LOS ANGELES . Years from now, when fusty historians and huffy critics like me talk about important moments in American musical-theater history, Disney's "The Lion King" will be mentioned -- and its inclusion will undoubtedly still surprise us.
Who would have dreamed a corporation that invented the concept of the tidily packaged, super-safe entertainment experience would take a gamble on one of its most profitable products and create a stunning work of art in the process? During "The Lion King's" West Coast debut at the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood last week, you could practically see the collective cynicism of the press corps (many of them gleeful and longtime Disney bashers) swept away like cobwebs by the show's spectacular opening number, "Circle of Life."
Since its Broadway debut three years ago at the grandiose New Amsterdam Theatre (opulently restored by Disney for the occasion), "The Lion King" has served as a benchmark for commercial musical theater. Critics love it. Audiences reliably fill the house night after night. Other producers try to copy its formulas and aesthetic.
Until "The Lion King," Julie Taymor was a longtime darling of New York's theatrical avant-garde, known for creating startling, dream-like imagery with techniques and tricks that are as old as theater itself: elaborate masks, clever effects of lighting and choreography, costumes that transform but make no attempt to conceal the performer. She's a neo-traditional postmodernist, if you will, with an encyclopedic knowledge of non-Western theater practices. But before "The Lion King," nobody ever thought of pairing her with an organization like Disney. Taymor's work, in signature pieces such as "The Green Bird" and "Juan Darien," is often disturbing, provocative, unapologetically abstruse.
Yet this unlikely marriage works beautifully. The first 10 minutes -- a parade through the audience of the diverse animal population of the Pride Lands, or lion kingdom -- is pure magic of a sort Disneyland could never create. Gazelles, cheetahs, huge birds, giraffes, elephants and countless other exotic beasts stream down the aisles and swoop over the audience's heads. The costumes are mere extensions of the actors, not disguises, which somehow makes their realism all the more remarkable. This is theater as it was meant to be -- a complete and willing suspension of disbelief in the hands of superb stagecraft and performance talent.
The story itself is the musical's weakest point. Like all Disney products, you can hear the cogs turning and the requisite plot points being ticked off. Be prepared, too, for a surfeit of puns and other one-liner groaners in Roger Allers and Irene Mecchi's script, which includes sly contemporary references that are sometimes funny but usually distracting.
Taymor's tour de force leaves little room for the actors to make much of a mark (although, to be truthful, the script is more to blame than Taymor's direction or costumes). All the same, there are several standouts.
Clifton Oliver brings a sinewy athleticism to Simba (Mufasa's son in his adult form, a character we meet in the story's second half), although his voice isn't always up to the role's demands. Playing the adult version of his childhood sweetheart, Nala, Moe Daniels makes up for Oliver's shortcomings -- she owns one of the show's most winning voices.
As Scar, Mufasa's evil brother, who brings death and ruination to the Pride Lands, John Vickery is, if anything, even more indolently malevolent than he was in the Broadway production. It's a special pleasure hearing Vickery luxuriate over ambiguous lines such as, "Oh, Simba, you have no ideeeeeea."
Danny Rutigliano's winning, wise-guy meerkat, Timon, is a classic comic-relief character; as his malodorous sidekick, Pumbaa the warthog, Bob Bouchard has mastered a wealth of tricky costume manipulations.
The most effective comic portrayal, though, is William Akey's Zazu, a scruffy bird who acts as an advisor/aide to Mufasa and, reluctantly, to Scar. Akey best exemplifies the genius of Taymor's "double performance" approach. Sometimes you watch the actor; sometimes you watch the puppet he expertly manipulates. Soon, the two portrayals meld into something unique.
On a deeper aesthetic level, Akey's performance is emblematic of the magnitude of Taymor's achievement. An avant-garde theater artist has managed to marry her aesthetic vision to a wholly commercial enterprise without compromising, yet the result doesn't seem strange or forced. Her techniques are intrinsic to the story and we quickly accept them because, first and foremost, they serve the story, not vice versa.
More important, Taymor's art celebrates theater's unique transformative qualities. Unlike most big-production Broadway designers, Taymor doesn't try to ape cinematic effects or hide the process behind the product. She understands the power of making the audience an active part of the make-believe.
By showing us how an actor becomes a giraffe, or how ribbons of silk can be manipulated to become a stream or a sunrise, Taymor reminds us that theater is a quintessentially human art form. There is no technological marvel, no computer-generated feat of legerdemain, that can equal the sheer wonder of watching people create a convincing and complete universe out of mundane objects. It's a lesson that Disney -- and all of us -- should take deeply to heart.
John Vickery as Scar, and Rufus Bonds, Jr as Mufasa, in 'The Lion King.' PHOTO: JOAN MARCUS, LA Times
