Issue #43
Last Update December 24, 2005
Arts Stage vs Screen III by Gert Innsry April 18, 2005 In previous issues we have explored the results of taking a movie and remaking it for the live stage. This is the reverse of what used to be the standard practise, taking a successful play and remaking it as a movie. In Stage vs Screen (November 2001) the conversion of a near-perfect movie to a Broadway musical was judged a resounding success, despite Matthew Broderic's weak performance. In Debbie Does Dallas (January 2003) the conversion of a porn classic to a lighthearted, non-porn off-Broadway musical was also praised. Today we contrast the Disney Lion King cartoon feature with the long-running Broadway musical based upon it.
The movie, like all Disney cartoons, was technically excellent and enjoyable for children, but it was fundamentally vapid. The Broadway musical is an extravaganza for the entire family, featuring clever sets, amazing puppetry and masks, excellent singing and acting, and, for a wonder, sound amplification that didn't hurt the ears or lose too much directionality.
The sets represented various African landscapes, including veldt, a river valley, and a promontory from which the Lion King could view the massed throngs of animals of all species. Rising out of the stage, or making clever use of traps and elevators, the scenery components rose, fell or revolved as dictated by the needs of the plot.
Most gripping was the way in which the actors performed as animals. All the animal costumes involved stick puppetry in one way or another. In the very first scene, all of the animals poured down the aisles to the stage, where the Lion King's father, on the promontory, was to president his infant son to the throng as his successor. Giraffes were people in giraffe costumes bent over and manipulating forelegs longer than the actors' own legs, producing that peculiar canted appearance that real giraffes have. The long giraffe neck and head rose up from the top of the actors' heads, which remained visible. A magnificent elephant, operated by four people, and rhino, operated by two, awed the audience.
Impressive, too, was the way in which the human and animal natures of the characters were integrated. The key characters had animal masks perched on top of their human heads. During confrontations, these masks swivelled down over the human faces, utterly transforming the actors and heightening their ferocity.
Some animals, those not playing speaking parts, such as flocks of birds or herds of antelope, were entirely stick puppets, the birds flown around the auditorium in great profusion, the antelopes bounding on half-rounds that mimicked the proinking and stotting of various veldt antelopes.
Music, of course, was a key element of the show. There were a number of completely forgettable ballads, but these were mercifully overshadowed by songs and dances with a South African flavor, which were exciting to hear and see. A few of these were in the movie; the Broadway show has many more, and they make the show the stunning success that it is.
The heroes of the evening were Richard Hudson (scenic design), Julie Taymor (costume design and mask and puppet design), Michael Curry (mask and puppet design), Lebo M (music) and Garth Fagan (choreography). Julie Taymor, who directed, deserves great credit for moving away from the cartoon and toward a spectacle with life, charm and originality.
Translating a work from stage to screen often requires it to be rethought for the different medium, one which is at the same time more intimate and more expansive. Translating a work from screen to stage also involves a rethinking if it is not to seem cramped and stilted. The Lion King's translation is not only successful, it is a vast improvement on the movie.
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