Reviews from the Vancouver Fringe Festival

One Man Lord of the Rings - Waterfront Theatre

When Charles Ross debuted his One Man Star Wars Trilogy at last year's Fringe, the gangly performer casually mentioned at a post show Q&A that he was toying with the idea of staging a One Man Lord of the Rings Trilogy. While several guys I'm sure I've seen loitering around Radio Shack let out a fist pumping "Yes!", I wasn't quite so enthused. George Lucas's holy trinity was one thing, but condensing Peter Jackson's take on Tolkien's dense tomes seemed pure folly considering the sheer number of characters, lengthy battle sequences and its relative newness to the irony-filled landscape of pop culture.
 
It turns out my elfin trepidations about Middle Earth were unfounded.
 
Dressed in a black T-shirt, nylon sweat pants, knee and elbow pads, Ross resembles a hyperactive kid who's gone off his Ritalin. Gandalf, Frodo, Aragorn and Gollum are all there, as well as nearly 40 other characters and "forces of light and darkness" in this hilarious 70-minute free-for-all.
 
Once again, the source material and its fans are lovingly skewered, from Orlando Bloom's ever-flowing hairpiece to the homoerotic undertones of Frodo and Sam's Hobbit love. Of course, the main attraction is Ross, himself -- not only for his mind-boggling ability to mimic so many characters, but his sense of comic timing. Just when it seems the build-up of voices, a cappella soundtrack music, plot turns and Orc grunting has reached its toppling point, Ross will inject a knowing aside, ad lib, announce it's time to "change the DVD" or sing about how he's going to pause for a well-earned sip of water.
 
Tirelessly executed, expertly, if not fanatically, rendered, and funny as hell, One Man Lord of the Rings is well worth the epic journey.
 
-- M.K. - Vancouver Courier

Globe and Mail - Sept 7, 2004 - Read

One Man Lord Of The Ring 5 stars The Westender

I'll be brief. Charles Ross is amazing. To be able to maintain such a high level of energy while adapting endless voices almost flawlessly-as well as jump, slither and shake all over the stage-is no small feat.But for Ross, it's more than imitating voices, music and hitting on all key plot points; he even incorporated audience sneezes and someone's beeping watch into his performance. (He also isn't afraid to poke fun at Legolas' hair.) And, most importantly, he questions the overwhelming homoerotic undertones of The Lord of the Rings

Reviews from the Victoria Fringe Festival

Victoria Times-Colonist - 4 1/2 stars

Fans of Gollum and company will thrill to Charles Ross's The One Man Lord of The Rings. In 60 minutes, Ross performs an uber-athletic, terribly amusing satire encompassing the entire Peter Jackson movie trilogy.

Mind you, if the names Frodo, Gandolf and Gimli don't strike a clarion bell, you may be mystified at Ross's on-stage cavorting. His parody is very closely aligned to its subjects, typically sending up specific scenes. If you haven't seen the films (I've only seen the first one), you may wonder what the audience is shrieking over. On the other hand, the sheer velocity of Ross's performance will win over even the unhippest fringe-goer.

He's constantly re-enacting battles, flinging himself around as though buffeted by an unseen tornado. At one point, Ross raised his fists and a rivulet of sweat literally trickled to the stage. If this man isn't the hardest working man in show biz - Mr. James Brown included - then I'll eat my fringe program guide with a fork and spoon.

As anyone who's ever seen the mock "rockumentary" This is Spinal Tap knows, the best satire displays a genuine affection for it's subject. And it avoids over-exaggeration, knowing the pretension and pomposity of the original is best deflated with a savage pin-prick or two. Ross, who clearly understands the form, follows this game plan.

He retains an earnest demeanour throughout, as though his epic adventures are real. And the performer maintains a keen focus and intensity that, in turn, kindles bona fide excitement within the audience.

Impressive? You bet. Go early -- the weekend lineups were huge.

Reviews from The Edmonton Fringe Festival

One Man Lord Of The Rings (5) Condensing sixteen hours of action-packed cinema into a 75-minute, sweat-soaked, hyperactive reenactment of the epic Lord of the Rings, this production is half freak show, half Fringe show. Charles Ross amazes with his inhuman ability to morph his voice into something that sounds exactly like Frodo, Gandalf, Gollum and the rest of the wacky, mystical cast while also doing all the sound effects and action sequences. He thrashes around on stage, fighting himself in battle like a schizophrenic with epilepsy, all the while inserting clever alterations to the story—like making Frodo and Sam gay—which could be totally missed if you don’t pay close attention. Better than the original, this show is well worth lining up for. SSSS - Vue Weekly Edmonton

One Man Lord of the Rings: Do stand in line for hours to get tix for Charles Ross, acting out the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy with nothing but his own body and voice.
It can't be done, but Ross does it, presenting three or four characters a minute with eerie accuracy, complete with battles.
If One Man Lord of the Rings is not picked as Best of Fringe, justice will not be served.

- Graham Hicks -- For the Edmonton Sun

One Man Lord of the Rings  *5 stars of 5*

A deep dark secret to start this review: I was really unmoved by the "Lord of the Rings" movies and have never read the books. Okay, I read "The Hobbit" in the seventh grade, but it really didn't rock my world and I saw no reason to read its bloated sister works. That being said, why am I giving Charles Ross' parody/homage of the films the highest possible rating? Easy: Ross ("One Man Star Wars Trilogy") is a total theatrical genius and presents such a high-energy, tour-de-force one-person show that the source material ends up being almost irrelevant to the process. Brilliant in his simplicity, the clean-cut young actor saunters unto a bare stage in plain black T-shirt and pants and starts a masterful telling of the tale, imitating all the voices AND soundtrack, running through most of the actions and doing a spectacular job of compressing the convoluted three-movie, nine-plus-hour story arc into a one-hour play. Best of all, the show is no nerd-fest and is as much a Mad Magazine-style spoof of the show (down to hectoring the audience for likely not having read the books) as it is a respectful homage. - Gilbert Bouchard is CBC Radio

