Several times during the performance of The Hobbit at Theatre in the Round Players (TRP) I caught myself thinking, “This is a good Fringe show.” Which is a compliment coming from me, but a bit out of place, since it’s not August and The Hobbit is more than twice as long as any Minnesota Fringe Festival show is permitted to be. But that was the frame of mind the production got me into as the night progressed, the spirit of the evening, if not the actual context. If you’re seeking out some inventive, light-hearted storytelling that conjures up a favorite old fantasy tale, then TRP has your ticket with The Hobbit. If that’s all you need to know, you can probably skip the rest of the review and just go see the show. The rest of this is just me trying to figure out what feels off to me personally for some reason, (and like the epic story of the evening, it does go on for a bit) and none of that detracts from the overall feeling The Hobbit is serving up.
“Some people are born to be heroes, but that’s not me.”
For the uninitiated, The Hobbit is the story of Bilbo Baggins (Isabelle Hopewell), the hobbit of the title, who is drafted by the wizard Gandolf (Win Froelich) to assist a roving band of 13 dwarfs in recovering the treasure of their former kingdom, now under the watchful eye of a dragon named Smaug. And there’s plenty of trolls and goblins and elves and other hazards they have to encounter along the way to the Lonely Mountain. (And before you ask, no, I don’t have a problem with female-identifying actors playing the roles of Bilbo and Gandolf. They’re a hobbit and a wizard, fictional characters that don’t exist, and both actors do a fine job so the story gets everything it needs from them. Absolutely no worries there.)
“A ring. What’s it doing in the back of a cave?”
Director Scott Gilbert has assembled an ensemble of performers who all work well together to create the world and its many (MANY) characters. There’s also a three man band (Nathanial Brelsford, Derek Dirlam, and Sasha Rapacz) who preside over the colorful platform above an audience entrance stuffed to the gills with musical instruments both real and created out of junk to provide a score and accompaniment to the profusion of pseudo-drinking songs that pepper the narrative. It’s not really a musical, and some songs serve to drive the story more than others, but the music does serve to keep everyone’s spirits bouyant, on stage and off. Shout-out to the Poppen duo of Dietrich Poppen (composer) and Samuel Poppen (sound designer) for all their contributions. The three musicians also double as additional supporting players throughout the evening.
“I know the smell and taste of dwarves and you stink of them!”
The input of Artistic Advisors (and noted clowns/physical theater/improvisors) Noah Bremer and Mark Benzel, and Movement Director Kelly Desiree (who’s also part of the dwarf/population of Middle Earth ensemble of actors) is most evident in big physical swings the production takes with things like the trolls - guys on stilts with spiky troll hair, plus great big butts on their costumes - who capture and nearly eat the dwarves; and of course the dragon Smaug - who manifests first as an enormous puppet head that nearly gobbles up the stage space, then an actual hand puppet with wings that flies around the arena belching colored fabric as fire, and finally as a human with bolts of fabric for dragon wings - all inhabited by the very energetic Adam Iverson in his star turn for the night. Iverson also plays an equally bombastic dwarf (so many dwarf names, I think he’s Kili) who ends up at one point running around with Bilbo on his back for an extended chase scene so I’m sure he’s quite exhausted when the epic adventure concludes at the end of each performance.
“This is the key that opens the door in the mountain.”
Each actor plays so many roles that it’s sometimes hard to remember who did what, honestly. Bryce Kalal, Troy Lowry, Jr., and Courtney Matula are the three actors I haven’t mentioned yet, not because they’re not memorable but just because like the cast, the play and this review, there’s a lot of ground to cover. Kalal’s main role (among others) is that of the dwarf king Thorin, who leads his band of survivors back to their homeland to reclaim the treasure stolen by the dragon, and forms a reluctant alliance with Bilbo the hobbit that turns over time into one of mutual, though still suspicious, respect. Thorin’s cape flips over to reveal a face so a stooped over Kalal can play a second dwarf as well when scenes require it. And given my weakness with dwarf names, I just have notes tagging Lowry as the “nerdy dwarf in glasses” who always sides with Bilbo’s instincts on the journey. The roles do all start to blend together at a certain point but I believe Lowry also did a turn as Gollum and one of the trolls on stilts (forgive me if I’m mixing up my ensemble members - the program doesn’t have room to list everyone’s roster of characters). Everyone is working very hard to keep this story rolling along and make each of their roles as distinct as possible.
“Pretty soon my entire house was crammed with gnomes.”
Speaking of working hard to keep things rolling along, stage manager Dominic Detwiler, board operators Laura Doty (sound) and Scott Lohman (lights), assistant stage manager Stacy Kohout, and the backstage crew of Sarah Berg, Conner Carlson, and Grace Watkins, all have quite a task to pull off every night. It’s a marathon of lights, sound, props and costumes and they run it well, giving the cast on stage all the support they need.
“They can only be seen when the moon shines behind them.”
Lighting designer Todd Reemtsma (assisted by Benji Mielke) does deceptively simple things that crank up the theater magic, like the choice to go with black light every time Bilbo puts on the ring and becomes invisible to the other actors onstage. The return of normal light when they take the ring off again is a quick way to reset reality. Also, the use of a shaft of light coming down from a door in back of the audience and streaming across the space to highlight its target is remarkably effective. Lots of moods and places and passages of time swirl around in this story, and the light matches it scene by scene in fun and intriguing ways.
“It’s a bitter adventure that must end this way.”
