All all this time—two decades, nearly 9,000 performances, a move from the gorgeously renovated New Amsterdam to the multiplex-like Minskoff, even after all those parodies—it’s Julie Taymor’s puppetry that continues to astound.
Oh, sure, The Lion King, which first opened in November of 1997 and continues to sell out nearly every seat, still warms children’s hearts. There are the well known Elton John-Tim Rice songs, the vaudevillian shtick, the usual Disney messages of destiny and fearlessness and fatherless sons and happy animals frolicking together.
But what makes the show stand out are those puppets.
[Read Steven Suskin’s ★★★★★ review here.]
Taymor, the inventive director best known for her biggest flop, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, was given the challenging task back in the Clinton administration of turning a beloved (and money-minting) Disney movie about dynastic succession among regal lions and their happy Saharan subjects into a live-action musical. It would seem to be something of a challenge: Anthropomorphized animals are easy in animation, but less so on stage.
Taymor’s solution was the puppets. To portray those animals, her human actors wear extravagant costumes, manipulate intricate puppets, and sometimes do both. Taymor designed those costumes, she co-designed the masks and puppets along with Michael Curry, and she worked with choreographer Garth Fagan. The approach they conceived is frequently stunning, like in the famous opening number, when all the animals of the jungle dance in celebration of the circle of life and a new royal birth, and in several other numbers throughout the show.
The Lion King is the coming-of-age story of young Simba, presented in the first scene as the newborn son of legendary Lion King Mufasa, a presumably worthy heir to the throne. But Simba is manipulated by his evil uncle, Scar, and when Mufasa dies after saving his son from a stampede—that stampede, mind you, is another Taymor triumph—Scar convinces Simba it’s the youngsters fault, and that the only solution is to run. Scar serves as king, the kingdom nears collapse—funny what happens when an evil con man somehow takes charge of a once happy and prosperous land—and eventually Simba returns to take up his birthright.
The problem is that the rest of the musical is not as good as Taymor’s vision for the animals and their gorgeous ensemble numbers. I somehow missed The Lion King when it first opened, and in the ten years since I’ve become a professional theatergoer it’s been the one show running on Broadway that I’d never seen. But for all those years, I’d heard how beautiful it is, and I’d seen so many lush clips.
Now, the beauty is there, but the show feels a bit worn. Knowing what to expect, those bracingly chanted Zulu lyrics that open the show aren’t so terribly bracing. Some of the sets seem unimpressive. The plain-Jane Minskoff proscenium offers no help. The few big numbers aside, much of the John-Rice score is middling ’90s pop rock. (There is additional music and lyrics, some from the movie and some original to the stage show, credited to Lebo M. Mark Mancina, Jay Rifkin, Julie Taymor, and Hans Zimmer. This material introduces some African beats—accentuateed by in some cases by Masai-ish dancing—that’s far more compelling than much of the rest of the score.)
The audience rarely stops its barely sotto voce conversation.
In part, that’s because the book (by Roger Allers and Irene Mecchi) is weak, everything feeling expected and unaffecting. It’s only in the musical’s final scenes, when Simba wrestles with and finally reclaims his heritage, that the crowd quiets down and truly tunes in.
That said, the performances, even now, are rather lovely. Kenneth Aikens, the Young Simba I saw, stands out with his puckish charm. So, too, does Bradley Gibson, strapping and full-voiced, as an excellent older version of the young lion.
But you’re not here for the performances. You’re here for the puppets. And they’re worth it.
The Lion King opened November 13, 1997, at the New Amsterdam Theatre and is now playing at the Minskoff Theatre. Reviewed: September, 2018. Tickets and information: lionking.com
