May The Laughter Be With You: One-Man Star Wars
I have had the good fortune to see "One-Man Star Wars Trilogy" performed by Charlie Ross twice before. Both times the performance was at the Post Street Theater at the Kensington Park Hotel n San Francisco. The venue was a nice small off-Broadway style theater that helped give it a intimate feel. The theater was about 700 seats and each seat had a wonderful view.
This time around, the show was being staged at the San Jose Repertory Theater in downtown San Jose. The theater capacity is a little smaller (around 500), put the performance was no less wonderful. This added to the atmosphere of comradery among the group of fans that were at the performance that we attended. The theater was a better setup actually having a balcony section and was more of a rotunda style than Post Street Theater. The setting eliminate any obscured views that Post Street had.
A group of friends and I went to see the show on the last day of his limited run performance. We all decided to dress in costume complete with props. There were several other people in the audience wearing costumes including a few children and others wearing Star Wars t-shirts. The bar inside the theater building was even renamed Mos Eisley Cantina for the run of the show. Psycho Donuts nearby also got into the spirit of the show by advertising their Wookie donuts, which decided to partake of. (The verdict on the Wookie: delicious)
Charlie Ross's show consists of just himself doing all of the characters and sound effects with only simple stage lighting to enhance the performance. He condenses each movie down to the basic classic moments with some commentary on the moments to add even more comic effect. The show is both a mocking tribute and fanboy loveletter to the show. His humor only derives from his delivery and the typical fan comments that you might have without crossing into putdowns or snarky criticisms. There was even some nice ad-libs thrown in about Dionne Warwick and her hit "Do You Know The Way To San Jose?", a reference to "The Phantom Menace" being released on Blu-Ray, 4 years of mime school and mention of Spock.
The reaction to his show was spirited. The entire audience laughed and he got a standing ovation from the crowd. He was even light saber saluted by our group, which he acknowledged with a bow of his head.
For an encore, Charlie Ross explained how his show was created. It started out as a 20-minute comedy sketch and how he expanded upon it after the positive reaction he got the first time performed. The skit started touring for a while and then he even managed to get an interview with National Public Radio. This led to him being contacted by LucasFilm to creating the show as an official project, where he performed at Comic-Con in front of a crowd of 4000 people. He then also explained that he has been working on a similar version of this show for a "One-Man Lord of the Rings" and performed the scene of Smegol/Golum arguing with himself.
The "One-Man Star Wars Trilogy" has been highly succsessful, touring around the world to diverse locations such as the United Kingdom, the United Arab Eremites, Singapore, New Zealand, Australia and Ireland. The skit shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon and should be enjoyed by audiences for years to come.
This time around, the show was being staged at the San Jose Repertory Theater in downtown San Jose. The theater capacity is a little smaller (around 500), put the performance was no less wonderful. This added to the atmosphere of comradery among the group of fans that were at the performance that we attended. The theater was a better setup actually having a balcony section and was more of a rotunda style than Post Street Theater. The setting eliminate any obscured views that Post Street had.
A group of friends and I went to see the show on the last day of his limited run performance. We all decided to dress in costume complete with props. There were several other people in the audience wearing costumes including a few children and others wearing Star Wars t-shirts. The bar inside the theater building was even renamed Mos Eisley Cantina for the run of the show. Psycho Donuts nearby also got into the spirit of the show by advertising their Wookie donuts, which decided to partake of. (The verdict on the Wookie: delicious)
Charlie Ross's show consists of just himself doing all of the characters and sound effects with only simple stage lighting to enhance the performance. He condenses each movie down to the basic classic moments with some commentary on the moments to add even more comic effect. The show is both a mocking tribute and fanboy loveletter to the show. His humor only derives from his delivery and the typical fan comments that you might have without crossing into putdowns or snarky criticisms. There was even some nice ad-libs thrown in about Dionne Warwick and her hit "Do You Know The Way To San Jose?", a reference to "The Phantom Menace" being released on Blu-Ray, 4 years of mime school and mention of Spock.
The reaction to his show was spirited. The entire audience laughed and he got a standing ovation from the crowd. He was even light saber saluted by our group, which he acknowledged with a bow of his head.
For an encore, Charlie Ross explained how his show was created. It started out as a 20-minute comedy sketch and how he expanded upon it after the positive reaction he got the first time performed. The skit started touring for a while and then he even managed to get an interview with National Public Radio. This led to him being contacted by LucasFilm to creating the show as an official project, where he performed at Comic-Con in front of a crowd of 4000 people. He then also explained that he has been working on a similar version of this show for a "One-Man Lord of the Rings" and performed the scene of Smegol/Golum arguing with himself.
The "One-Man Star Wars Trilogy" has been highly succsessful, touring around the world to diverse locations such as the United Kingdom, the United Arab Eremites, Singapore, New Zealand, Australia and Ireland. The skit shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon and should be enjoyed by audiences for years to come.