The Lion King (Musical)
I went to see the matinee of The Lion King at the Music Hall at Fair Park last Sunday. I knew there would be a lot of kids because I had heard that it was very appealing to that audience (as far as musicals are concerned).
You KNOW the story. It’s straight from Disney’s The Lion King, but it’s got a few extra songs added in. These songs were added for 2 fairly obvious reasons.
1. So that the musical would have distinct differences from the movie
2. To help fill out the extra hour (musical=2.5 hours, movie=1.5hours)
In other words, the songs were not added for their quality. All of the songs that were not from the movie were slow and uninteresting. Especially when you consider the number of kids in attendance. They didn’t recognize these songs…
The costumes are INCREDIBLE. The way they manage to have humans portray the animals is fantastic. The adult lion-heads in particular were very cool. When they were having a normal conversation, the head rested above the actor’s head. But when they were acting like animals, the mask would move down in front of the face (as below). The way Timon & Pumbaa were handled was also interesting. Timon is controlled fully by his actor - they share feet and the arms move well, but one of the actor’s hands also has to be moved to do the mouth. Pumbaa had a functioning nose, mouth, and tongue. Rafiki is played as a human just dressed uniquely, which was an interesting take, but was also distinctly portrayed as a female for some reason.
So now for the rating.
2 out of 5 bananas
All of the actors did a good job. I felt like I saw a good overall performance both musically & technically. I can’t say enough good things about the costume & stage design.
The Lion King is a good story, and the songs from the original movie are very good.
The new songs are useless, and you’re never going to match James Earl Jones as Mufasa or Matthew Broderick as Simbaa. The only reason this musical was made was so that Disney could make more money off of one of it’s best titles (except for Pixar, when was the last good Disney animated feature?)
So when you get right down to it, I’d rather watch The Lion King DVD at home.