Lord, we have a winner

MIKE ROSS, EDMONTON SUN
ONE MAN LORD OF THE RINGS - STAGE 5 The only real good crack at a parody of The Lord of the Rings was Harvard Lampoon's Bored of the Rings. A determined reader could plow through it in maybe three hours.
Impressionist Charlie Ross can do the whole story in one hour flat. His One Man Lord of the Rings is a remarkable achievement of physical comedy, mime, mimicry and the sort of vocal sound effects five-year-old boys use when playing with toy rockets. Boom, boom, booooom! Screeeek! Pssshhhhhhht!
Warning to people in the front row: You will be spit on.
With no props or costumes whatsoever, Ross gets everything in from "An Unexpected Meeting" to "the Grey Havens" and even manages to insert a gay subtext, add drug references and take shots at Tolkien geeks.
"You have my sword," says Aragorn.
"And my hair," lisps the Legolas the elf.
"And my beard," bellows Gimli the dwarf.
"So be it! You shall be the title of the book! Now change the DVD!
And so the Fellowship of the Ring was forged. Cue stirring music, cut to the Mines of Moria. Oh, no, the Balrog! Boom, boom, boom! Screeeek! Pssshhhhhhht! "Fly, you fools! That's right, don't even try to help me ... aieeee!"
"What was that?"
"Nothing. Just a flashback."
You get the idea.
It helps to have read the book and even more to have seen the films. In fact, the more familiar you are with the big-screen trilogy, the funnier One Man Lord of the Rings is. (If you don't know the story at all, forget it. You'll never grab a clue what's going on.) Much of the humour in Ross's frenetic but curiously unhurried monologue comes from exact recreations of the movie's scenes - much in the same way as his critically acclaimed One Man Star Wars Trilogy. The wizard battle between Gandalf and Saruman is handled with 10 seconds of Three Stooges slapstick, marching orcs become Monty Python silly walks and the fall of Denethor is depicted by Ross running his fingers down his arm and through the air to the floor, screaming in a little voice all the way. Hilarious.
Huge chunks of the plot are done in seconds, while Ross dwells long and lovingly at key points. The homosexual implications of the relationship between Frodo and Sam are explored. Borimir's death scene eats up a good five minutes. Gollum gets good time, too - and a flawless impression from Ross. Behind the humour is an obvious love for the work that comes through in many places, and he even manages to poke fun at the script:
Gandalf: "Frodo's fate is out of our hands."
Elrond: "So is Sam's."
Gandalf: "Oh, yeah. Good point."
Needless to say, the mere idea of The Lord of the Rings at the Fringe has caused a sensation - much like it did when the movies came out. Yesterday's opening show at noon, on a workday, was sold out. The rest of the run is expected to follow suit.
5 SUNS (OUT OF 5)

Return of the KING: By Aragorn,

Fringe star Charles Ross is the master of the one-man movie trilogy

Liz Nicholls
The Edmonton Journal
August 13, 200
Photo Brian Gavrilof - TheJournal

EDMONTON - "Sam, if I take one more step, I'll be farther from the Shire than I've ever been."
Oh, but Mr. Frodo, bet you never thought you'd get clean past Middle-Earth, past Mordor and as far as the Fringe circuit.
When Charles Ross tells people what he does for a living, they gape. Or laugh. It sounds like a cosmic punchline to an existential setup. The man does the three Lord of the Rings movies, the ne plus ultra of fantasy epics, on a bare stage, alone, in 60 minutes flat, as you'll find out at La Vie En Fringe starting today at noon.
This virtuosic, absurdly labour-intensive enterprise has given the Fringe circuit one of its biggest stars. Especially because One Man Lord Of The Rings (Stage 5, King Edward School Gymnasium) is a followup, if that's the right word, to Ross's hit One Man Star Wars Trilogy that sold out Fringe houses across the country the last two years and has now attracted the interest of mighty LucasFilms, the Force everyone wants to be with.
"Just getting the concept into people's heads is hard. I act all the characters out. No technology. No costumes. Just me. I know it doesn't sound very interesting," the affable Victoria-based actor says apologetically. "It's just like a flea circus. There are no fleas: you have to give yourself over to the illusion. If you're not going to play, go home."
Everything about a live, one-man Star Wars or LOTR is stunningly perverse. That's the fun of it. The movie cycles are a pinnacle achievement in harnessing high-tech to conjure a full, imagined world onscreen. One guy in a black T-shirt with a water bottle is not only defying the towering edifice of those epic convolutions, narrative and technical, but he's doing it in the most elementally theatrical way. At the Fringe, for heaven's sake, home of cheap theatre. Frodo himself, handed a mysterious ring plus the daunting one-hobbit-against-ultimate-odds assignment to go to Mordor and destroy it, would sympathize. And at least he had 10 hours of movie time and a couple of hundred million U.S. dollars to save the world.
Maybe the J.R.R. Tolkien idiom is rubbing off on Ross, a University of Victoria acting grad like his pal, soloist extraordinaire T.J. Dawe. (Dawe has directed both One Man enterprises.) "2002 was the year I grabbed hold of my destiny," Ross says. "And I've basically been on the road ever since."
"Flashback to 1994" (Ross casually tosses off storyboard lingo to deal with insanely intricate plots). Ross and Dawe, 20 years old and still in theatre school, are on the Fringe circuit for the first time, in different shows.
By the end of the summer they'll each owe $5,000, but they'll have learned something about "putting yourself out there, being resourceful, hustling like the old actor/theatre managers, being blunt and brutally honest about what you're doing."
They played frisbee in a Saskatoon green room, trying to stump each other. "One of us would say a line from one of the Star Wars movies when he threw the frisbee. The other would have to say the following line before he caught it. We both knew way too much. Total dorks."

Dorkhood will pay off. "Flash forward to 2000." Dawe is doing his break-through hit The Slip-Knot in Toronto. Ross is visiting from Halifax, where he's landed a small role at Theatre Neptune. They're in Mump and Smoot's studio, and Ross is trying out his one-minute Star Wars idea. "OK, no, maybe half an hour, I decided, with three people... . It just turned out to be better with one person. So it wasn't a good idea right off the bat. It developed slowly into a good idea. Not everyone has a eureka moment. You don't just walk up to a lump of gold. You have to dig for it. Past the water table."
So Ross hurled himself, literally, into the song and dance, the instant physical and vocal transformations that go into creating hundreds of characters (and the music) in an iconic story. "I'd never had an invitation like 'Yup, go crazy! Do whatever you want!' from a director," he says. "I'd end up hurting myself in rehearsal, jumping across the stage. It's sort of like kicking the (crap) out of yourself.
"In a way it's a one-person stunt show," he says of his productions. "It's doing a Fonda workout, and singing, and being prescient in the moment, and dealing with fatigue... . One day I'll be a cripple." He pauses and sighs. "I've sacrificed a lot of comfort and normal life to be where I am." You've got to love the material to bend yourself out of shape so brutally. And Ross has credentials.
By the age of five he'd seen the first Star Wars more than 400 times. "I'd watch it every morning and the tape was from TV, so I knew all the commercials, too." One of his sacrifices has been to stop watching the movies.
"I can't. You don't want to lose the memory. You have to keep it pure in your head."
When LucasFilms got hold of Ross, he was doing the show in Chicago. "I thought: 'Aw crap!' Eventually I knew that one day I'd get shut down." But the e-mail from Lucas's people actually talked about "doing a project together." And they flew him to San Diego to do the show live for 3,000 hardcore fans who know every blink.
"It was the dream audience giving me a standing ovation. That sound should be bottled. I hope it doesn't happen very often because I want to hold it in my heart."
Next April, Lucas is throwing a four-day fan launch party in Indiana for the new Star Wars Episode III and Ross is slated to perform his show five times.
Unexpected successes are a hard act to follow. But that's what Ross had to do tackling Tolkien "twice removed from the books."
He says, "I figured, if I don't do it now, I won't. I'll be too chicken."
Funny, but he doesn't consider himself a Tolkien expert.
"You have to immerse yourself, like a tea bag, in that world." True, he's read the books 60 times. On the other hand, "that's only 20 times per movie."
There were enormous, unending battles to contend with; Gollum, definitively voiced on screen by Andy Serkus, was the most difficult vocal assignment. "Go as if you're going to yawn; close your throat," he says.
The last major cut, the one that hurt the most, was Arwen.
"Liv Tyler would have been a great source of comedy," he says. "So earnest, so mannered, so beautiful. Screaming make fun of me!"
He resisted.

