From left, Sara-Jeanne Hosie portrays Old Took, Michael Man plays Elrond and Tim Campbell is Gandalf in the Stratford Festival's adaptation of The Hobbit.David Hou/Supplied
- Title: The Hobbit
- Written by: Kim Selody, based on the book by J.R.R. Tolkien
- Performed by: Tim Campbell, Heidi Damayo, Ijeoma Emesowum, Sara-Jeanne Hosie, Aaron Krohn, Derek Kwan, Richard Lee, Michael Man, Jennifer Villaverde
- Director: Pablo Felices-Luna
- Company: Stratford Festival
- Venue: Avon Theatre
- City: Stratford, Ont.
- Year: Runs until Oct. 23
Historically, the Stratford Festival’s children’s shows have been hit-or-miss, with more misses than hits since the pandemic. With the exception of last season’s extraordinary Anne of Green Gables, in which the fest demonstrated a keen understanding of how to create a production that worked as well for kids as it did kids-at-heart, Stratford’s youth programming has consistently been one of the company’s biggest weaknesses.
With that context in mind, I’m disappointed to report that The Hobbit, adapted by Kim Selody and given a humdrum production by Pablo Felices-Luna, marks a return to form for the festival. Selody’s adaptation is plodding and inert; Ting-Huan Christine Urquhart’s costumes are cumbersome for the actors and oddly lumpy to the eye. While Lorenzo Savoini’s set is attractive and mostly well-used, this year’s children’s play feels like a long walk to Mount Doom – but without the promise of theatrical riches at the end.
Felices-Luna’s cast, meanwhile, does what they can with the material – which isn’t much, given Selody’s plot-driven, paint-by-numbers approach to adapting J.R.R. Tolkien’s novel – but The Hobbit is a letdown. Fans of the Lord of the Rings franchise will feel shortchanged; newcomers to Tolkien will wonder what all the fuss has been about each time a new Middle Earth-set film has been released.
Tolkien’s material lends itself to the magic of theatre, but the Stratford production squanders that potential, writes Aisling Murphy.David Hou/Supplied
It’s a shame, because The Hobbit ought to work well in a theatrical setting: The story, about a pint-sized person named Bilbo (Richard Lee), sees the adventure-averse homebody go on a high-stakes quest with a ragtag group of new friends. And even when things get scary, help’s never too far away – wizard Gandalf (Tim Campbell) always seems to be around to lend a magical hand as needed.
Indeed, Tolkien’s material should lend itself well to the magic of theatre – think intricate puppets, special effects and ornate costumes – but in Felices-Luna’s production, that potential goes mostly untapped, save for a close-to-thrilling encounter with a dragon in the second act.
As staged in the Avon Theatre, The Hobbit amalgamates its supporting roles – of which there are dozens – into just eight actors, four of whom are meant to represent the 13 dwarves who accompany Bilbo on his journey. Off the bat, the doubling is confusing: How are we supposed to care about these characters when we barely get to know them as separate entities?
Urquhart’s costumes don’t help matters. The goblin get-ups look as if they’re made out of modelling clay, adding bulk to the actors without telling the audience much about what it actually means for Bilbo to encounter the creatures – visually, there’s little to suggest the difference between a dwarf, a goblin and a hobbit.
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Urquhart attempts to represent Bilbo’s feet – in Tolkien lore, large and hairy – with more of the same oddly structural tubing as the goblins. But up close, the cartoonish toes look like sausages, providing an obstacle for Lee to overcome in the highly physical lead role without providing much by way of aesthetic or narrative interest.
Ordinarily, the performances in Stratford’s children’s shows overcome questionable directing and scripts – I didn’t love 2022’s Little Women, for instance, but Allison Edwards-Crewe’s Jo March has stuck with me ever since.
I wish the same were true here. But Lee’s Bilbo is flat and unsophisticated, and the other characters are so underwritten that their actors hardly have a chance to flesh them out. Campbell is a solid Gandalf; Sara-Jeanne Hosie, a standout in this season’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, is a lovely narrator as Old Took. The rest of the ensemble works valiantly – particularly those playing four or more characters at once – but no one performance is especially memorable.
It’s odd, as well, how much The Lord of the Rings and its film adaptations hang over Felices-Luna’s Hobbit – the costumes and a few performances feel like cheap recreations of this story’s most famous tellings. A cliffhanger ending, too, makes Selody’s script feel like even more of a bait-and-switch: Unless the Stratford Festival plans to stage The Lord of the Rings next year (please, no), The Hobbit’s current ending is needlessly anticipatory, especially for an audience who may or may not know intimately the next chapters in Tolkien’s tales.
I don’t enjoy writing reviews like this one. Anne of Green Gables wasn’t just my favourite show of 2025; it renewed in me a belief in the power of theatre for young audiences, and in the future of the Stratford Festival. In that vein, I wanted to love The Hobbit, but Felices-Luna’s production feels an adventure or two away from completion.