Star Wars Trilogy in 30 Minutes

I love the Theatre. By "the Theatre," of course, I mean true, sophisticated entertainment, actors upon the stage, practicing their craft, not those low-brow, populist "movie" theatres. Of course, you know that I am a Patron of the Arts, and regularly attend the Theatre. Last weekend I was privileged to attend one of the final performances of Patrick Gorman's theatrical tour de force titled Star Wars Trilogy in 30 Minutes.

Gorman is a candidate for the Truth in Advertising award, as the title describes exactly what you get from the show. It could only be more accurate if it included the words "Really Freakin' Funny." Performed by a troupe of about a dozen people, the show is about as low-rent as you can get. Aside from the lead actors playing, Luke, Han, Leia, and Lando, all of the other performers pulled multiple duties, donning white bike helmets to play stormtroopers, holding science-fictiony-looking water pistols which, help upright, became the Cantina Band's musical instruments. In fact, all the props looked like they could have been found in your basement or garage. Wiffle ball bats with red or blue tape on them doubled for lightsabres, R2-D2 was constructed out of a white wastebasket with an inverted metal salad bowl on top, and you knew that a character was in the cockpit of an x-wing when he wore a folding chair around his neck. (http://www.festivaltheatre.com/images/186_Luke.jpg)

Luke's costume was a karate uniform, Vader's was a pair of sunglasses and a cheap cape, which could be thrown off quickly when the actor switched roles to Chewbacca, whose costume was nothing more than a big patch of brown fur covering the front of his shirt. The actor playing C-3PO wore just a gold-colored cloth on the front of his shirt, but when he cocked his arms and moved with that distinctive posture, he was unmistakable as the golden droid, even before he started speaking in that impeccable C-3PO voice.

The show opened at breakneck pace and didn't let up until it was over. The cast posed on stage, announcing in unison "a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away..." then ran off as C-3PO recited the opening text of the first movie. From here the show took off, rushing thru familiar dialogue and scenes at lightspeed. They represented almost every scene you could remember from the movies, hitting almost every memorable line of dialogue from the three original movies. Part of the fun of the show was the way the actors accurately captured the characters they played, but in a campy, exaggerated way. It's hard to imagine the show being as good if it didn't have such good performers. It's not that hard to be a convincing C-3PO when you're wearing a full set of golden armor, but how many actors could pull it off wearing nothing more than a gold bib, when only a second ago the audience saw you on your knees playing Yoda, in a green bathrobe with your hands on your head as your Yoda ears?

In fact, it was fascinating to see how few cues you really needed to be able to identify the beloved Star Wars characters when portrayed by actors who were truly committed to their roles. I don't just mean Luke, who was played with brilliant earnestness and wide-eyes enthusiasm, or Han, whose swagger and worldliness was deftly portrayed, even down to that Harrison Ford voice tone. Even lesser-known characters were impossible for a Star Wars fan to miss. When an actor donned a hood and stretched his mouth wide, planning the attack on the Death Star 2, there was no mistaking that he was the fish-like Admiral Ackbar. The overweight actor lounging on the stage with his legs wrapped in a flesh-colored blanket and wearing no shirt left no doubt that he was Jabba the Hutt. And when he grabbed a small hand puppet of an elephant and brought it to life with a cackle, you knew that this was Jabba's sidekick, Salacious Crumb.

The manner in which the production did more with less was a part of the unique fun of this play. In Vader's scenes, whenever he wasn't speaking a line, he was breathing loudly, "kshhhh-KHHH." Sound effects were performed by any actor who wasn't in the scene: whenever a lightsabre was activated, its characteristic "vmmmmmmm" sound could be heard from all around the stage. And the actors did all of their own "PEW PEW" sounds as they fired their blasters, just as you did when you were 8 years old. Han and Chewie sitting at one side of the stage with Luke and Obi-Wan standing behind them, swaying in unison as the ship was attacked, was all you needed to know that they were in the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon. And when, after coming out of hyperspace, they detected an Imperial TIE fighter nearby, an extra ran by holding a pair of metallic kitchen vent hood filters on either side of his bald head. You knew without a doubt that this is the TIE fighter they would follow to the Death Star. In the Trash Compactor scene, the walls of the compactor were nothing more than four extras, standing on either side of our heroes. They shuffled closer and closer, crowding the actors as Luke desperately yelled into his comlink for C-3PO's help. At one point, at the beginning of Empire Strikes Back, Han expresses his concern over his missing comrade, Luke, to a rebel soldier on Hoth. The soldier tells Han, "the temperature's dropping too rapidly," to which Han replies, "That's right. And my friend's out in it." The rebel soldier then cranes his head forward, sticks his butt out, and pulls his hands up to his chest. Han leaps onto his back. He's now riding his tauntaun.

Of course, the speed of the play was an essential element. Part of what made the show so funny was the juxtapositions created by going through the various emotional beats in such an accelerated way.

OBI-WAN: You must learn the ways of the Force if you're to come with me to Alderaan. LUKE: Alderaan? I'm not going to Alderaan. I've got to go home. (Luke turns to the other side of the stage, where he sees Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen frozen in "horrible death" poses.) LUKE: (Turning back to Obi-Wan.) I want to come with you to Alderaan. I want to learn the ways of the Force and become a Jedi like my father.

The entire performance was imbued with such energy, that by the end, I felt as if I, myself, had been running around on stage for half an hour. In fact, by the time it was over I was surprised that the show had taken only a half hour. Not because it had seemed slow, because that was certainly not the case. No, it was because they had managed to pack such an amazing quantity of entertainment and humor into just a half hour. Actors from both the original trilogy and from the new movies have reported that George Lucas, who is far from being an "actor's director," typically has only two instructions for his actors: "faster" and "more intense." So when Lucas was quoted as saying, "I was quite impressed that they were able to find a way to make Star Wars faster and more intense," I guess it's pretty high praise.

Written in 1996 for an experimental theatre class at USC, it was performed to great acclaim at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, an international theatre festival. Since then it has played at festivals, but has only been seen publicly in the US this year at Celebration 2, the official Star Wars convention in Indianapolis. In August, the troupe took the show up to Marin County and performed the show at Skywalker Ranch for George Lucas himself, and the staffs of LucasFilm and ILM. George loved the show, and gave it his blessing to be performed publicly, as a fundraiser for the USC Theatre program. It didn't hurt that Gorman's professor at USC had been one of Lucas' professors back when Lucas was a student at USC, and had approached Lucas personally on behalf of the play. It always helps to know the right people.

The show has now ended its run. I saw it on its final weekend. It originally began its run in October, 2002, and had been scheduled to be there for 5 weeks. But its incredible popularity resulted in extending its run several times, until the play had been there for 3 months. Given its impact, I hope that it will return in some form. I'd say it was a must-see, especially for any Star Wars fan, but I think it would be enjoyed by any aficionado of sophisticated, highbrow Theatrical Arts, such as myself.

See pictures from the show, and read reviews at their official site: http://www.sw30.com/

© 2003 Jeffrey P. Hui