The Hobbit

Canadian theatre company Theatre Sans Fils’ adaptation of Tolkien’s The Hobbit plays much more like Ralph Bakshi than Peter Jackson. Authored in 1979, this is a heady relic from the days when hobbits and dragons populated the most ambitious ten percent of heavy metal lyrics—and folk-singing, SCA-playing, fanzine-printing D&Ders worked proudly to keep Middle Earth weird. This all-puppet presentation is gloriously nostalgically post-psychedelic: A blacklit Smaug swoops in, looking like a collaboration between Rick Griffin and Jim Henson, and the glowing spiders of Mirkwood seem like they just scuttled off a never-made Sir Lord Baltimore cover. Where the Pink Floyd Laser Light Show leaves off, Bilbo Baggins’ journey—or at least this version—begins.
Sat., Oct. 24, 2 & 7 p.m., 2009