Reviews from The Saskatoon Fringe Festival

One Man Lord of the Rings

Vancouver's Charlie Ross knows the answer.
How many hours in front of the television did it take to master that small nuance of his One Man Lord of the Rings show? We wonders, yes we does.
And how long does it take to nail down four separate hobbit voices, two similar but distinct wizards or four men of Gondor?

What is the correct vocal inflection to convey the ethereal elf Legolas or the brusque dwarf Gimli?
Who else could even hope to approach the other-worldly mewl of Gollum as performed by Andy Serkis in the recent movie trilogy. Ross is uncanny in his portrayal.
It was predicted that Ross would repeat the success he enjoyed in 2003 with his One Man Star Wars Trilogy show and become the runaway champion of this year's Fringe Festival.
What Ross achieves in his 70-minute synopsis of the blockbuster series is a triumph of mimicry, but the knock-out punch is his physical performance.
The audience howled to see Ross's Gandalf spinning around the floor under the control of the evil wizard Saruman. A crook of his arm and an elongation of his stride fully painted the Ent leader Treebeard.
Ross spotlights the inherent humour in the situations when taken out of the context of a film. While he does inject some asides and artistic licence in his version -- Gimli bonks his head on Balin's tomb, Legolas constantly plays with his hair and Sam asks: "Mr. Frodo, are we gay?" -- he never lets the production devolve completely into camp.

Ross rockets from scene to scene and character to character, but he is also able to immerse himself fully in each moment. The sorrow during the dying moments of Boromir resonates for an appropriate measure before the story takes off again.
The special effects and score of the movies are not left out either. There is seemingly no task Ross can't bend his voice to do. He sings the segues between scenes in a lilting Celtic tenor voice and announces a change in mood and character by intoning the appropriate musical motif.
The production works on all levels. That being said, would this play hold any value for someone who hasn't seen the movies? No, probably not . . . but I think that guy is out of town right now.
There is a bona fide talent performing at the Broadway Theatre this week. What Ross can do with his gift in the future will be interesting to watch, but he has already caught the eye of the Star Wars franchise and will perform last year's show at an official fan convention in the U.S. this spring. - 5 stars -Cam Fuller, Paul Sinkewicz, Joanne Paulson Saskatoon StarPhoenix August 3, 2004

Reviews From The Winnipeg Fringe Festival

A+ - The One Man Lord of the Rings

Charles Ross must be a real smash at parties. Even if you missed last year’s Fringe hit, One Man Star Wars (or perhaps especially if you did), make like Shadowfax and show the meaning of haste to catch Ross’ hysterical and wildly creative interpretation of Tolkien by way of Peter Jackson. The experience is surreal, sensational and strangely enlightening. Pulling dialogue, music and even exact shots straight from the film’s script, Ross invigorates the performance with moments of cutting wit and staggeringly taxing physical comedy. His impersonation skills are exact to the occasional point of being eerie, and can even be revelatory: With all of the eye candy removed, who would have thought that Elijah Wood’s Frodo would seem so contrived? The sheer memorization involved in nailing the myriad characters and actions alone is worth the standing ovations that Ross has been receiving. — MM - Uptown Magazine

Three-Ring circus Fringe performer boils down epic trilogy into a one-hour, one-man show

Mon Jul 19 2004
By Bartley Kives - Winnipeg Free Press

HE started with the original Star Wars trilogy, taking six hours of Luke Skywalker's exploits in a far-away galaxy and boiling them down into a one-hour, one-man Fringe show.
Then it was Lord of the Rings, whose three-film, 11-hour girth has been condensed into one of the hits of the 2004 Winnipeg Fringe Theatre Festival.
Now, Charles Ross is scheming up a way to finish his trilogy of trilogies.
The Victoria, B.C., actor-impressionist wants Winnipeggers to help choose the next big fish of a movie franchise for him to gut, filet and serve up steaming hot in a one-hour, bite-sized piece.
"There's The Godfather, Aliens, Star Trek, Indiana Jones. And I really loved the new Harry Potter," says the 30-year-old performer, listing off his future prospects the afternoon before his One Man Lord of the Rings made its Winnipeg debut at Prairie Theatre Exchange. He's taking suggestions at his website, www.onemanstarwars.com. "The Godfather is the right vintage, since Coppola started out around the same time as (Star Wars creator) George Lucas. But I don't think there's the same fan base.
"It's easy to get people interested in The Lord of the Rings right now, since it's still fresh in people's minds."
If you've never seen a Charles Ross performance, it's hard to wrap your brain around the idea of one guy playing the roles of thousands.
The short explanation is he doesn't: He merely summarizes enough snippets from his favourite movies to carry the gist of the plot, recreating the voices and mannerisms of the likes of Ian McKellen's Gandalf and Andy Serkis' Gollum to drive home all the most memorable lines.
There's also a huge element of physical comedy, as Ross sings most of the various soundtrack themes, recreates sound effects and acts out action sequences as immense as the Battle of Helm's Deep.
In a sense, he's been working on the routine for two decades, as he first read The Hobbit at age 11. He went on to consume nearly everything J.R.R. Tolkien ever wrote, from the accessible LOTR through the difficult Silmarillion and into the übergeek domain of Unfinished Tales and The Book of Lost Tales, the latter essentially amounting to Christopher Tolkien engaged in an academic discussion of his father's early ideas about Middle-earth.
"I'd be crazy not to call myself a geek," says Ross, who's taking a break in the middle of his Winnipeg Fringe run to attend Comic Con, a science fiction convention in San Diego where he's hosting a screening of Star Wars footage.
He's also been on the set of the recent Vin Diesel flick The Chronicles of Riddick, where he received a standing ovation for his One Man Star Wars show.
But Ross isn't just a sci-fi/fantasy sponge. His pop-culture obsession has led him to write another solo show called One Man '80s Mixed Tape, where he recreates family behaviour during the early days of VHS recorders and Betamaxes.
"Back then, people used to tape anything they saw on TV. There would be these battles going on within families, where the end of Close Encounters of the Third Kind would be cut off by the beginning of Video Hits."
Still, Tolkien represents Ross's deepest obsession. He's fascinated by the way the late Englishman tended to write about ordinary people thrust into extraordinary situations, which is not a common life occurrence today.
Given his deep grounding in the area, Ross's one-man LOTR show -- which includes a bit of commentary about the differences between the books and films -- is a gimme for any Tolkien fan.
"It really is hard to screw up," he admits. "At the same time, there are always a lot of Schadenfreuders hoping you'll screw up."
Call it the nature of the geeks.

