June 22nd, 2012 
Charles ‘One Man’ Ross brought his amazing “One-Man Lord of the Rings” trilogy to The Long Center for a show that runs through Sunday, June 24th. Acting out all three books in the trilogy, The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and Return of the King, Charles was quite the entertainer.
Long Center view (Photo Credit: Long Center)
The show was different than anything I’ve ever seen before and I admit while I was slightly skeptical for the first five minutes or I so I quickly got really into it. Between Charles’ different voices, personalities and movements the action really does come alive on stage and you remember everything about the books and movies as the audience really interacted with Charles. His fight scenes with himself and voices of some of the more interesting characters in the movies were really spot on and kept the audience at the edge of their seat with excitement and laughter as he really entertained an extremely comedic version of the movies.
Charles 'One-Man' Ross (Photo Credit: Long Center)
With his own hilarious spin such implying certain sexual orientation between two of the main characters and the audience interaction it was much more of a comedy than I expected. In between book one and book two, he polled the audience seeing who had read the books, seen the movies and the die-hards who had seen the extended version of all three movies- all in one day. There was actually a guest on the first row that hadn’t ever seen a movie or read one of the books. Charles continually teased her throughout the rest of the show from explaining things to her, to trying to find out just exactly what movies she had seen!
He performs in a simple black jumpsuit and at first I was a little disappointed that real costumes weren’t used but then I realized there was no way to implement that and the jumpsuit was perfect because you simply forgot it was there. Then in between ‘movies’ he excused himself for a drink of water, talked a bit more about the performances and himself. At the end when he let the audience know that he actually owns land in Austin, the audience went a little wild with cheer, and he said maybe one day he’ll just move here and perform here solely to add a little bit more to the flavor of keeping Austin weird.
Charles started performing in One-Man Star Wars 11 years ago and said he hasn’t had a ‘real’ job since. He’s traveled the world performing his plays, and won several awards and been the toast of many, many fringe festivals.
WHEN: Show runs through Sunday, June 24th
Friday, June 22nd at 8 p.m.
Saturday June 23rd at 3 p.m. and 8 p.m.
Sunday, June 24th at 3 p.m. and 7 p.m.
WHERE:
Rollins Studio Theatre at The Long Center
701 West Riverside Drive
Austin, TX 78704
Ph. 512-457-5100
TICKETS: Tickets start at $34 and can be purchased from the website or by calling the box office at 512-474-5664.
