The Lion King

I will almost certainly not have time until I get home to write up as thorough a review as I would like to, but I went to see The Lion King last night and it was spectacular. Frankly, the opening scene, which literally brought tears to my eyes (and cheeks, for that matter), is worth the price of admission. I don’t know what it is about that piece of music and its vibrancy and harmonics, but I’ve found it emotionally overwhelming ever since it was used as the trailer for the movie, a year before the cartoon was released, and it’s just that much more powerful on stage.

I got down to the theatre early and sat around on the concrete waiting for the box office to release the seats that hadn’t been sold or had been cancelled, and boy am I glad I did. The house was packed, but not quite sold out, and I still got 6th row center orchestra seats. Not too shabby. I suspect about four rows back are the best seats in the house; you couldn’t quite see the feet and when people were lying down they were invisible, from my seat, but that didn’t happen too much, so it was okay.

The real reason to see this show are the costumes, which are simply incredible. I thought the lamest of them by far was Timon, who is propelled by an adult voice actor behind a 4-or-so foot meercat puppet. I found the human behind the puppet to be too distracting from the puppet, which is what you’re supposed to be paying the most attention to. Whenever another character addresses Timon, he addresses the puppet, which helped a little, but not enough. The puppet was entirely too static compared to all the rest of them; his vocals are, I think, supposed to overcome that, but instead I kept getting distracted by the actor. Who was costumed and face painted entirely in green, which I also didn’t get. I think it’s supposed to help him blend into the jungle-green sets/backgrounds that they’re in for most of his part of the show, but it didn’t work for me.

My second-least-favorite character was Scar, which is a pity because he’s quite wonderful in the movie. He didn’t have any of the sensuality that Jeremy Irons voiced in the film, so I found him disappointing. I also thought he, and — well. A lot. Of the characters. Not all, but a lot, were too over-played. I thought if they’d been reined in a little more they’d have been better, and it’d’ve felt less like Acting. It’s, hm. The show is nearly a caricature, because it started *out* as a larger than life cartoon, and they’re playing it too big, I think. A little more restraint and a little less obviousness wouldn’t hurt any of the characters. It’s a stylistic choice, and I suspect most people wouldn’t be bothered by it (my family, however, would all be).

Despite those flaws — and the fact that the little boy playing young Simba wasn’t much of a dancer (I think again this was partly stylistic, a way to show off energy, but I thought a little more finesse would’ve been appropriate) — it was an amazing show. Raikki (I think that’s the spelling; the baboon shaman) was … overwhelming. Her voice was just *incredible*.

Ooop, coffee break!