TORONTO — Don’t believe everything you read. In spite of the assertion in last week’s Associated Press story about the early closing of “The Lord of the Rings” that the show was generally trashed by critics, there are those who have had many good things to say. Normally, I try not to read reviews of shows I’m going to review myself. But “LOTR” opened three months ago, while I was planning an American theater critics conference at the Shaw and Stratford festivals, with a side-trip to Toronto to see “LOTR.” So when Ben Brantley’s zestful pan appeared in The New York Times, I wondered if I should cut back on my ticket allotment. [More]