THEATER | "The Lion King" is still a stunner at 15
J. Anthony Crane and Dionne Randolph in The Lion King. Photo by Joan Marcus, courtesy Disney.
On stage, The Lion King feels like a vibrant celebration of African life—but once you start tracing its cultural pedigree, your mind reels. The story was cribbed from Shakespeare by Iowa-born sci-fi guru Thomas Disch, then set to music by flamboyant Brit Elton John with lyrics by Andrew Lloyd Webber's main man Tim Rice. The film was produced by the American mythmakers at Disney, subsequently being adapted for the stage under the direction of Julie Taymor, a well-traveled Massachusetts native. Wait, what continent are we on?
However this team managed to pull it off—South African composer Lebo M collaborated with Hans Zimmer (a German) to create the rich score, and Taymor's stunning costume design integrates traditional African ceremonial garb with clever puppetry—The Lion King succeeds with the kind of energy and imagination that's extremely rare in entertainment of any genre or medium. It's a bar-setting exemplar of what can be done with a Broadway musical, and it's been going strong since its 1997 world premiere at Minneapolis's Orpheum Theatre, where it's currently playing a most welcome return engagement.
The 1994 animated film on which the musical is based has proven surprisingly sturdy—much more so than, say, Pocahontas (1995), which Disney animators were at the time much more enthusiastic about—but the stage adaptation improves on the film by deepening the story's resonances with both African and European cultural traditions. On stage, there's a clear anti-imperialist allegory that was buried in the film despite Jeremy Irons doing his louchest as the voice of villain Scar.
Not all of the new narrative and musical material added to expand the 87-minute movie into a stage epic is an improvement. Though the new instrumental and chorus material by Zimmer and Lebo M is wonderful, among the new songs (none were written by John or Rice) only "He Lives in You" is on the level of the songs heard in the film. One new scene, in which a delusional Scar tries creepily to seduce his nephew's girlfriend Nala ("My, how you've grown!"), takes the show in a direction it really didn't need to go.
It's also true that there's only one James Earl Jones (who voiced King Mufasa in the movie), but the touring cast are uniformly superb, making the roles their own with appropriately regal/craven miens—right down to the little b-girl baby elephant. One of the most extraordinary aspects of Taymor's costume design is the way it amplifies rather than masks the actors' human physicality: the lion masks worn by Dionne Randolph as Mufasa and J. Anthony Crane as Scar, for example, are perched atop the actors' heads except when the lions are angry, when by movements of their shoulders the actors can cause the masks to slide down and extend. Among the show's many striking visual tableaus is an eerie moment when Scar ascends a pile of bones in silhouette, Crane's haughty mask extended on its spine-like support as though to illustrate the usurper's fragile hubris.
From its first moment—the unforgettable gathering of a menagerie that inspired spontaneous applause among the opening night audience—to its last, The Lion King is a genuinely inspiring theatrical experience. If you've never seen it, go. If you have, you may well already have your ticket to go again.
Coverage of issues and events affecting Central Corridor communities is funded in part by a grant from the Central Corridor Collaborative.
Orpheum Theatre
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Jay Gabler (jay@tcdailyplanet.net, Twitter @JayGabler) is the Daily Planet's arts editor.
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Comments
The beginnings of the Lion King story is from the Sundiata
Actually Jay, the Lion King story was stolen from the Mali people. It's loosely based on its founder Sundiata Keita. This account is a well-known oral tradition.And all these European influences/renditions is nothing but an attempt to capitalize on it without giving the people its proper credit. I expect better from The Daily Planet.
http://eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/search/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED386732&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=eric_accno&accno=ED386732
Thank you
I appreciate the interesting historical context, and I hold no brief for Disney; however, the paper you cite provides no evidence that the team who created The Lion King were familiar with the story you cite. According to Wikipedia, The Lion King was inspired by the Bible and by Shakespeare. Stories of jealousy and conflict over royal succession are common across a number of cultures, and while I defer to more knowledgable sources as to whether The Lion King is a fitting tribute to or a reductive distortion of African cultural traditions, I don't see evidence to support your claim that the story was "stolen from the Mali people."
You're Welcome
Thank you for your "interesting" appreciation. You won't find it because it's an oral tradition carried out by the Mandika griots. If you speak to any African History professor, they will tell you pretty much the same. I'm not sure what you read, but the source (ERIC--Education Resources Information Center , an online digital library of education research and information sponsored by the Institute of Education Sciences of the U.S. Department of Education.) does make reference to what I've indicated. Maybe they're not using the words stolen, but the historical story of Sundiata is never given its proper credit:
David Wisniewski's 1992 picture book version of the African epic of "Sundiata, Lion King of Mali" and the actual historical account of the 13th century Lion King, Sundiata, are both badly served by Disney's "The Lion King." Disney has been praised for using African animals as story characters; for using the African landscape as a story setting; for using African artwork as design motifs; and for using African-American actors as the voices for the film characters. If the film succeeds in having African culture accepted by people usually resistant to recognizing any other culture but their own, then it deserves to be noted for this small breach in the racial divide. Nevertheless, in the larger sense, the film diminishes the culturally rich heritage of history and story from which it derives. Sundiata was the 12th son of a king of Mali, and he was viewed by the king's "griot" as destined for greatness. He grew to manhood in exile, but he returned to fight the evil forces of his brother and return the kingdom to its rightful sovereignty. The film converts the real hero's private pain and struggle against truly wrenching physical and political disabilities into a screen situation of sentimental, tearjerker shallowness. An interdisciplinary approach would allow English and social studies teachers to present the epic from a historical and literary perspective. Study of African history texts may be augmented with research in encyclopedias under such entries as Sundiata, Sumanguru, and Mali as beginning leads.
Same Question
Again, where is the evidence that the filmmakers knew the story of Sundiata? For them to have stolen the story, they would have to have known it in the first place.
Blog Post
I've written a separate blog post about this controversy. If anyone has evidence that the Disney filmmakers were familiar with the Mali legend, please share it!
Lion King, in the beginning there was...
Jay, I enjoyed your review of Lion KIng. The question of origin is interesting, and I have forwarded your review to theater and African American friends for their insights. Personally, I believe the word "stolen" may be harsh. As stated previously, the themes are rather universal and cross-cultural. Creation stories, conflicts between beloved leaders vs. hateful dictators, battles between syblings or generations or civilizations, stories of hope and dispair, and the never-ending stories of good vs. evil touch, whether angels, witches, animals, robots, or within an individual represent all of us, and yet none of us, completely. I would love to see as many suggestions as possible of examples of various stories with a similar content throughout history and throughout the written and oral tradions of as many peoples as possible. Comparing and contrasting such stories would be a much more fascinating lesson, in my eyes, than throwing accusation about stealing stories, whether oral, written or sung.
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