Richard Lee, Tim Campbell take on timeless characters on stage for this year’s The Hobbit

Richard Lee (Bilbo Baggins) and Tim Campbell (Gandalf, Smaug) sit down with the Times to discuss this year’s Stratford Festival production of The Hobbit.

CONNOR LUCZKA, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Actors with the Stratford Festival are no strangers to stepping into the shoes of beloved roles previously played by beloved actors. However, in what may be a first for the festival, this year at least one actor is preparing to step into a beloved character’s rubber feet.

Richard Lee and Tim Campbell are taking on the roles of Bilbo Baggins and Gandalf, respectively, for this year’s production of The Hobbit, a theatrical re-telling of the beloved story by J. R.R. Tolkien, a precursor to his classic The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Adapted for the stage by Kim Selody and directed by Pablo Felices-Luna, the play tells the story of mild-mannered Baggins as he is reluctantly swept into a world of adventure across Middle-earth by the wizard Gandalf – facing dwarves, trolls, dragons and all creatures between.

Sitting down with the Times, Lee and Campbell shared their experiences with the characters, the journey in developing the play so far and what the play, the book and the expanded world mean to them.

“Stepping into those feet, it’s been really lovely,” Lee said. “... It’s daunting for me in particular, I think, because it’s this face on top of a character that’s so iconic, and I’m mindful of that ... It’s about the work at the end of the day and if we do our jobs right, and if we do our jobs with the commitment and bravery that we have, there are these burning, tingling moments – it's Tolkien brought to life right in front of you. It’s different than the films. It’s different than the cartoons. We take you on goofy adventures, yes, but like sporting events, there’s an electricity in the room when you’re watching things unfold between us.”

“I feel a personal responsibility to the people for whom these characters are so beloved, because they are beloved to me,” Campbell shared. “... This is something Pablo is really, really clever about. I heard him say that we want it to be a kind of big tent. So for people whom it is their very first experience with this story, (they) will not feel alienated. They’ll get everything. At the same time, we are servicing the fans who know every detail, because there’s lots of those fans in our rehearsal room.”

While Lee was first introduced to the world of high fantasy through the roleplaying tabletop game Dungeons and Dragons and the accompanying Forgotten Realms novels by R.A. Salvatore, he discovered Middle-earth through Peter Jackson’s film trilogy, falling in love with the grandeur and vision. For Campbell, as he alluded to, Middle-earth is an old haunt, having first read the book when he was 12 years old. Since then, not unlike his dwarven counter-parts, he has delved deep into Middle-earth lore.

“I’ve been a Tolkien super-geek for many decades,” Campbell said. “... I didn’t know they were doing The Hobbit until the audition, and I was thrilled. For me, being asked to play Gandalf is a little bit like my version of being asked to play King Lear.”

The play is being further developed through the rehearsal stage, with Lee and Campbell praising Felices-Luna for the space he provides for actors to explore their characters and the arc of the story. Compared to other family plays, which are quite short, this version is told in two acts with a full runtime, meaning the story will have room to breathe and the characters space to grow.

Another quirk of this version is the small cast size. There are nine core actors along with six understudies in the production, with most actors taking on multiple roles. Only Lee and Aaron Krohn, who plays the dwarf would-be-king Thorin Oakenshield, play one character.

In fact, in addition to Gandalf, Campbell is also playing the dragon Smaug, the antagonist of the story. Campbell will be voicing the dragon as well as operating the gargantuan puppet created by Matthew Burges with two other puppeteers from the props department – an experience he is personally relishing.

Both Campbell and Lee were eager for audiences to see the production design, calling the costumes by Ting - Huan Christine Urquhart, the lighting by Michael Walton and the set by Lorenzo Savoini an “all-star assortment of designers,” but they are most excited for audiences to really take in the world and the lessons on stage.

“Life reflects art and art reflects life,” Lee said. “Why this play? Why now? Why is it important? I think the world needs reminding how much what we do matters everywhere, and in this world, the smallest, most unexpected individual gets set on a journey with really only one person who believes in who he is and what he could be. Nobody else believes in him. And I think that’s an important lesson for today, in this society, at this moment – to be reminded that your decisions, your choice, your actions matter.”

The Hobbit takes the stage at the Avon Theatre from April 21 to Oct. 23 (opening May 30). For more information, or to purchase tickets, visit https://tinyurl.com/efzrhm6p.