We’re living in a time of peak Tolkien. Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films have been cultural touchstones for more than two decades, Amazon’s Rings of Power has spent hundreds of millions expanding the mythology, and a new animated film arrived just last year. Middle-earth has never been more visible or felt more familiar. This creates both an appetite and a problem: audiences arrive at any new Tolkien adaptation believing they already know what dragons and dwarves should look like, and what the Ring’s corruption should feel like.
“A new beginning, again,” begins the narrator of Stratford’s new production of The Hobbit. It’s an apt phrase for an epic fantasy adaptation in 2026—when novelty is tricky, and expectations cut both ways.
The practical problem
For the uninitiated: The Hobbit is JRR Tolkien’s one-volume prequel to The Lord of the Rings, and was itself adapted by Jackson into not one, not two, but three films in 2012-2014. The story follows homebody hobbit Bilbo Baggins, whom the wizard Gandalf enlists as a “burglar” to accompany a company of dwarves on a quest to reclaim their homeland beneath the Lonely Mountain from the dragon Smaug. Along the way, Bilbo acquires a certain well-known ring, and discovers reserves of courage he never knew he possessed.
Even putting aside for a moment the expectations of Tolkien lovers, it’s difficult to mount epic fantasy on stage. Your basic Tolkien (or CS Lewis or George RR Martin) novel involves a hero’s arduous journey across forbidding terrain to accomplish a world-altering quest. It also involves massive, earth-shaking armies. The problem, of course, is that the stage is small and the cast are few—and the plot is complex.
So the first problem is purely practical. How, through the staging, do you create an immersive world of shifting landscapes? And how do you make a small group of actors walking around feel like a group of heroes traversing this terrain and encountering its diverse races, nations and creatures? I’m happy to report that director Pablo Felices-Luna’s new production of The Hobbit—adapted by Kim Selody—solves these problems in clever, dynamic, and sometimes sly ways, allowing the story to take centre stage and enabling us to enter into it.
Practical, not digital solutions
The ingenious set solves these problems practically: without the use of perspective-distorting projections, animations, or pyrotechnics. Lorenzo Savoini’s design surrounds the stage space with three concentric sets of solid half-circles. As we enter the theatre, coloured lights play off them, and we feel like we’re peering through them into a misty, mysterious world. This prequel to The Lord of the Rings will take place inside these rings. As the show opens, the Shire home of hobbit Bilbo Baggins (a warm and even-keeled Richard Lee) will be conjured by another circle rolled to center stage, representing the round doorway to his burrow.
It may not sound like much. But once Gandalf (a recognizably wizardy Tim Campbell, with massive grey beard, billowing cloak, staff, and hat) enlists Bilbo to accompany the journey of the dwarves led by Thorin (Aaron Krohn), these materials begin to shift and morph in varied and surprising ways. The half-circles move closer together, then further apart … are interpolated with pathways that angle up and down among them … and these are crossed and re-crossed, climbed, slid down and jumped across. All the while, Michael Walton’s lighting design illuminates the shifting construct in different and clever ways: conveying caves and mountains, and showing us the coruscating pulses of Bilbo’s usage of the One Ring.
Felices-Luna’s dynamic direction maximizes these materials and the cast of nine. The way the dwarves, Bilbo, and Gandalf traverse this landscape becomes character-revealing and sometimes chuckle-creating. There are thirteen in the dwarf party, but just five actors to play them: problem cleverly solved, with a knowing wink. And with stylish choreographic and tableau work by Movement Director Sara Topham and Fight Director Anita Nittoly, we get a thrilling, epic sense of this world — even though in the climactic Battle of the Five Armies, those armies are represented by just one member apiece.
It’s a tremendous accomplishment, and other practical effects used to solve fantasy’s staging challenges also delight. A down-river escape in barrels charms. A clever puppet eagle swoops in for a rescue. Giant spiders are conjured through magnifying projections. And Ting-Huan Christine Urquhart’s spooky, red-lit dragon costume for Smaug drew gasps and a round of applause at the performance I attended. (One curious touch, however, is the costuming for the Goblins: their foam musculature and tight steel helmets conjure a bruising Middle-earth hockey team.)
The performances … and the price
The cast rise gamely to this world’s ample challenges. Sara-Jeanne Hosie’s Old Took is a standout. A dead ancestor of our hero Bilbo Baggins, she narrates the story with spirit, and keeps us ever-oriented by placing herself right where she needs to be (nowhere better than as Act Two opens). In a lovely touch, she’s even visible to Gandalf, showing us a metatheatrical level of his wizarding bona fides.
Amid the constantly moving set and countless cast costume changes, Richard Lee’s reluctant hero Bilbo provides the story with its serene, cerebral centre. His comforting mantras— “Sitting and thinking is what I do best,” “Eggs and bacon!,” “The only way is onward”—feel sincere, and with Old Took there to guide our understanding, he gains ever-greater solidity. Ultimately, he becomes a low-key role model for honouring our deepest selves, becoming more (and becoming many), and finding heroism in simple integrity and ingenuity.
The remaining cast—Heidi Damayo, Ijeoma Emesowum, Derek Kwan and Jennifer Villaverde— throw themselves gamely into the world-building by straddling multiple roles that span multiple races. And Michael Man’s brief turn as Gollum deserves mention: his cave encounter with Bilbo is a highlight of creeping menace.
But Middle-earth is a complicated place. And this is a complicated story which requires episode after episode of action, laced with extensive exposition. And ultimately, the dictates of the plot, placed atop the required stage design magic and directorial wizardry, sometimes outpace the character development.
“A New Beginning, Again”
With Bilbo back home, the show ends as it began, with Old Took again intoning, “A new beginning, again.” It’s a statement of Bilbo’s new status quo, and possibly a look ahead to the main action in The Lord of the Rings.
It’s also a reminder of the challenges of mounting such well-known epic fantasy in 2026. The Hobbit is an indisputably lovely production, and its practical magic is an impressive throwback in an age that defaults too readily to digital spectacle. Those who arrive already loving Middle-earth will find much here to cherish. They can fill in any gaps in the what and the who—and draw enjoyment from the how, which is dazzling.
And what of non-Tolkien fans, who are new to Middle-earth? They may find the storytelling rushed or the world-building daunting. But they’ll also witness something increasingly rare: a practical production that trusts its audience to imagine alongside it, and earns that trust through craft.
That, too, is a new beginning.
The Hobbit runs at the Stratford Festival through October 25, 2026. Tickets are available at stratfordfestival.ca.
© Scott Sneddon, Sesaya Arts Magazine 2026