One Man Lord of the Rings

PTE Mainstage (Venue 16), July 17-20, 24 and 25
The man who tackled the Star Wars trilogy turns his amazing facility for physical comedy to the land of Middle Earth, condensing J.R.R. Tolkien's 1,350-page masterpiece into a one-hour work of solo genius.
You don't have to know the books to comprehend Charles Ross's interpretation, but if you haven't seen the movies, you might not catch the brilliance of his recreation of all the musical themes and many of the sound effects from the Peter Jackson film versions.
The Victoria, B.C., actor is an incredible impressionist who nails the voices and mannerisms of Gollum, Gandalf, Treebeard, Frodo, Pippin and Sam with disturbing ease. He also comes up with novel ways to depict many of the major action sequences from the films, most hilariously Denethor's tumble off the top of Minas Tirith and the collapse of the oliphaunt slain by Legolas.
The effeminate elf is singled out for ridicule by Ross, who also satirizes Sam and Frodo's potentially homo-erotic relationship and all the exposition Jackson uses in the films.
By the end of the very physical hour, you'll be amazed at how much Ross manages to pack in, as he works up a sweat so thick he leaves little puddles on the PTE stage.
-- Bartley Kives - Winnipeg Free Press - 5 stars

The One Man Lord Of The Rings

Chicken For Supper Productions
July 18, 2004
This performance marks the return of Charles Ross of One Man Star Wars fame. This year, Ross tackles Lord of the Rings. He performs all three movies in one hour without the aid of music, props or lighting. Be sure to see all three movies before viewing this play.
Following One Man Star Wars was a pretty tall task, but Ross comes through again. His impressions are uncanny. He manages to create the movie characters with only his voice and body position. Every character is believable and some of the voices are virtually indistinguishable from the movie. Ross doesn’t impersonate the characters - he becomes them. Battle scenes come to life as Ross thrashes around the stage. This play is quite funny and well suited for kids and adults who enjoyed the movie. The One Man Lord of the Rings is a must see. It seems that Ross has made himself the lord of this one-man movie genre. Line up early and buy advance tickets.
Jeremy Rose - CBC Winnipeg - 5/ 5

One Man Lord Of The Rings by  Charles Ross (PKF Productions)

RATING: 5 stars
Maybe only Peter Jackson and the Oscar-winning team behind the LOTR films would fully appreciate Charles Ross's brilliant homage to them. He's part fan, part critic and one hell of an actor, recreating key moments in the trilogy, injecting wiseass humour at pivotal moments and even hitting the emotional notes. Truly precious.  (GS) - Helen Gardiner Phelan - Now Toronto

eye's one-line review:

True to his track record as a Fringer extraordinaire, Charlie Ross (One Man Star Wars Trilogy) damn-near kills himself in this hilarious highlight reel of the Peter Jackson movies. SD

eye's review:Written and performed by Charles Ross. Directed by TJ Dawe.

Charlie Ross could be the skinny white guy's answer to James Brown, the hardest-working man in one-man shows, as seen in his lickety-split run-through of the Peter Jackson movies, a worthy follow up to his Star Wars redux and Fringe smash of 2002. Those of you in the first row will get wet from the spray of sweat and spit coming off this guy as he thrashes, jumps and howls his way through the key scenes with all the no-pretense glee of a little kid playing with his favourite toys. All that, plus the often note-perfect imitations -- his Gollum couldn't be better -- and occasional tweaks of parody make it a must-see for Tolkien fans. SD

Lord of the fringe by ROBERT CREW ARTS WRITER TORONTO STAR - 5 STARS

To my deep regret, I missed Charlie Ross' The One Man Star Wars Trilogy at a previous Toronto Fringe Festival.
I wasn't about to make the same mistake now that Ross has decided to tackle J.R.R. Tolkien in The One Man Lord Of The Rings ().
It is simply brilliant, one of the most enjoyable shows I can remember in 25 long years of Fringe-going. If you have any strings, pull them. Do whatever you have to, but see this show.
Ross has several things going for him. He is a good mimic; he can nail, say, the Gollum voice or the Gandalf voice with consummate ease, or wrinkle his face and pull back his hair to conjure up the mean and greedy Theoden before your very eyes.
But it's also his physicality and tumbling skills. Remember that moment when the skeleton falls down the well in the mines of Moria? Aided by director TJ Dawe, Ross recreates that to hilarious effect.
What's also impressive is that he is in complete control of a huge amount of data.
He may have three long volumes and 40 characters to cram into the space of 60 minutes, but he is still relaxed enough to poke fun at the material ("Mr. Frodo, are we gay?") or to ad lib a quick aside to the audience.
You'll need to know the movies, and it doesn't hurt to have read the books as well. Ross works exceptionally hard but he expects his audience to work too.
Tickets won't be easy to come by. Friday's opening night was completely sold out.

One Actor Spellbinds Charles Ross rolls out a balrog of fun in his one-man show

By Michael Marano - Charleston City Paper

Charles Ross is a media whirlpool. On stage, he translates a three-part film adaptation of a novel into a one hour, one-man show. In case you Einsteins can’t figure it from the title of this review, Ross adapts Peter Jackson’s three-movie adaptation of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. The show is incredibly funny. Why? Because it works the same way radio drama does.

OK, somebody out there is saying, “Wow, Mike! Your love of the halflings? leaf has clouded your mind! Quit bogarting that pipe and gimme a serious took-toke of Longbottom!? But I mean it. Ross? show works brilliantly because of the innate humor of recognition. On stage, as he channels scenes from Rings, thrashing about like a hyperactive kid miraculously in control of every aspect of his movements and the material, he provides us with narrow keyhole peeps of the full scope of Jackson’s epics.

Ross provides brilliantly un-detailed reminders of the movies. The audience’s mind fills in the rest of the details, visualizing Fellowship/Towers/King as we watch Ross? one-man ascent of this cinematic Everest, just as we would fill in the details ourselves as we listen to a radio drama. And it’s freakin? lung-poppingly funny to mentally flesh-out Ross? twisted, winking visualizations of the Rings movies. We’re doing a lot of the work, but not nearly as much work as Ross, who seems to sweat out Elijah Woods? worth of water weight before our eyes.

And it’s not just scenes from three particular movies that Ross impersonates and forces us to visualize. Ross, as one guy sweating on a stage, messes with how we watch movies. Through body language, he mimics cross-cuts and parallel edits, making smooth transitions from one scene to another, going in one smooth movement from a half-crouch that evokes Gandalf atop his horse Shadowfax galloping across the plains of Rohan into a full crouch evoking Gollum slithering on the borders of Mordor.

Of course, since Ross is giving the audience little teeny peephole evocations of Jackson’s
visualization of Tolkien’s Middle-Earth, he can control and subvert what we visualize and force us to lampoon the material in our own minds. I’d sooner eat a pound of Orc toe-jam than ruin his best gags, but I will say that with the slightest of movements and inflections, Ross can achieve what the best caricaturist can do with a few penstrokes. Sometimes with not-so-subtle movements and inflections, Ross can achieve the same; you haven’t lived until you’ve seen his take on Denethor and Pippin.

