beige_alert | One Man Star Wars Trilogy (Reply)

I saw the One Man Star Wars Trilogy last night at the Pabst Theater. Charles Ross does the entire first (or “middle”) three movies in an hour, by himself, with no props. He runs around the stage acting out light saber battles, space ship dogfights, death scenes, and the best death star explosions you’ll ever see from one person with no props. It’s just hilarious. He does slip in a few of his own jokes and commentary, but as you know, much of the Star Wars dialog is at its funniest if just delivered with the straightest face you can manage. He does the voices very well, along with the music and sound effects. It’s really an athletic performance. Sure, he gets a moment of rest when playing some who just died, but even then he has to keep jumping up to play the other character.

I kept thinking that back when he was seeing Star Wars for the sixtieth-odd time, someone (Mom?) probably told him that his Star Wars obsession was silly and it’s not like someday he’d be able to get a job on the strength of having memorized the movie. Ha!

I found his version of the first movie the funniest, probably because over the years I must have seen the film at least four or five times and I actually remember it fairly well. I’m a lot hazier on the other two. Still, all of it was extremely funny. I highly recommend it. If his One Man Lord of the Rings comes to town, I’ll have to see that, too.