‘Lion King’ director Taymor explains show’s enduring appeal
Julie Taymor doesn’t have to do interviews about her Broadway-musical blockbuster “The Lion King” anymore. But she’s eager to, even though it’s been a while.
The inventive director melded masks, puppetry, costumes and theater history to transport the beloved Disney movie to the stage ahead of its 1997 premiere. Taymor won a Tony Award for Best Costumes and became the first woman to win a Tony for Best Direction of a Musical — among six Tonys for “The Lion King,” including Best Musical.
In Year 27, “The Lion King” remains a massive draw on Broadway and the road. How big? More than 110 million people have visited Pride Rock, as the musical has toured every continent save Antarctica. (The penguins aren’t interested in the show, Taymor quipped. “They’ve had their own movies.”)
And now “The Lion King” is returning to Charlotte for its longest run yet: a month’s worth of performances at Blumenthal Arts’ Belk Theater, from Aug. 8-Sept. 8.
In an exclusive interview, Taymor recently spoke with The Charlotte Observer by Zoom.
Ask Taymor the secret of the show’s longevity, and she allows, “It’s all the elements together. The story, the music, visuals, the unusual performances.” The combination of puppetry, masks and an elemental story that resonates across cultures and beliefs also serve as strengths.
“I think probably no one’s ever seen anything like it — and they still haven’t,” Taymor said. “So on that level, it’s still fresh and original.”
But where does the originality stem from?
CREATING A STAMPEDE OF THE WILDEBEESTS
Start with Taymor and her eclectic background. She’s studied mime in France, developed a mask and dance company in Indonesia, directed opera, theater and films, and received a MacArthur “genius grant.”
In addition to directing “The Lion King,” she designed the show’s costumes, co-designed the masks and puppets, and provided additional lyrics. (The music is from Elton John with lyrics by Tim Rice. Additional music and lyrics came from several others, notably South African composer Lebo M. More on him in a minute.)
What first caught Taymor’s interest in the show was the wildebeest stampede.
It’s a visually stunning moment in the 1994 film, one that leads to the death of Mufasa, the lion king himself. To Taymor, the challenge of translating that moment to the stage proved irresistible and fun.
The solution involved forced perspective, a technique more common in 18th-century theater. Working with set designer Richard Hudson, they came up with cutouts of little wildebeests on a system of rollers that makes it appear as though they’re running at the audience. In front are female dancers,
each with two heads of wildebeests, doubling the number of the animals.
Then there’s the stamping of the stampede, rhythmic choreography abetted by drums.
THE MECHANICS AND THE POETRY OF ‘THE LION KING’
That stampede also highlights another critical aspect of the musical: showing the artists behind the puppets, and not trying to hide them.
That also happens with the gazelle wheel, where one of the dancers pushes a type of wheelbarrow on bicycle wheels with flat gazelles moving up and down. It looks like they’re leaping, but you also see the dancer making them move.
Taymor calls this a “double event.” Understanding that is key to understanding the success of “The Lion King.” The audience is aware of the person pushing them on stage. That’s the point.
The mechanism is part of the poetry of the story, Taymor said, where how you choose to tell that story is as important as the story itself.
Such duality is omnipresent as the actors stream down the aisle in the opening number, “Circle of Life.” You’re meant to see the legs of the actors who are elephants, or the faces with masks of giraffes on their heads as their hands manipulate their stilts.
Same goes for the bamboo sticks, sting and silk of the savanna sunrise. “We use our imagination to fill in the blanks,” Taymor said.
“A person is pushing the gazelle wheel. And yet, I see the gazelles leaping in the savanna. Human beings are capable of taking in more than one literal image,” she said. “The poetry of live theater is seeing how it’s done. The artistry is the poetry is the spirituality. And that’s what happens here.” Interlude One
The Charlotte Observer: You said there are some aspects of the show that you don’t love. I’m curious what you’re referring to.
Julie Taymor: (Laughs.) No, I won’t say that. We’re trying to sell a show, aren’t we?
TCO: Oh yes, it needs all the help it can get.
JT: C’mon. I’m not gonna say that. Because even things that weren’t my favorite, they are other people’s favorite. And I’m fine about that. I made everything in the show up to the standards that I could and I’m very pleased about that.
AN INTERNATIONAL SHOW
Taymor had a couple more points she wanted to make about the musical.
First, “The Lion King” is not a children’s show. “I don’t do children’s theater,” she said, emphatically. Rather, it’s accessible on different levels and for all ages.
At its core, Taymor said, “The Lion King” is a prodigal son story — the child (Simba) who has to leave and go through a dark experience before he can return and assume the mantle of leadership. “It’s a very simple story. It’s a hero’s journey,” Taymor said. “This is something that every single culture in the world understands.”