Impersonation, like visualization and recognition, is innately funny. But Ross, unlike, say Rich Little doing a broad parody of a larger-than-life personage like John Wayne, can impersonate with subtle body language and voice inflection. This adds to the humor. His impersonations are a nudge in the ribs, rather than a slap on the back. By the way he leans on his imaginary staff, you can tell the difference between Ross’s Gandalf the Grey and his Gandalf the White. Crossing Middle-Earth to toss a ring in a volcano seems almost seems piddling in comparison.

One-Man Lord of the Rings Trilogy Reviews from The Orlando Fringe Festival 2004

Charlie Ross, Mr. "One-Man Star Wars Trilogy," is back in black at the Fringe.
Just Charlie, his black T-shirt, pants, sneakers, and knee pads. And an hour to get through 10 hours of Lord of the Rings films.
It's a lot more daunting than Star Wars, which has had longer to become part of movie culture, and has fewer characters and more punchy or mockably arch one-liners. This feels like a newer show, one he hasn't had years to hone.
So it isn't as funny. But it's still a must-see - amusing to casual fans, the ones who "didn't bother to read the books," as he puts it, and a real hoot to the nuts who have stayed at home memorizing the DVDs. His Gandalf sounds like Robin Williams trying to act butch, and the women and Aragorn barely register. But his Treebeard, Gimli, Sam, Frodo and especially his GollumÖ are spot on.
The best things he does, as always, are departures from the script, commenting on the movies: playing Legolas (Orlando Bloom) as a series of hair jokes; Elrond as simply Hugo Weaving's eyebrows; and reducing one of the too-many battles to a Three Stooges spin on the floor.
"Fly, you fools." It's precious.
Roger Moore - Orlando Sentinel - May 22, 2004

The temperature is frigid in the Margeson Theater, but that doesn’t prevent whirling dervish Charles Ross from working up a sweat. And foaming at the mouth. And nearly passing out as he re-creates the greatest trilogy of our time – in one hour, and without the help of costumes or props. His One-man Lord of the Rings is the rip-roaring good time anticipated by those of us who saw him give Star Wars the same treatment last year. This one’s heavier on the pantomimed action than dialogue, yet Ross still slips in some good Hobbit-skewering gags while leaving the material’s emotional core unmolested. His Gollum is Serkis-perfect, though I was just as impressed to learn that the guy does a heck of a mean Treebeard. Elvish is everywhere!
Steve Schneider, Orlando Weekly

The One Man Lord of the Rings, and The Curse of the Trickster

By kathleen oliver
Publish Date: 13-May-2004 The Georgia Straight
The One Man Lord of the Rings
Written and performed by Charlie Ross. Directed by TJ Dawe.
At the Waterfront Theatre on May 6. Remaining performance on May 13
The Curse of the Trickster
Written and performed by TJ Dawe. A PKF Productions presentation.
At the Waterfront Theatre until May 16
Both these shows will be back for the Vancouver Fringe Festival, and they're both likely to be hot tickets.

Charlie Ross had a huge hit last year with The One Man Star Wars Trilogy and now he brings the same delightful combination of faithfulness and irreverence to the Lord of the Rings movie franchise. On a bare stage, dressed in black and wearing knee and elbow pads, Ross enacts stripped-down scenelets from all three movies, with an uncanny knack for impersonation and for conjuring mammoth special effects by using merely his voice and body. But he's not afraid of mocking his source material: "It began with the exposition that would have been filled in if any of you had bothered to read the books," he intones near the beginning, and he makes a meal of the are-they-gay? relationship between Frodo and Sam in the final film. The result is both a loving tribute and a hilarious send-up, and--like watching a very talented kid at play in his bedroom--always entertaining.

Over the past few years, TJ Dawe's observational monologues have become reliable Fringe fare. His latest, The Curse of the Trickster, is preoccupied with discomfort. Dawe defines the Trickster as a force that revels in irritation: "The Trickster finds a song you hate and plants it in your head." Dawe begins by recounting one of the most miserable nights of his life, spent on a toilet in Mexico while suffering from a serious bout of turista. From there he alternates between other stories of misery and rants about various lesser annoyances: Why do people buy DVDs instead of just renting them? Why do they bring cellphones to movies? Why do people insist on forwarding chain letters via e-mail? Although Dawe infuses all his observations with warmth and quirky humour ("You always rent two videos. Renting one would be like ordering one French fry"), the stories are ultimately more engaging than the rants, which wear thin after a while. Dawe isn't afraid to take risks--there's a terrific sequence in which he mimes a desperate middle-of-the-night search at a stranger's house for a glass of water to soothe a sore throat--but this show doesn't quite reach the magical coherence of some of his earlier monologues.

These shows share a stripped-down aesthetic and a love of taking you to the more ticklish parts of your imagination--and that's no small achievement.

Reviews for One Man Star Wars

He Means You No Harm Charles Ross uses the Force to get his geek on

By Devin Grant Charleston City Paper

To any true Star Wars geek, the concept of Charles Ross? One Man Star Wars Trilogy might at first elicit an indifferent reaction. The entire production consists of Ross, alone on the stage, dressed in a black, acting out the original three Star Wars films in just one hour. “What’s so groundbreaking about that?? your diehard Star Wars geek might be saying, “Hell, I can recite the lines from all three films.? Perhaps, but Ross? show is much more than simple mimicry.

Clad in elbow and kneepads (the thespian gets very physical during the performance), Ross doesn’t just deliver the lines from the three films verbatim. Instead, the actor seems to channel the characters from the films, ultimately letting them issue forth in a Sybil-like deluge.

While the story is heavily edited to allow for the inclusion of all three films in the allotted 60 minutes, nothing important is left out. Ross begins, appropriately, with the trademark 20th Century Fox fanfare, and even finds a way to humorously portray Lucas? familiar scrolling text that begins each movie. Watching Ross work makes you dizzy, partly because of his rapid-fire delivery, but also because you’re trying to catch your breath between howls of laughter. The comedic genius in Ross? performance comes in the way he breaks down the various scenes and distills their very essence, giving the audience only the purest version of the trilogy.

Ross? gesticulations are just as important as his vocal impersonations. He vividly portrays a pensive Luke Skywalker pining for a life of adventure from the confines of Uncle Owen’s moisture farm (Ross even effectively conveys the setting of Tatooine’s twin suns), the Imperial probe droid hovering across the ice planet Hoth, or the pivotal light saber duel between Luke and Darth Vader. Ross provides everything; dialogue, sound effects, music, and does so in a way that makes it possible for even the most casual Star Wars fan to follow along.

Ross also injects his own brand of commentary into the production. For instance, when Ben Kenobi uses his light saber to relieve a bullying alien of its arm in that famous cantina scene from the first film, Ross has the aging Jedi shoot the audience a look that says, “Yeah, that’s right ? I’m a bad ass!? Elsewhere we witness Han Solo get in a few self-congratulatory fist pumps after laying one on Princess Leia before being frozen in carbonite. Best of all is Ross? personal touch that follows Vader’s unmasking near the story’s end, which I won’t ruin here since it received one of the evening’s biggest laughs.

The One Man Star Wars Trilogy ultimately succeeds because Ross is secure in his geekiness, and since he realizes how silly the whole idea of his performance is. That charming ridiculousness is what makes the production hum.

