I went to see a theatre production of the Lord of the Rings in Tampere1 this weekend. As far as theatre versions of the book go, this was probably my favourite (since my partner is a huge nerd, this wasn't the first stage version of the book I've seen); the script did a decent job in hurrying through a 1000 page book in about 3½ hours, plus they had a full live symphony orchestra doing original music, rather than pastiches of the Peter Jackson films.
I do wish that stage productions of the book could be a little more original in their approach to the costumes and overall stage design. However, it turns out this can't be: Middle Earth Enterprises, who own the licensing rights for the stage and film productions of Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit, relatively heavily restrict what a stage version of the books can be like. Thus, alas, we won't see a return of the likes of the pseudo-samurai Boromir from the early-90s Finnish stage and TV adaptation.
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A Finnish city different from where I live, for those not in the know.
Some further thoughts: I liked the production's approach to gender. Frodo, Merry and Pippin were all played by women (and this was quite possibly the best Frodo I've seen). On the other hand, Galadriel was played by a guy (to great effect, I might add). They didn't genderswap the characters, which is something of a missed opportunity (Finnish has no gendered pronouns, so the changes to the script would have been relatively minor). Although I suspect Middle Earth Enterprise probably forbids this kind of alterations to the original.
And speaking of Middle Earth Enterprise, they are – at least by proxy – to blame for the one thing I didn't like: the translation. The terms imposed by the company forbids the use of pre-existing translations, the play has to be based on the English original text. Which, in this case at least, meant the script was riddled with clumsy sentences translated word-for-word from English to Finnish. I admit these did work for some characters – Gandalf especially sounded suitably pompous – but the overall effect would have been better with fewer anglisms.