THEATRE REVIEW OF The Lion King: the Song Remains the Same
By Dennis Wemm
THEATRE CRITIC
The Lion King - North American Tour
I got to do something amazing the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. My daughters had shown the original animated The Lion King to my five-year-old grandson, and then invited us to join them in Hartford, Connecticut, to watch the new tour of the Broadway production.
In 1994, our family went on a wandering vacation through Virginia and when people got bored we went to the movies. We saw the animated feature four times in ten days. And then we saw it over and over on VHS. And then the Broadway show opened in 1997 and blew the minds of the theatre world. Over 10,600 performances and 27 years later, it still runs in New York and other venues.
Of course I had seen it before, in the “aughts.” The integration of staging, story was amazing. A jaded musical theatre fan of my acquaintance saw the opening number and commented to his plus-one how he didn’t get the opening number. She told him to look around at the faces of the audience-rapt, engaged, mouthing the lyrics…and decided to launch himself into it. The show has a way of engaging the haters.
So, how to explain the thing to a hypothetical Martian who doesn’t know the story? Well, it’s something like Hamlet in the family relationships, regal fathers, jealous uncles, death, revenge and ecological salvation (well, maybe that part isn’t Hamlet). And everyone is hoist by their own petard.
Nala has significantly more sense than Ophelia. Timon and Pumbaa are really more entertaining than Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Zazu doesn’t need an English teacher to tell you why he’s a silly and not very wise counselor (unlike Polonius), etc. The hyenas are somehow more menacing when their rigid mask/costume faces never change expression.
In the staging, puppets are humanized and humans are puppetized. The action is a swirled-together melding of the possibilities of puppet and costume shapes performed by very human actors.
A savannah is portrayed by actors with grass on their heads, Rafiki becomes a Yoda who is in touch with the secret forces of the universe and a wicked sense of humor.
Lions have two faces, the human face sings and explains and the puppet mask hangs above their heads, a stoic reminder of their places in the Circle of Life. Birds wing through the air on fishing poles with no attempt to hide the strings.
Since the story is known to most of the audience in one way or another the play gets to “play” with audience expectations in new and surprising ways.
The songs are there, with additions. Nala sings “Shadowlands,” a lament for the Pridelands’s transformation into a new part of the barbaric wilderness-something that Mufasa would never have allowed and which Simba must restore. The lionesses hunt, the jungle comes alive with fairy-tale urgency when Simba and Nala’s relationship begins to spark. Mufasa’s ancestral face magically comes together from seemingly random parts of the night sky.
What does the new century bring to the script? Instead of the Easter egg of “It’s a Small World” we have an Easter egg of “Let it Go.” There are a few other topical references, but mostly the fable remains the same as it always has. Considering the image of “the path unwinding” in “Circle of Life,” it’s totally in line with the meaning of the show.
A 27-year run on Broadway (with a mandatory COVID break) is unprecedented, but so is the entire phenomenon of The Lion King in all its forms.
The Lion King comes to Baltimore on February 12, 2025, for three weeks. If you haven’t seen it, you most certainly should go.
Dennis Wemm is a retired professor of theatre and communication, having taught and led both departments at Glenville State College for 34 years. In his off time he was president and sometimes Executive Director of the West Virginia Theatre Conference, secretary and president of the Southeastern Theatre Conference, and generally enjoyed a life in theatre.
Local Obituaries
To view local obituaries or to send a note to family and loved ones, please visit the link that follows.
Support Award-winning, Locally Focused Journalism
The FXBG Advance cuts through the talking points to deliver both incisive and informative news about the issues, people, and organizations that daily affect your life. And we do it in a multi-partisan format that has no equal in this region. Over the past year, our reporting was:
First to break the story of Stafford Board of Supervisors dismissing a citizen library board member for “misconduct,” without informing the citizen or explaining what the person allegedly did wrong.
First to explain falling water levels in the Rappahannock Canal.
First to detail controversial traffic numbers submitted by Stafford staff on the Buc-ee’s project
Our media group also offers the most-extensive election coverage in the region and regular columnists like:
And our newsroom is led by the most-experienced and most-awarded journalists in the region — Adele Uphaus (Managing Editor and multiple VPA award-winner) and Martin Davis (Editor-in-Chief, 2022 Opinion Writer of the Year in Virginia and more than 25 years reporting from around the country and the world).
For just $8 a month, you can help support top-flight journalism that puts people over policies.
Your contributions 100% support our journalists.
Help us as we continue to grow!