Parents who are thinking of bringing the kids along might want to reconsider. No, Ross? show isn’t R-rated, but since it is just one guy onstage for the entire hour, most kids under the age of 10 or so will probably get fidgety (CP’s kid reviewer, Jack Barna, says he had trouble following the story. One man portraying a huge storyline and numerous characters is probably too much to ask a younger kid to understand). Several times during last Saturday’s performance Ross was forced to adlib due to interruptions from youngsters. One pair of rugrats proved particularly annoying, mostly because of their oblivious father, who even had the nerve to let the kids run around on the stage afterward. Hey idiot, here’s a concept for you ? act like a responsible parent or spring for the vasectomy. It isn’t “cute? when your brats repeatedly cut in on a live performance.

OK, rant over. Now make sure you see this one. No Jedi mind tricks are necessary.

Charles Ross does most of the work, but the real joy comes from the work the audience does.

"THE ONE-MAN 'STAR WARS' TRILOGY"

- reviewed by Venus Zarris - Gay Chicago Magazine
Think back to a long time ago, in what seemed like a galaxy far, far away ... to a time when "Star Wars" meant something good. To a time ... before a dorkey looking alien with a faux Bob Marley Jamaican accent added in for comic relief who wasn't funny. To a time ... before the lifeless scripts which read like something William Shatner wrote for a video game version of Battle Star Galactica. To a time ... before big-budget, overhyped, puerile pathetic prequals. To a time ... when special effects and alien oddities combined with engaging characters and mythological stories to charm audiences so much that they went back to see it over and over again. It was a time before VCRs and DVD players inhabited every living room, bedroom, kitchen and minivan headrest. It was a time when seeing a film multiple times didn't mean watching HBO three nights in a row or simply rewinding a tape and then pressing the play button but actually meant physically going to the movie theater time after time. And we did.
When I was in high school, it was a badge of honor to have seen Star Wars several times. Oh, it got a little nerdy when you hit the double digits, but we had all fallen in love with the good old-fashioned storytelling in its shiny new interstellar package.
Canadian writer/performer Charles Ross was one such nerd, albeit a brilliant one, who watched the original films not 10 or 20 but upwards of 500 times and has managed to turn his fixation/ obsession into a one-man tour de force (or farce, if you like those kinds of puns).
Incredibly, he manages to take us on a trip in hysterical hyperdrive through A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi in about an hour, rendering himself drenched in sweat and restoring the childlike magic the audience first experienced after seeing these fantasy classics. On the surface, he's like a schizophrenic little boy who missed a dose of Ritalin, becoming every character and fight scene and sound effect and monster and machine as he bounces and flies from one side of the stage to the other singing the soundtrack as he plays the parts. If the dialogue or plot become too bogged down for his trucker speed rendition, he merely pauses and proclaims, "Exposition, exposition, exposition." And then leaps to the next scene!
But underneath he is true to all of the most memorable moments as well as many of the more obscure ones. His characterizations are great. R2D2 is hilarious, C3PO is perfectly annoying, Luke is sufficiently nelly and whiney. He adds delightful subtle nuances between the characters. His creative visualizations are immediately recognizable, and that in and of itself is extraordinary. He even managed to include my personal favorite character, Selacious Crumb, a nasty little pet to Jabba the Hut. Whether you're a line-quoting fanatic or a fan who's seen the films a few times, this remarkable homage, directed by award-winning TJ Dawe, will blow you away like a blast from the Death Star.
As Charles finished the show, the enchanted crowd called for an encore. Someone asked for Episode 1. Charles smirked and replied, "No, this is as far as I go. Someone else must take the new movies and try and make something positive from them."
Even with the power of "the Force," I don't think that that would be possible. But "the Force" is strong with this young one as he redelights the crowd by breathing fresh air into these movies we fell in love with so long ago.
To quote big black bad guy Darth Vader, "Impressive ... most impressive."
(***1/2)

Artist goes 'solo' for sci-fi tribute
Charlie Ross is a fine-tuned Jedi machine in "The One Man 'Star Wars'
Trilogy"

By Matthew JasterA&E Editor
Noble Fool Theater
Charles Ross re-enacts pivotal moments from the original 'Star Wars' trilogy in a his one-man theater production.
Charlie Ross is not from a galaxy far, far away; he's actually from a completely different universe. Ross, 29, grew up in Canada and spent a great deal of his childhood soaking up the three original installments of the Star Wars trilogy.
While there are plenty of science fiction fanatics who can quote every line of the films, few have turned their obsession into a promising theatrical career. On Nov. 5, The Noble Fool Theater, 16 W. Randolph St., held the first Chicago performance of "The One-Man 'Star Wars' Trilogy."
Ross, the writer and solo performer of the one-hour play, creates an uproarious account of the trilogy sans props or special effects.
He zips across the stage in a spastic frenzy, armed with only elbow pads and nylon pants. With hundreds of Star Wars spoofs made every year, Ross wasn't afraid to add his own personal touch to the mythology.
"It's a no-brainer," Ross said in an interview with The Province newspaper. "People just know it. And they either love it or they wonder what's wrong with me."
He disregards much of the exposition and gets right to the meaty moments from the films. Ross' whiny impersonation of Luke Skywalker is flawless, better than Mark Hamill himself.
As the crotch-grabbing Han Solo, Ross struts around the stage playing an actor who believes that this science fiction fairy tale nonsense is a waste of time. (Harrison Ford would be so proud.)
Fans of the strange alien creatures from the trilogy will not be disappointed. Ross impersonates Jabba the Hutt, Admiral Ackbar and that squid looking thing that rode on the Millennium Falcon with Lando Calrissian with absolute perfection.
Ross' greatest achievement comes from the accuracy of the scenes. Word for word, it's like watching the trilogy in fast-forward.
He hums the soundtrack and spits out special effects, while performing every major character along the way.
He even finds time to throw in his own commentary on the story itself.These are questions audiences have been trying to answer for years.
When Luke Skywalker realizes that Princess Leia is his sister, Obi-Wan Kenobi snaps back, "Well of course she is, she's the only girl in the movie."
While engaged in an exciting moment on the Death Star, Ross accidentally crashed into the light fixture above the small stage.
Not missing a beat, the actor treated the moment as if it were part of the show, proving to the audience that he's a professional actor first, Star Wars geek second.
By the end of the one-hour program, his shirt soaked with sweat, Ross is exhausted.
The crowd is still laughing, savoring every moment of his faithful interpretation of the trilogy.
Whether you're a fan of Star Wars or not, it's hard to deny the energy and talent Ross inspires on stage. It's obvious the grade school version of Ross was performing the same scenes on the playground at recess. The "One-Man 'Star Wars' Trilogy is directed by T.J. Dawe, one of Canada's premier writer/performers.
Dawe has written six solo shows and is currently directing "The One-Man '80s Blank Tape" with Charles Ross and "The Power of Ignorance" with Chris Gibbs.
One doesn't have to be a George Lucas disciple to enjoy this unique theatrical experience. It's enough to know a brother, uncle or cousin who dresses up like a Jedi Master on weekends and tries unsuccessfully to "use the force."

