hours (or 11 if you’re watching the extended version), but somehow, the stage production is able to distil the story down to fewer than three hours.

Maybe that won’t satisfy the purists who want to marinate in every word but there is an advantage to a condensed version in that it surfaces the most salient points and most potent beats.

“There’s a lot in this particular production that’s very, very wise, which I think the younger Jemma probably wouldn’t have appreciated,” Rix explains. “So, it’s cutting through with these bangers.”

It’s not the first time Rix has taken on a role that is already so embedded in the cultural consciousness. With a career spanning two decades, she is best known for playing Elphaba in the Australian productions of Wicked.

Rix hasn’t read the Lord of the Rings books but she had loved the Jackson films when they first came out. “It had been such a long time since I had watched them,” she recalls. “It brought back quite a lot of memories, and it’s such a heartwarming story.

“The portrayals were so pure. It makes sense as to why it holds up for all these years. It doesn’t age.”

Tolkien wrote the book between 1937 and 1949 as a follow-up to The Hobbit, and while the high fantasy story with orcs, elves and the greatest evil doesn’t, at first, seem directly related to his experiences fighting in the trenches in World War I, there are shadings of a grand battle for humanity against unfathomable destruction.

“All these years and it’s still captivating people, younger people, all the people,” Rix says of the stories. “There is obviously something about the story that really gets to people’s hearts.”

The stage production frames Tolkien’s work through the hobbits, which is a smart choice as both the audience surrogates but because in the mythology, they are the realm’s storytellers.

“Hobbits love to tell stories and they do it through song and through music, so I think that is what’s so clever about this, is that you have literally everyone playing music (on stage) and that shows just how incredible it all is.”

All the musicians on the production are also cast members in the play, there is no orchestra beneath them in the pit. So, what you’ll see is someone in costume, dancing, playing the fiddle and then having to also slay an orc.

“They have to do the fight sequences,” Rix says. “I’ve never worked with a more insanely multi-talented cast in my life, it’s crazy.

“Normally the orchestra is underneath the stage, so you don’t really have a lot of connection with them, and to have them there with you, it’s something that I’ve never experienced before.”

Lord of the Rings – A Musical Tale is playing at Sydney’s State Theatre and will move to Perth’s Crown Theatre from March 19 and Melbourne’s Comedy Theatre from April 26