Friday, November 02, 2007
Paris Theatre Welcomes Broadway's 'Lion King'
NPR: "On any night of the week, theatre-goers in Paris can choose between dozens of productions of the French classics, French farce or French operetta. What they rarely see are musicals from America or Britain. But that's changing. The French version of The Lion King has started a run in Paris."
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6 comments:
This broadcast just goes toshow that anything can be sold to the right market. Translating The Lion King to french sounds as bizzare as A Chorus Line in chinese, but it seems that both of these examples have suceeded.
In my opinion, telling a universal story can be accepted by everyone around the world, and it is the job of the storyteller to find the 'way in' to a certain society. In the case of the Lion king, perhaps it is just the language barrier that needs to be broken, because the story is told through animals.
I certainly hope that this enormous investment pulls through, and by the audio clips from some patrons, it sounds sucessful.
One thing that interested me in this article was not only the fact that The Lion King, a big hit here in America, but that Paris can enjoy it aswell. I think that at times we forget that there is theatre outside of Broadway and that other cultures have thier own style of theatre. I think it would be great if Broadway was introduced with other cultures plays. Almost have Broadway have running cultural shows. It would be a way to get in touch with other culutres, besides hearing about them on the World News.
I think that every time I've seen something from another country it's something inspired by us. Producer don't want to run the risk of bringing something over that doesn't have some gaurenteed success. Cirque', Poppins, Equus, they all have something to do with our marcket but they run under this foregin guise
Lion King in French sounds as awkward as Jesus Christ Superstar in Kabuki version, well, that's another story.. French musicals have always been associated with its theatrical aestheticism. I wish more producers in the Broadways is bold enough to take risks to get those musicals licensed and have them on. Well, they would have to do it before December 1, though..
That's awesome! It is really cool that a story like this can bridge cultures as well as it has. It just goes to show the power of a good story can really bring people together so easily. My only question is does it still rhyme.
I think this is really interesting though "bizarre" as others put it. I think that the most important part isn't really the translation of text but the relaying of the message in another "language." I would love to see each production back to back and compare what I drew from the design and staging as opposed to the language itself.
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