Vancouver Fringe Festival 2003

THE ONE-MAN STAR WARS TRILOGY
Even if you don't know Darth Vader from the front grille of a Dodge, catch this show. More than just a must-see for Star Wars fans, the amazing flailings of Charles Ross will boggle any mind. As he roars around a small stage in precisely choreographed chaos, his 58-minute compression of three feature-length films so completely encompasses the mythology of those movies that it's hilarious on many levels.
Much more than mimicry, this tribute to the sci-fi classic encapsulates the best bits of dialogue, music and action, including the finest set of Chewbacca's growled complaints I've ever heard. All of it without a single prop or effect. Ross not only nails every voice (his emperor is hilariously wicked) but mocks the acting talents, or lack thereof, of Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher and especially poor Mark Hamill as the wide-eyed hero. Sunday's show was so packed that I ended up at the front, on the floor, with the kids, and we couldn't have been happier or more enthralled.
- Peter Birnie - The Vancouver Sun

THE ONE MAN STAR WARS TRILOGY
By Colin Thomas - The Georgia Straight
A new star is blazing in our theatrical firmament: Charles Ross, who wrote and performs this solo homage to the first three Star Wars movies, is a miracle of energetic precision and wit. As an actor, Ross captures the essence of Luke Skywalker's adolescent innocence and Obi-Wan Kenobi's goggle-eyed grace. As a storyteller, he revels in detail: the slurp of Jabba's tongue; the echoing clank of Luke's laser sword when he tosses it to the ground, defying the lure of the dark side. Ross also embellishes wickedly, miming Han Solo's hard-on and the pee running down the leg of Darth Vader's lackey. Such keen observation and commentary will drive aficionados into ecstasy, but even if you've never seen the films, you'll be dazzled by Ross's re-creation. This show combines phenomenal skill--seamless transitions and masterful singing of incidental music--with the innocence of an eight-year-old at play. Venue 4, Ballard Lederer Gallery, on September 4 (9:30 p.m.), September 5 (10:15 p.m.), September 7 (noon), September 9 (6:15 p.m.), September 13 (11:45 a.m.), and September 14 (4 p.m.)

The One Man Star Wars Trilogy
Who needs a massive film budget? Charles Ross' one-man trilogy keeps the Ewoks to a minimum (thank god!) and nails Vader's heavy breathing, Solo's crappy attitude and Skywalker's whinyness. In just 58 minutes, entirely without props, Ross covers all three films in minute detail. Even the familiar yellow words get play ("There go the yellow words again . . . la la la la . . . etc. etc., who gives a shit, not me.") The spaceships are the best part-Ross easily differentiates between the Millennium Falcon, X-Wing fighters and landspeeders. This is a guy you want on your team for charades-or Twister, for that matter. It's amazing Ross is able to live through this physically grueling trilogy-luckily, the heavy Vader-breathing allows him to catch his breath. And while Yoda doesn't quite ring true, the rest of the characters (especially Vader, Solo and C3P0) make up for it.
The Westender 41/2 stars

Victoria Fringe Festival 2003

One man on Star Wars. May the force be with him
Adrian Chamberlain
Times Colonist
Wednesday, August 27, 2003
THE ONE MAN STAR WARS TRILOGY
My guilty confession: I'm not particularly a Star Wars aficionado. So take this review with an M&M-sized grain of salt. (Indeed, true devotees of Luke, Leia, Darth and the gang may want to give this one-man tour de force by UVic grad Charles Ross another full star.)
Ross proffers a sweaty, high-octane voyage through George Lucas's greatest hits trilogy. We get the opening credits, the bombastic music, scads of intergalactic battles and oodles of split-second impersonations.
Ross has fun with it, but ultimately succeeds through his genuine passion for the Star Wars flicks (he avoids cheap satirical shots).
This, combined with the athletic intensity and focus of his performance, make for an amusing 58 minutes.
The One Man Star Wars Trilogy may not make a lot of sense for those unfamiliar with the movies, although one can still appreciate the considerable skill and bravura of his performance. It's certainly a workout. The actor, sporting knee and elbow pads, sweats more than James Brown as he flings himself around the age-- completely soaking
his T-shirt over the hour.
The audience loved it, yelling out "Yeah!" in recognition several times and ultimately giving Ross a standing ovation.
On Monday night the actor announced he was donating the proceeds to Kelowna fire victims -- a classy move.
-- Adrian Chamberlain

Edmonton Fringe Festival 2003

The One-Man Star Wars Trilogy
Chicken for Supper Productions
Crescent Valley, B.C.
Venue 7
The One-Man Star Wars Trilogy is another of those shows that will take about as long to sell out as it takes the Millennium Falcon to slip into hyperspace drive.
Charles Ross expends enough energy to power the Death Star itself in this one-hour version of all three original Star Wars movies, which includes his take on everyone from Luke, Han, Princess Leia, Darth Vader, Jabba the Hutt to the sound effects and John Williams and the entire London Philharmonic.
Just watching Ross is an exhausting as a trip to the Dagobah system.
5 stars - Colin Maclean CBC Edmonton

The One Man Star Wars Trilogy
Alan Kellogg
The Edmonton Journal
For 60 minutes, writer-performer Charlie Ross is the hardest-working 'bot in showbiz as he flys through the first three Star Wars movies like a TIE fighter fitted with an illegally tweaked energy cube. It's a must-go for aficionados, who will get every joke and hoot along with the myriad one-man innovations. For the rest of us, including those plagued by memory loss, it's an impressive display of sheer manic intensity performed by a physical comic of some note. Interestingly enough, the best moments are Ross's own clever annotations to the "regular" action and impersonations. Like most conceptions of this realm, it's difficult to sustain the essential shtick over the long haul, but Ross succeeds better than most.

Winnipeg Fringe Festival 2003

Rating : A
Tackling six hours of plot in a one-hour Fringe show alone is a herculean undertaking. Writer/
performer Charlie Ross stages a dour de force, recreating characters, ships, music and even camera angles with uncanny accuracy. He clearly knows Star Wars inside out. Ross is full of energy, usees the space, and plays the audience, but the pace is dizzying. And the show depends on the audience's knowledge of the movies. You should have seen each one, perferably four or five times, to be able to keep up with Ross. Those unfamiliar will likely be at a loss. But judging from the standing ovation, he's already found his audience.
David Jon Fuller - uptown magazine
 
