Fringe performer taps into geeky side for his wildly successful parodies

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This article was published 16/07/2015 (4008 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Charlie Ross is one of the most-travelled and successful Canadian fringe festival performers. For almost 15 years, he has made an unique living transporting audiences to a galaxy far, far away, and to the much nearer Middle-Earth.

The Victoria, B.C.-based creator and performer of One Man Star Wars Trilogy and One Man Lord of the Rings is humble about his accomplishments — which include off-Broadway and London West End runs of the former, and performing the latter for the movie version’s cast and crew in San Francisco in 2009.

In his mind, walking out alone onstage, without sets, props or costumes and only his talent to mimic sound effects, character voices and hand gestures, makes him no more than a one-trick pony or, perhaps, a one-trick nerd.

“I’ve had a long run, but that’s just me having zero imagination,” says Ross, who is making Winnipeg his only fringe stop this year. “I don’t think of myself as original, not at all. I’m basically being an eight-year-old kid playing Star Wars or Lord of the Rings.”

The 41-year-old impressionist will give himself credit for the originality of his career trajectory. He was once just another theatre student with dreams of being good enough some day to play the title role in King Lear. But he embarked on a rarely travelled path that required him to pay licensing fees to multinational corporations for the rights to their prized pop-culture franchises. Apparently a Jedi mind trick won’t win over LucasFilms; it takes money.

Most of his fringe brethren tend to present new work, or scripts in the public domain from the likes of Shakespeare or Molière. Dealing with Disney or the notoriously protective estates of famous writers demands more patience and acumen.

“There are a few of us playing with the big boys and we hope we don’t get squashed by doing parodies of their shows,” says Ross. “I’m a child of “Weird Al” Yankovic, so I definitely understand wanting to lampoon something.

“I don’t think I’ve done anything original for a number of years. I’d love to do something more original, but it’s never as exciting to people as when you do One Man Star Wars or One Man Lord of the Rings. You create a bit of a monster for yourself. I love the monster.”

Ross, the father of a baby girl, won’t directly answer whether the box office of his condensed homages have made him a rich man, other than to say he owns a house in Victoria, so he ain’t suffering. He has performed the hour-long Star Wars in excess of 1,200 times in more than 180 cities across four continents, and appeared on Late Night with Conan O’Brien, The Today Show and Last Call with Carson Daly. His 75-minute Lord of the Rings has also been a globetrotter and has taken Frodo Baggins and company to the Sydney Opera House.

Creating steady work for himself for 15 years is a dream come true in a profession with a low percentage of regular employment. Ross made his Winnipeg fringe festival debut in 1994, as part of a ensemble presenting a forgettable drama called Steam. That’s when he noticed it was the solo acts that were making a living on the circuit.

The material he possessed with the most potential for a DIY stage project was his nerd knowledge of the first Star Wars movie, which he watched more than 400 times. Ross had grown up on an isolated farm near Prince George, B.C., where there was no television or radio reception. His family had three videos: Blue Lagoon, Shogun and Star Wars.

“I felt the pangs that Luke Skywalker must have felt on a farm, wanting to be whisked away,” he says. “Theatre is what broke things open for me.”

In 2000, Ross first imagined a Star Wars spoof as a three-hander presented with fringe pals TJ Dawe and Mike Rinaldi. They didn’t understand what he was going for; when he showed them, their reaction was to suggest he do it all himself. He premièred it in Toronto the following year and the show took off like Han Solo’s Millennium Falcon.

“I couldn’t imagine a better career,” says Ross, who, on the day of this interview, was celebrating his 17th wedding anniversary. “I’m going to India in the fall, which is crazy. I’ve been nothing but surprised by what’s happened with Star Wars and Lord of the Rings.”

kevin.prokosh@freepress.mb.ca