Disney Musicals

The Lion King Musical – Report

Julie Taymor’s Musical adaptation of the Disney classic ‘The Lion King’ especially appealed to me as I had seen this production in London’s West End as a child. Taymor’s unique approach to the classic film is still fresh and dazzling to me after seeing it once many years ago. For that reason I decided to concentrate on the physicality of the play and also the way it was transformed rather than merely adapted. The main points covered were the rise of strong dominant female characters in Nala and the change of Rafiki’s gender, the idea of a “double event ” in which the magic of the theatre could be seen in the process rather than just a finished product, different techniques from theatres around the world in relation to costume, puppetry, masks and even the characters voices and finally the unusual stage setting; scenery back drops and props. For the purpose of this report I intend to first revisit and expand upon the culmination of cultural, theatrical traditions and practices, and secondly the separation made noticeable between the film and the on stage production as the theatrical production had to be a lot longer and Taymor wished to alter and add certain elements to produce a deeper narrative.

Julie Taymor spent many years in Japan, Indonesia, Africa and Paris where she became exposed to many different theatrical approaches, from the Japanese Banraku puppetry to the Wayung Kulit shadow puppetry used in Indonesian theatre to the use of masks in African society to the physicalities of Parisian mime. All of these different elements can be seen in any one of Taymor’s plays, possibly most obviously within ‘The Lion King Musical’. The most striking aspect of cultural influence within the production is the spectacular array of puppets. Taymor uses many banraku style puppets for which several puppeteers are required; the main one is visible to the audience creating a duality which is continued throughout many different aspects of...