The One Man Star Wars Trilogy
Venue 16 - PTE Mainstage
As a huge fan of the original Star Wars trilogy, I wasn't sure whether I would like The One Man Star Wars Trilogy or detest it as a cheap rip-off of a modern masterpiece. I am pleased to say that I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the show.
Charles Ross is up there on stage by himself playing all of the characters in the trilogy, skipping from scene to scene at a frenetic pace. He manages (at least to a Star Wars geek like myself) to evoke the actual scenes in the movie in the mind of the audience. I can see the sand person standing over Luke, holding his staff high in victory. I can see the shootout in the detention level of the Death Star, and the subsequent escape down the garbage chute. These images invoke a feeling of nostalgia and, well, the memory of how happy I was when I first saw Star Wars. Charles Ross using slightly different voices and accents to differentiate the characters, but a true Star Wars fan doesn't even need that. The person who said each line is ingrained in you.
For the most part he uses only the dialog from the movie, taking some lines that were said so earnestly by the original actors and making them into jokes. This doesn't offend the Star Wars buff in me at all but instead only serves to underscore how good the original trilogy was. Mister Ross occasionally leaves the script for a zinger or two of his own, and some of those jokes are the most hilarious moments in the show.
I highly recommend The One Man Star Wars Trilogy to any Star Wars fan; it is an amusing look back at the original trilogy, far better than the crap that George Lucas feeds us now. If you're not as versed in the original Star Wars, then you should still enjoy it as long as you remember the main plot points and characters. If you have never seen Star Wars, rent it first and then come see this show.
- Jason Olynyk - UMFM

The One Man Star Wars Trilogy - Chicken for Supper Productions (Venue 16 - PTE Mainstage )
Let me preface my review by saying that I am a Star Wars fanatic. I have seen the original movie over 50 times and many of those viewings were as a child at the old King's theatre. I have also seen the other episodes a couple of dozen times each. As a child my brothers and I would act out or recreate scenes to entertain ourselves. Charlie Ross has brought me back to that world. On a bare stage with no props of any kind, Mr. Ross recreates the entire trilogy from the opening music of Star Wars to the final fireworks of Jedi. His sound effects are excellent and his mastery of each character is top notch. I especially enjoyed his R2D2 and Emperor characters. He does take artistic license with many segments of the story, but it is often with hilarious results. Luke Skywalker as the sniveling brat is perfect. Many of the one-liners he added to the play brought the house down. Would a non Star Wars fan have the same reaction? I don't know. But for me it was a great trip down memory lane. Thank you! - 5 stars Ken Gordon - CBC

Montreal Fringe Festival 2003

The One-Man Star Wars Trilogy - Calling all Star Wars fans! Charles Ross, directed by his pal TJ Dawe, wrote and performs in this tour de force. Well, wrote is a pretty strong word, since the little speaking in the thing was written for the film. And so was the music, though it wasn't intended to sound exactly like this.
Ross makes fun of Star Wars because he obviously likes it. He has all the fans laughing from the first few seconds right to the end. They applaud loudly, boisterously, at the end of the first film. Then they just marvel, I think, at Ross's energy. He keeps right on going at whirlwind speed through the entire trilogy. He twists his body into major and minor characters, does their voices and the incidental music, and uses every square inch of performance space, and then some.
I think he has a cult hit here, though it would have been successful if he had stopped at the end of the first film. But then, that's what I think about the movie series, too. I am told that those who have seen Star Wars and truly hate it also love this piece. [JC] - Montreal Gazette

Orlando Fringe Festival 2003

‘The One Man Star Wars Trilogy'
By Roger Moore | Orlando Sentinel Movie Critic
Posted May 19, 2003, 10:32 AM EDT
We've got a one-man Hamlet, why not a one-man Star Wars? The tale is at least as familiar as the Melancholy Dane's. We all know the story beats, the great lines.
"It'll be just like Beggar's Canyon back home!"
Charlie Ross does the whole Star Wars trilogy in just under 60 minutes. He does the actors and the sound effects. He sings/hums the various themes. He handles the credits. He's quite red in the face by the five-minute mark. But he pulls it off in a Pythonesque bit of theatrical absurdity that calls to mind the comedy of Robin Williams and Jonathan Winters. His Darth Vader sounds like Gregory Peck. His Luke is an annoying goof. And every time Chewbacca or R2-D2 makes a peep, he gets a laugh.

Toronto Fringe Festival 2003

You'll be shocked and amazed, not just by Ross's invention but by how your own memories of the original trilogy serve to make Ross's laughs work. He could have joked it up more, mocking plot holes and the like. But it's still pretty funny, played almost straight.
Four Stars - The Toronto Sun

Toronto Now

Even those who have never seen a stitch of Star Wars will still find Charles Ross' frantic recitation of the first three classic movies entertaining, if for no other reason than to admire the huge amounts of endurance, concentration and range required for such a project. 
 
In an hour, Ross, who brought the play here from British Columbia, rollicks through the key scenes in the Star Wars story, including battles, kisses, revelations and deaths, using his face and body as his only props, humming the score and depending on his own voice for sound effects.
 
He plays every character, including Hans, Luke, Darth, Yoda, Jaba, R2 and '3PO.  Each is immediately recognizable. 
 
Key emotional scenes are reduced the tiniest bits of dialogue but somehow that seems enough. 
 
"Why didn't you tell me?" asks Luke Skywalker of Obi-Wan Kenobi, when he realizes Darth Vader is actually his father. 
 
"I forgot", replies Kenobi. 
 
It's clear Ross, who also wrote the script, has watched Star Wars obsessively - some of his body movements exactly mimic certain cinematographic moments in the film.
 
Fans will surely lose themselves in remembering favourite scenes, so much so that they might not even realize that this little play is actually about men who refuse to grow up. Critics' Choice - Toronto Now

Monday Magazine

Using only his expressive body as a prop and his vocal chords and imagination as special effects, Charles Ross entertainingly recreates the first three Star Wars movies (20 minutes per film) with laughs and insights.  He's a master caricaturist, filling in character, plot, mood and even sexual subtext - an ongoing gag concerns Luke and Hans Solo's rising or falling erections depending on their relationship to Leia - with a few strokes.  He suggests alot with a wink, a growl or by humming John Williams score.  His Leia could be spunkier but his Jaba the Hut is priceless, as is his big zinger at the end, which comes in the middle of the trilogy's emotional high point.  A must-see for Star Wars fans, perhaps a head scratcher for everyone else.  Monday Magazine, April 24-30 2003
 

The Force is Strong With This One Looking for the guaranteed funniest night out you've had in ages? Look no further than Charles Ross' One Man Star Wars Trilogy, a riotous one hour romp across that famous galaxy far, far away. From the opening music to the droids, aliens, X-wings, special effects and cheesy dialogue which made the whole thing so memorable in the first place, Ross manages to recreate the Star Wars universe so faithfully that you'll find yourself laughing in recognition from the get-go.
 
While Fringe fave TJ Dawe lends his talent here as director, it's Ross' own frenetic energy (and obvious passion for the material) which fuels this show as he powers at light speed through all three of the original films. So authentic is his delivery that there's never the slightest doubt who you're watching, be it Luke, Leia, Han, Yoda, Darth Vader, Chewbacca, Admiral Ackbar, Grand Moff Tarkin, or even the Emperor himself. Granted, it won't work if you're not a fan, but if you know a light saber from a TIE fighter, then you won't want to miss this show.
 
If George Lukas could see this, he'd rediscover the secret lost in the two most recent films: that it's imagination-- and not computer driven imagery-- which made the original Star Wars so great. Fortunately, we've got Charles Ross to remind us.
 
-John Threlfall