And yet, when it launched a pre-Broadway tryout in Minneapolis in 1997, she recalled the reactions of Black audience members seeing so many people who looked like them on stage. “To actually have that kind of representation on stage was a real first.
“But for white people it didn’t matter at all. For Black people, the specificity of race was huge. The beauty of what was inspired by Africa was huge.”
What’s more, Taymor ensured there’d be at least a half dozen or so South Africans in the cast. Part of that was due to the different styles of singing tradition between African Americans and Africans.
“So my push on this, and I was very pushy, was to make the South African part of it an integral part of ‘The Lion King’ presentation,” she said. “There is an authenticity and a style that they bring. And also, in my book, why not? Why not see the presence of other cultures?
“This is an international show. It’s not an American show.”
The creative team — including Taymor (America), choreographer Garth Fagan (Jamaica) and John (the U.K.) — is also an international mix. John contributed some of the show’s most iconic songs, including “Circle of Life” and “Can You Feel The Love Tonight.” But Taymor said it’s composer Lebo M., the South African,
who provided the spiritual underpinning in songs like “They Live in You” and “Shadowland.”
“Without Lebo M., you have no ‘Lion King,’” Taymor said.
Interlude Two
JT: For the first time, 27 years ago we saw an entire Broadway show that was populated by 90% African or Africa-based (actors.) But it wasn’t about race. Or racism. And it wasn’t because animals in Africa are Black people. Let’s just be clear about that. Animals have no race.
TCO: Yeah. They’re animals.
JT: They’re gray, they’re brown, they’re purple. But the beauty of it is that people went to ‘The Lion King’ for the joy of the story and the performances, not about the identity politics or the racial politics. This is still unique. I have to say that I thought by this time, that wouldn’t be quite the main issue. But it still is.
THE RETURN FROM COVID
In August 2021, Disney captured on video the Broadway company of “The Lion King” during their first rehearsal back from COVID. In the video that’s been viewed more than 1.8 million times, a visibly emotional Taymor addressed the cast ahead of them launching into the “Circle of Life. opening.
Audiences are blown away by it, she said, “because they’re surrounded by beauty. You see the (theater-goers) and they don’t know why, but they cry. But it’s the sound, it’s the beauty. It’s the reality of what the power of theater is.”
When asked about that moment, Taylor called it a time of healing for the company, too. One of the cast members nearly died from COVID; others had lost people close to them in the pandemic.
Everyone, she said, was getting emotional in that rehearsal room. Over the fact that they, and the rest of the world, had gone to rock bottom but then returned. “It was the circle of life.”
Interlude Three TCO: So how long can the show run? I mean, even “Phantom of the Opera” closed. (Last year, it ended a record 35-year run.)
JT: As long as Disney’s running, let’s just put it that way. It’s about keeping it on a high level, maintaining it and putting out companies. How long can it run on Broadway? I don’t know. As long as it’s really well done. If it starts getting tired and people aren’t interested, then it’ll die.
I think this is like any kind of ritual. I mean, the Passover story. We tell it over and over again how many years? Christmas. We’re really getting tired of that Jesus nativity story, right? (The show) is on the level of myth. Therefore the story isn’t relegated to a certain country, a certain time, a certain people.
It’s about being human. It’s what we do, put our human stories into animal fables.
WHAT’S NEXT FOR JULIE TAYMOR
Taymor just finished editing the London workshop video for a new musical she’s working on with her longtime partner, Oscar-winning composer Elliot Goldenthal. That Oscar, by the way, was for the score for “Frida,” a movie about Mexican artist Frida Kahlo that Taymor directed.
The new musical is called “The Grand Delusion,” which Taymor described as a “comic demonic, whatever that is.”
It’s a heartfelt mythic love triangle, it’s a transnational story involving India and the West, it’s about identity issues involving body and mind. “It’s surreal and whacked out and horror and social and sexy, all rolled into one,” Taymor said. “It’s not necessarily a Disney show.”
But all you need to know about the current economics of Broadway is that even Taymor needs to hustle for funding from producers.
Finally, Taymor really wants to make a movie musical out of “The Lion King.” Not a pro-shot, where cameras film the show on stage, as “Hamilton” and “Waitress” did.
No. Taymor wants to shoot it in real-world locations, then stylize it and turn it into “a big-ass movie musical.”
The Finale
TCO: We’ve ranged around quite a lot. Anything else you want to add?
JT: I have to say, I haven’t talked about “The Lion King” in a long time. You kind of got an interview that was fresh in a way because I hadn’t spoken about it. And so, you know, it brings me to other places because of where we are right now. In the theater. As a culture...
Like what’s going on? Are we going to the hyenas? (Laughs.) Or the lions? And I would say — the lions.
Adam Bell: 704-358-5696, @abell