![]() I’ve also fought hard when adapting those original songs to honour the level of depravity that was present in a lot of songs at the time - I hate the white-washing of the past, the idea that it was a world of white picket fences and homogenous family-friendliness, and hope I’ve managed to walk the line between celebrating ribaldry and excising any of the morally offensive gubbins that can lurk in the corners of some vintage material. ![]() When they have remained largely or wholly the same in just the chorus, then I’ve always tried to bring a fresh perspective to the song in the verses. Of course, the ones I’ve not changed at all, I’ve not transcribed here. Most of them are completely original, a few have kept some lyrics from the original numbers – as nearly all our songs are adaptations of material from the 1920s and 1930s, and some have melodies so famous that changing the chorus would jar on the ear. These are all the ones for the Devil’s Jukebox. Whether this just comes randomly, or I’m making myself do it in a room full of musicians hungry for some kind of structure.Ĭonsequently, I’ve written a lot of song lyrics down the years.Ī great pile I’ve had to spend some hours rewriting, tweaking- once I’ve started singing and the true testing begins. To portray the wind, their open, basketlike costumes swirl and spiral.The words pouring out of me at an alarming rate. To portray the savanna, a procession of cast members balancing large flat boxes of tall grass on their heads fill the stage. ![]() The pack of hyenas, with their bobbleheads and bristly undulating spines, are sinister and scary. The way Taymor represents all manner of animals is at once fantastic and charming. Only clothing of leather, beads and patterned fabric suggests their animal bodies. The lions' masks only partially conceal the faces of the human men and boy who wear them, and with a clever mechanical trick can be moved above their heads and out of the way. There's an intriguing anthropromorphic aspect, too. There's not much to it, but it has mythical dimensions to which children and inner children can relate. (Taymor's staff went to Kenya to watch real animals move.)Īnd then we settle down to the business of the plot, a "Hamlet"-like royal succession tale involving a loving lion patriarch, Mufasa his fiesty little son, Simba and the son's menacing uncle, Scar, who conspires to be king. Some are puppets (there are more than 200 in the show), some are kites, and others have people inside. The pachyderm passed safely, however, and climbed on stage to join an extravaganza of sweeping birds, leaping gazelles and towering giraffes. That's what you see in Hartford.Īs a life-size elephant, mobilized by four actors, lumbered from the rear, I warned my seatmate on the aisle about a close encounter of "The Lion King" kind: If he didn't move his head a bit, one of the beast's 2-foot tusks might snag his outer ear. Made the Broadway version a glorious celebration of Africa with an all-black cast authentic African song, dance and percussion and animals without end. The 1994 Disney movie that the musical was based on is set in a foreign land with no specific ethnicity, but director-designer Mesmerizing music and super-imaginative animals and images come at you from the right, from the left, from the balcony, from the back of the room. (To say nothing of a top ticket price of $80.) You wait patiently for the curtain, checking out collections of native drums on either side of the stage.Īnd then, "The Lion King" explodes like a fireworks show - with small bursts of sight and sound becoming layer upon layer of spectacle.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |