www.broadwayworld.com: Based on the classic 1994 Disney animated film, "The Lion King" has been a hit around the world since its Broadway debut in 1997; it is now the third longest-running Broadway show in New York City. Played in over 100 cities in 19 countries, "The Lion King" ventures into its first international tour, which opened in Manila, Philippines, last month, with the tour's next stops to Singapore (June 2018), South Korea (November 2018), Taiwan, South Africa, and more countries to be announced.
3 comments:
This was a really interesting article. I don’t usually learn a lot about the costume world being in technical direction. It’s very refreshing to learn about all the tricks costumers use, and I especially love learning about puppet departments. Lion King is also one of my favorite Broadway musicals. I especially liked learning about how they have to do quick fixes on all the puppets every day, coming in two hours before each performance to fix anything that broke from the night before. With something that is used so much each performance it makes sense that there would be breaks, even during the performance. It’s not like the set which usually stays pretty together because the actors are just on it, not directly interacting and wearing it like they do with the puppets. It also adds an element of difficulty with the touring production beucsae they can’t bring as much in terms of spares so they have to know a lot about fixing the puppets.
This articles first intriguing point is about how puppets and actors represent the human side of animals (aka the emotions) and the physical side to animals (traveling in packs, movement). This is a different way of looking at puppets that I have never thought of before. The most jaw-dropping line of this article is that there area about 235 puppets in the show. It is incredible to know how much orchestration and mechanics of puppets goes into The Lion King. After reading about how the puppet team of The Lion King has such an extensive pre-show and post-show process/is always on call for repairs. I wonder if this is a normal job for a puppeteer working a show or is the puppet teams work so extensive because there are 235 puppets used. Along with this article being really cool, it shows the crossover between how puppets can be dealt with by props or costumes. The Lion King seems to have had a special designer just for the puppets but hearing about the fixes and how some puppets are worn as full body pieces, I can easily see why there is a grey line between who is responsible for puppets (props or costumes).
As a puppeteer myself, I salute the phenomenal work of puppetry in The Lion King. If War Horse and Angels in American showed me the subtleness that mechanics can bring to puppet performance, then The Lion King truly touched my heart with the "double event" technique. Grown up under the influence of Asian culture, I had the impression that puppeteers are always overshadowed by puppets on the stage. From Chinese shadow puppet to wayang puppet to bunraku, puppeteers pursuit the excellence in puppet operation and storytelling, trying to make audience only notice about the puppets. However, first it was Avenue Q that showed me the possibility of “double event;” and then The Lion King further extended my understanding of puppetry. So different from those in Asia, The Lion King uses a really effective and direct way to combine the souls of puppeteers and puppets. From my perspective, when the two parties compensate each other’s performance, it makes the tangle of illusion and reality better creates tension and a sense of mysterious on stage. Besides, I am also fond of the way Julie Taymor used shadow puppet to be the counterpart of the more realistic part on stage. Also I want to say, from the article and my own experience, I feel that a good prop master might be a good puppeteer, but a good puppeteer is definitely a good prop master.
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