Since J.R.R. Tolkien’s novel is coming up on its 90th birthday next year, and this adaptation was first commissioned from playwright Greg Banks by the Children’s Theatre Company here in Minneapolis and produced back in 2019, the story itself isn’t new but the presentation is. I’m not really a Tolkien nerd so I don’t have any issues with liberties this adaptation may have taken (and I wouldn’t be able to point them out to you with any authority) in wrangling this sprawling story into a single evening’s two-act play. (For instance, the only reason I recognized the reference to the Battle of the Five Armies is that it’s part of the backstory for the first film in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.). So I’m not objecting to anything here from the mindset of a purist in regard to the original text. (So, what is my problem?)
“Thank you for joining us on the 30th anniversary of.. The Incident.”
The conceit of this adaptation is that it’s a bit of a post-apocalyptic storytelling set-up. Sort of like Anne Washburn’s 2012 script, Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play, in which survivors gather around the campfire to recount the story of the “Cape Fear” episode of The Simpsons. Here, instead of Springfield, we have Middle Earth (though this production isn’t nearly as bleak or odd as Washburn’s play - which I also thoroughly enjoyed). This adaptation projects 30 years into the future, in our case 2056, August 2nd - the 30 year anniversary of The Incident. So we’ve got a couple of months, folks. It’s a bit uncanny that this thing was first written and performed the year *before* the Covid-19 pandemic hit. Theatre in the Round has been transformed into a ramshackle version of a community aid center by set designer Keven Lock (assisted by Ash Aurig and Nmi a literal army of a dozen set crew folks) and prop designer Elliott Van Winkle, The center even has shelves of food, to which audience members bringing food donations for the Coyle Center have their offerings added for the night.
“I am so sorry. They do go on.”
Then, on top of this, there’s the additional bit of exposition that the traveling actors who are supposed to be performing The Hobbit - like it’s their contribution to society at large and this celebration in particular, perhaps it’s an annual thing they do to recognize the grim anniversary? At any rate, those actors were unable to make it to the community center for some reason, so the random assortment of people on stage will instead be performing The Hobbit because… they know the story and have some of the scripts and some of the props and… it’s honestly really confusing. Why exactly? Why any of this? Because, after the story of The Hobbit actually gets going, none of the post-apocalyptic, “we’re not really the actors” stuff ever gets referenced again. It’s not a framing device the script circles back to. It’s just a set of excuses to justify the “found objects” nature of the props and costumes (which is delightful, by the way, the audience just eats it up, it’s great fun). Nobody actually has any challenges telling the story. They’re all remarkably good at it. And I don’t want them not to be. I’m not here to see bad actors stumbling around, I’m here to see these good actors tell a story well - and they do. So the set-up in the script is just there to give the director and designer team permission to go wild and not feel constrained by the source material to do a strictly Middle Earth accurate fantasy world. Seems like a lot of unnecessary wheel-spinning, just get to the hobbit and dwarves, please.
“We’re on a mission for gold, not friendship.”
It’s impressive how well the cast gets the audience to play along by doing things like making “oohs” and “ahhs” and wolf sounds and even singing a line or two here and there. Audience members help flesh out the roster of dwarves in key moments right from their seats, but audience members can also opt out of participating by just crossing their arms. The big audience participation moment is, of course, the Battle of the Five Armies, for which each chunk of the audience is drafted into a different side of the battle. Each side has its own ludicrous war cry, each side has a barrage of “weapons” such as shuttlecocks and stress balls that the different audience sections rain down upon the central stage space on command. But when you tear down the fourth wall like this, then tone can sometimes be a challenge. If the battle ends up being this silly, then the meaningful death of a major character (no spoilers) can be hard to take seriously. If they’re wheeling around a corpse under a sheet, but it’s on a long metal cart like they use in hardware stores and scene shops, and the weapon the corpse’s hands are folded over to accompany them to their grave is… well, a hockey stick, then a little of the gravitas the moment might otherwise have had is lost.
“Eagle sounds!”
Here and there, there’s also a little of what I call “costume acting” and a little bit of “Minnesota humor acting.” Costume acting is when there isn’t really a character, there’s just a hat or a wig or perhaps a fabulous dress standing in for a person. (That’s not to knock with work of costume design coordinator Constance C. M’allowince or costume design contributor Hunter Goldsmith, or their costume crew listed in the program, of over two dozen people. They’ve got a tall task to outfit this plethora of characters with their own distinct look.) And sometimes, with a canvas this broad and a character list this long, you need the visual shorthand, I get it. But the big-butted trolls on stilts, for instance, had their own sense of character and relationships. Whereas, particularly later in the action, there was a lot more “I’m putting on this cap so now I’m a goblin” going on. Straddling the line between is someone striding on stage in a fabulous David Bowie-style wig from a very particular fantasy film, which a number of people in the audience recognized right away and started laughing. But the actor had the attitude to go with the wig, so it worked. Did we need the playwright to give them follow-up lines during a chase scene like “This place is a LABYRINTH!” or “It’s like working with MUPPETS”? (OK, okay, we get it.) Minnesota humor acting is mostly just the regional accent turned up to an 11 like we’re in the movie “Fargo” - and of course the inescapable use of the phrase “Uff-da.” It’s a huge hit with the locals, but transplants like me can find it baffling.
“You will find your courage by morning.”
“We haven’t any time for the faint of heart.”
All that said, The Hobbit is still a really impressive group effort tackling a huge story and cast of characters and wrestling it down to just a two and a half hour run time (including the intermissions, so shorter than a lot of epic films playing in the same storytelling sandbox). The Hobbit is a fun, ambitious change of pace for TRP, a raucous storytelling exercise that is sure to have something that entertains everyone.
The Hobbit can be found at Theatre in the Round Players (245 Cedar Avenue, Minneapolis, MN 55454) now through May 31, 2026. Tickets available through theatreintheround.org.
4 Stars - Highly Recommended
(Poster art courtesy of Theatre in the Round Players)