Anyone see The Lion King when it was still in its prime? — Page 2

Very interesting. Super high expectation is so often a buzzkill. The number of times that I have been disappointed by ridiculously high expectations...stupid.

Ironically, in many cases, I was major disappointed...only to end up loving the show after seeing it again, with lessened expectation. I have also found that I definitely enjoy certain shows if I am already familiar with the score, because I do not always appreciate their excellence the first time, e.g., Company, A Little Night Music, Candide, Light in the Piazza, so I either have to wait until i have heard the score or adjust my expectation to reflect my personal deficiency.

I saw The Lion King national tour back in 2005. They were still running 2 US companies, so I would still consider it to be in it's prime during that time. I'm from Oregon, so when it was announced The Lion King would be playing a 7 week engagement in Portland, the entire state went haywire. The entire run sold out in hours 7 months in advance. I don't know what it was about the show, but it was absolutely electrifying. The touring cast was solid. The orchestra was crisp. And the entire set, including the raked automated deck, was innovative. It was indeed a special time inside that theatre, and I had never experienced anything like it before. However, in recent years, it's gone from an innovative time of Theatre to a commercial palooza.

I saw it in February 1999 (my first Broadway show ever) at the New Amsterdam and I couldn't have asked for a better experience. With this exception of Tsidii Le Loka as Rafiki, it was all the original cast which was a huge boon for me. It made me want to continue seeing shows, and I'll always be grateful for that.

I saw the original cast on Broadway and with the exception of the hyena numbers, I thought it was gorgeous, inventive and thrilling. I also saw the original cast of Ragtime and as much as I love the score, I really didn't care for the Broadway production. The staging and choreography left me confused and cold. It was so schizophrenic, constantly shifting from spectacle to minimalist with a lot of unnecessary dead space on that vast empty stage. I was very happy to hear the score sung live, but it was bittersweet as the show stumbled along from start to finish. It was just bizarre. Years later, I saw a small regional production of Ragtime in Chicago that did far more justice to the piece, but still could not overcome some of the more fleeting and problematic book moments (such as the riot before Gliding).

I thought the Tonys played out exactly right that year and Ragtime's win for Best Book being something of a consolation given that I thought the book was as inconsistent as the staging (though I admit I had just read the novel prior to seeing the show, so I had a fresh take on the original story and narrative style).

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Updated On: 8/11/14 at 09:48 AM

I wasn't long out of college when I saw Lion King, so my response to it was very much shaded by some of the work I did in school...specifically mask work. I had taken a class in the South Korean mask drama known as Ha Hoe (God...this is sounding douchier than I intended). It was very primitive and, I thought, terribly silly, until the day we made our presentation to the department. It ended up being so well received and people were really moved by the work. I kind of got over my snobbishness when I saw the power of that kind of drama. A lot of what I ended up responding to in that class is what I responded to in The Lion King. It was a deeply personal and involving experience informed by some of the work I had done just a few years earlier. Had I not taken that class, I may have had a very different response to the show.

As for RAGTIME, I think it has the best first act of any show written in the last 25 years. And then the second act happens. It cannot settle on a tone, it cannot reconcile the fact that the hero becomes and anti-hero and that Wheels of a Dream ending leaves a terrible, terrible taste in my mouth. I felt it during the original production as well as the revival.

I guess I saw it before "its prime," whenever that was. I saw it a couple of times when it was trying out in Minneapolis. "Circle of Life" was already stunning -- in fact, it was stunning at the press preview, when it was all they showed -- and, although Taymor did eliminate some of the worst stuff (I forget: Is the dance number with the squares of Astroturf on the dancers' heads still in it?), it was then pretty much the mishmash it is now.

I love when the marimba music starts and they rise out of the stage floor.

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Hilarious that the "Anyone see The Lion King when it was still in its prime?" thread immediately became the "Anyone want to kvetch and complain about what a crappy show The Lion King is?" thread. Shoulda seen that coming, I suppose. For me, it was a transformative experience. The giraffe walked onstage, I burst into tears and I was enraptured for the next two and a half hours. Some people just WANT not to like things, especially when they're popular. Oh, well, let them see "If/Then" for the hundredth time...

Hilarious that the "Anyone see The Lion King when it was still in its prime?" thread immediately became the "Anyone want to kvetch and complain about what a crappy show The Lion King is?" thread. Shoulda seen that coming, I suppose.

The OP asked: "Was it remarkable then? Did you really believe it earned the Tony for Best Musical?" I believe that was a solicitation for any opinions, not strictly praise.

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Updated On: 8/11/14 at 03:27 PM

I saw the original Broadway cast at the New Amsterdam right after it won (I went with a group) and it was fantastic-I'd never seen anything like it (I think my heart skipped a beat during "Circle of Life" and I loved "They Live In You" as well as Simba's act 2 solo "Endless Night"). I saw it on tour-and still loved it (that was early in the tour).

The Lion King was a gamechanger for Disney, Beauty and the Beast was successful but it's a fairly straight forward adaptation of the film but The Lion King film was seen as impossible to translate to the stage as it was quite cinematic in its storytelling, featured no humans and was fairly short and critics were expecting it to be similar to Beauty and just be actors dressed in silly costumes but the hiring of Julie Taymor as director and designer was made it different from the previous show.

Lion King is one of the few shows which on paper shouldn't work but does, Cats, Les Mis and to a lesser extent Phantom fall into this catergory

"Hilarious that the "Anyone see The Lion King when it was still in its prime?" thread immediately became the "Anyone want to kvetch and complain about what a crappy show The Lion King is?" thread. "

The title alone implies the show is no longer in its prime, so that trajectory was pretty well mapped out from the get-go.

best12bars - that was a wonderful story. Thanks for sharing.
I have never seen this on Broadway during any of my visits to New York though I have seen it here in Australia. I actually took my mother to see it this past weekend as a belated mother's day gift.
The opening sequence is amazing as most others on here have mentioned. It does seem to climax and never quite hits those highs again but I also think there are other great moments in the show. I like the overall message about believing in oneself and having faith that we are not alone. 'He lives in you' often manages to bring a tear to my eye.
I think the show could still benefit from another 15 minutes being cut. One song should be enough for Scar.
One new touch I enjoyed was at the beginning of Act two when Zazu is singing and Scar asks him to sing another song and he sings 'Let it go... let it gooooooooo' and Scar goes 'ANYTHING but THAT!!!!!'
I am a repeat attender and love seeing shows again. I have seen LK four times over ten years and now feel like I never need to see this one again. That box has been well and truly checked.

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