When we first heard about the show, "One Man Star Wars", we weren't sure whether it was the dumbest idea ever or the awesomest idea ever. After seeing it, we can say with great confidence that it's the awesomest idea ever.
And yes, it was a full on One Man show, that one man being Canadian actor Charles Ross. The show was basically him doing lines, sounds, songs, and the occasional snarky comment on the original trilogy. And by everything we mean everything. He did every character from Admiral Akbar to every random Imperial General who crossed paths with Vader, every song from the main theme to the "Chub Chub" Ewok song (sorry), not to mention all the effects and battle sequences, from the one on Hoth to all the various light saber duels. He even started off the performance by making the sounds from the 20th Century Fox logo.
Ross comes off as one of the world’s biggest geeks, a geek with a bad case of ADD. Or, actually, more like a kid playing Star Wars in his room after downing an entire box of pixie sticks. He moved so fast over the movies that we had trouble following him and some scenes were skipped so it took us awhile before we figured out where he was in the story. There were some details he added we couldn't remember and some stuff we were surprised he missed. Like the infamous "these are not the droids you're looking for" line. Of course, he could have said that, but we might have missed it in his rush through the movies. He did, however, play up one of the lines that's become one of geekdom's favorite quotes, Admiral Akbar's "it's a trap!"
What made the thing special is that Ross pretty much channeled his inner geek to come up with something that struck a chord with the audience’s inner geek. At some point in their lives, every Star Wars fan did something like what he does alone in their rooms-- bring out the action figure and play Star Wars. We too used to grab an X-Wing model and fly it around the house, making fake explosion noises while picturing the great space battle that we were seeing in our heads. That's what Ross does and that's why the play has become such a success.
Oh, and it's also awfully funny too.
"One Man Star Wars" plays at the Post Theater through to Sunday, March 11. You can see the complete schedule here.