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NEW YORK - Scratch Cats.
From now on and conceivably forever, The
Lion
King is Broadway's feisty new feline king.
Disney's landmark musical is much more
than a Cats for the
multicultural next millennium. From
director Julie Taymor's imaginative
staging, breathtakingly beautiful puppetry
and striking masks to the
colorful costumes, sinuous choreography
and expanded score, Disney's
second musical tops Broadway's previous
family favorites.
Taymor's enchanting environmental approach
wraps the audience in the
atmosphere and animals of Africa. Birds
fly, gazelles dance, lions
roar, antelopes leap, hyenas giggle,
rhinoceroses charge and elephants
lumber through the aisles. The giraffes
are so realistic in spindly
appearance and graceful movement that only
on a second look does the
audience recognize the men on stilts
within the costume.
Undulating waves of green reeds prove to
be a chorus line of
well-choreographed dancers wearing
landscape-headpieces.
Although the lion's share of the spectacle
can be credited to Taymor,
one shouldn't overlook the enhanced score
or the remarkable performers.
Authentic African rhythms and catchy songs
from Lebo M., Mark Mancina,
Jay Rifkin, Taymor and Hans Zimmer have
been added to the five lilting
Elton John-Tim Rice songs from the 1994
animated film. Circle of Life
and Hakuna Matata frame the first act with
a knockout opening and
finale, while The Morning Report and I
Just Can't Wait To Be King add
adolescent energy.
Jason Raize's young-adult Simba is pumped
with pride, passion and the
hormones of a teen-age Broadway
heartthrob. As Mufasa, Simba's father,
Samuel Wright projects soulful dignity
with a great voice.
As the clicking baboon-shaman, Tsidii Le
Loka is mesmerizingly alien.
Geoff Hoyle's Zazu is hilarious, while
John Vickery's silky Scar is
deliciously evil.
With baked-orange sunsets and panoramic
landscapes, scenic designer
Richard Hudson transcends the expected
Disney cuteness - although
children will love the familiar cartoonish
antics of Max Casella's
Timon and Tom Alan Robbins' Pumbaa.
From the costumes and choreography to its
incredible range of wildlife
brought to life onstage, Lion surpasses
the elements of spectacle and
whimsy that made Cats Broadway's
longest-running show.
Haunting in the narrative punch of its
Hamlet-like parable about a
boy's coming of age into regal manhood
after his father's death, Lion
trumps Cats by marrying its spectacle to a
compelling mythic story.
Breathtaking moments abound: The
wildebeests stampede directly toward
the audience, growing ever bigger; fish
and eels swim through a river
(via shadow-screens); the heat of an
African drought evaporates a
shrinking lake (actually, a silky cloth
pulled through a hole); and the
second act opens with multicolored birds
(actually, convincing kites)
flying above and through the theater.
While Disney's crudely literal stage
version of Beauty and the Beast
falls short of its animated-film source,
this second stage adaptation
of a Disney cartoon expands and deepens
its source and finds its own
stage legs, paws and claws.
With its occasional vaudeville touches -
Timon and Pumbaa's acting is
an act, and a few New York-conscious
wisecracks refer to the Guggenheim
Museum or Disney's other musical down the
block - The Lion King nods to
the Ziegfeld Follies history of Disney's
beautifully restored New
Amsterdam Theatre. The lavishly costumed
processions up Pride Rock -
which corkscrews to majestic height -
evoke Ziegfeld women descending
his circular staircases in feathered
headdresses. Ziegfeld would have
understood and admired The Lion King. Walt
Disney, too.
By entrusting its most valuable
animated-film property to one of
Broadway's most brilliant up-and-coming
directors, Disney has
reaffirmed the power of youth and the
magic of theater for years to
come.
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