Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

THEATER

Geeks, Get Out Your Light Sabers! Impostor Alert

"MY Yoda sucks, absolutely sucks," said Charles Ross while sitting in the front row of the Lamb's Theater, where his solo show "One Man Star Wars Trilogy" will have its New York debut on Tuesday. "But, you know something? I don't care. If I'm going to sit there and mull over the fact that I can't do a certain voice, then what's the point of even trying?"

These are brave words, coming from a man who has performed for several Darth Vaders and Boba Fetts, and has had Storm Troopers usher for him. (These last were members of the 501st Legion, a worldwide club of zealots who proudly wear their own "Star Wars" costumes.) But, apparently, the legions of "Star Wars" geeks who have lined up across Canada and the United States to see Mr. Ross enact every character, musical theme and sound effect found in Episodes IV through VI of the George Lucas sci-fi series have been very accepting.

"You'd think these people would be in need of medication," he said. "But I guarantee you that a lot of them are extremely intelligent and well employed. No one's been crazy to my face. I did get one e-mail from a guy that said the fact that I do this show is evidence of the coming of the apocalypse. I didn't realize the end of the world would work out so well for me."

Mr. Ross, 31, looks like the last person you'd expect to create a 58-minute homage to Luke, Leia and Obi-Won Kenobi. He's poised, with a deep voice and tall, blond good looks. And modest: he freely admits that he does not possess half the "Star Wars" knowledge held by many of his audience members. "I don't remember all the lines from 'Star Wars,"' he confessed.

What he does recall was soldered to his brain at the impressionable age of 8. At that time, his father had moved the family from Prince George, British Columbia, to an isolated 27-acre farm. "We didn't have much in the way of TV," Mr. Ross said. "We had just two stations, and they were really dry, government-funded stations." To relieve the boredom, he'd start every morning by popping in a video of "Stars Wars" he had taped off television. Before his parent realized it, he had watched the movie more than 400 times.

He was confident enough in his youthful memories that he felt no need to revisit the movies when years later, as a frustrated actor working the Canadian theater circuit, he came up with the idea of a condensed stage version of the first trilogy.

"I wasn't going to the film and pulling out lines," he said. "I'd watched the other two" -- "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the Jedi" -- "maybe 50 times each throughout my childhood, enough so I could remember it. Sometimes, I'd talk to a friend of mine who knew 'Star Wars' well, and ask him, 'Did that guy say the line this way or that way?' And he'd say, 'He said it that way.' Little idiosyncrasies of movement can impart a sense of truth. This is basically one big, long caricature of these films. It isn't the films."

Mr. Ross first performed the kinetic digest in Toronto in 2000, and for the last three years he has done little else (aside from bookings of "One Man Lord of the Rings," his follow-up invention). His appearances were frequent enough to attract the attention of mighty Lucasfilm, which chose not to sue Mr. Ross, but instead invited him to perform at Celebration III, the April 21-24 Indianapolis "Star Wars" convention that heralded the advent of the final film in the series, "Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith."

He has pitched to Lucasfilm the idea of compressing and staging the second trio of movies. But whether that happens or not, he doesn't expect to play members of the Skywalker clan all his life. After Ian McKellen took in "One Man Lord of the Rings" one night, the two actors met for lunch and bandied about the virtues of solo vehicles. "We talked about his one-man shows, like 'Acting Shakespeare,"' recalled Mr. Ross. "He said: 'They're in the bag. You can do them anytime.' Except that this show will definitely have a shelf life, because my body will have a shelf life. It is the most punishing show I've ever done. I don't want to be some 60-year-old guy coming out and. " With that, he began to hum the "Stars Wars" theme.

One Man Star Wars Trilogy Lamb's Theater Opens on Tuesday at 130 West 44th Street, Manhattan; open ended; (212)329-6200.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section 2, Page 5 of the National edition with the headline: THEATER; Geeks, Get Out Your Light Sabers! Impostor Alert. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT