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Review: The Force is with Ross, as ‘One-Man Star Wars’ returns to T.O. (Includes first-hand account)

And it’s taken Ross very far indeed — from Canada to New York and Comic-Con International in San Diego, to Europe and Australia, and finally back to Toronto, where One-Man Star Wars Trilogy opened on Wednesday for a short run at the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts.

Once you see the show, though, it’s easy to understand its long-running success. It’s irresistible for fans of the movies, and there are plenty of those around. Ross doesn’t just mimic the characters’ voices and tell the stories — he sprinkles them with inside jokes and obscure references with a true Star Wars geek’s enthusiasm. True fans who have watched the movies endlessly will nod in recognition to Ross’ recreation of Luke Skywalker’s “I think I took a wrong turn” echo from A New Hope, or the mechanical way in which one of the Sandpeople shakes his spear in the air. Casual fans, or those who’ve seen the movies only once, will miss a lot of great in-jokes.

With no props except himself and a bare stage, Ross acts out more than the characters — he plays creatures, spaceships, Imperial walkers, familiar snippets from the John Williams score and even the opening narrative crawls from the movies. He nails the different whooshing sounds of the various ships and the radio chatter between the Rebel pilots. He also tosses in funny commentary here and there; during the briefing mission on the first Death Star attack, after learning about the two-metre hole, Luke can’t help but wonder aloud: “Why do we use the metric system here?” Ross also takes funny jabs at the dialogue’s excessive exposition and Chewbacca’s exclusion from the medal ceremony. There are, of course, the obligatory incest jokes about secret siblings Luke and Princess Leia, plus a running gag about Darth Vader’s officers wetting their pants after every new threat.

Some of Ross’ imitations work better than others do; his best ones include C-3PO, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Chewie, and he plays up Luke’s whining and Emperor Palpatine’s throaty menace hilariously. I didn’t really buy his Han Solo, Yoda or Vader, although his rendition of Vader’s dying wheezes from the closing scenes of Return of the Jedi scores big laughs — as does his recreation of Jabba the Hutt, which is so simple and yet still so unexpected.

Ross’ frenetic performance is much like that of a small child in a school playground playing Star Wars by himself, jumping back and forth between the characters and locations without any pause for breath. In a sense, he’s bringing live theatre down to its basic essentials: what is playacting, after all, but a sophisticated form of dressing up and pretending? It’s not often you see a show that really brings back that feeling.

As Ross is retelling six hours’ worth of movies in about an hour, much abridging is necessary — but many fans will be happy to know that the show has minimal Ewoks. You’ll enjoy One-Man Star Wars Trilogy best if you’re enough of a fan that you can tell a Tosche Station from a Jek Porkins, but there’s enough there for audience members who remember the basics, too. The show’s long-running popularity is evidence not only of how funny and energetic it is, but of how universal Star Wars itself is.

One-Man Star Wars Trilogy runs at the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts until May 1.

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