SAN DIEGO — The Lion King animated movie of 1994 probably has one of the most famous scores out there with original music written by Elton John and Tim Rice. The Broadway production of the show uses most of the same songs, with a few new ones thrown in for good measure. For the most part, the storyline follows the movie pretty closely. It’s hard to compare live-action to animation, and even harder to create an entire world filled with animals on a small stage, but the Broadway show at the San Diego Civic Theatre manages to do just that. Using a combination of full-body puppet suits, masks, multi-person costumes, and creative use of screens and scrims the company was able to turn actors into wonderous animal characters.
Many of the actors seemed to play their characters very much like the original characters in the movie. So much so that I wasn’t sure if Tony Freeman, the actor who played Timon the meerkat was playing the character as Jewish/ Italian New Yorker, if he himself is a Jewish/ Italian New Yorker, or if he was trying to play him like original actor Nathan Lane who though Catholic grew up in New Jersey and I always thought was a fellow Jew. Other than wondering about Freeman’s heritage, there wasn’t much Yiddishkeit in this show, which makes sense as it’s set in Africa.
The puppetry did remind me of being a kid growing up at Temple Emanu El here in San Diego. Once a month rabbi Marty Lawson would do a puppet show for family Shabbat, teaching a Midrash or the weekly parasha. Though the puppetry for this six-time Tony award-winning musical was far more sophisticated, it did transport me back to that time.
This isn’t the first time the show has been in San Diego either, I remember seeing it when my oldest son was young. The Broadway show launched in 1997, and the North American touring show in 2002. I can’t remember exactly what year I saw it first, but it was somewhere around there.
I think that when a show has as much success as the original movie did, it’s really hard for the actors to either fill the huge shoes left by the original actors, or to make the characters their own. While actors Gerald Ramsey and Darian Sanders did a fine job as Mufasa and Simba respectively, it’s hard not to want to hear James Earl Jones as Mufasa, or Matthew Broderick as Simba. The stand-out actors were Timon and Pumba (played by Tony Freeman and John E Brady), the three hyenas (played by Martina Sykes, Forest VanDyke, and Robbie Swift), and Rafiki the medicine woman baboon (played by Gugwana Dlamini, who also added some powerful African vocals and can be heard on the original movie soundtrack as well). Judging by the audience’s roars at curtain call, there was consensus on these stand-out performances.
The cast is one of the largest for a touring show, cast, and crew combined are 140 members! I imagine that it must be really crowded backstage with such a large company. For this reason, and because the show is set in the African savanna, the sets are really simple, mostly making use of drop-down screens, people dressed as plants, inflatables, and only a couple of large pieces that are brought on and off the stage to represent pride rock. The costumes, sets, and choreography are simply stunning. They make use of the entire theatre, with characters in two rows streaming in from the back of the theatre and also on the balcony.
Though there were some minor audio issues with some of the levels sounding a little off, it was otherwise a thoroughly enjoyable show and highly recommended for the whole family- young and old alike. The show runs through September 11.
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Sandi Masori is the food and theatre reviewer for San Diego Jewish World. When she’s not seeing plays or trying out new restaurants, she enjoys traveling, spending time with her two sons and exploring culture.
Sandi, thank you so much for your thorough review. I also found the play to keep very close to the movie and was enthralled by the costumes and choreography. I do wish the audio had been less muddy, but hey, Hakuna Matata!