Undisputed ‘King’

The national phenomenon that is “The Lion King” overwhelms, first of all, through its sheer size.

A fleet of semitrucks – 22, to be exact – will pull up this week to the Spokane Opera House to load in this national touring smash.

All of the show’s numbers are large:

• 700 stage lights.

• 53 cast members.

• 21 musicians.

• 200 puppets, many of them life-size.

• 80 locally hired stagehands.

•Hundreds of feet of new Opera House aisles, specially created to accommodate the show’s famous opening procession.

• A six-week, 46-performance run.

The latter number qualifies “The Lion King” as the biggest theatrical event in Spokane’s history, by sheer length and attendance (see related story on page D10). It will surpass the Spokane run of “Phantom of the Opera” in 2000 by two weeks.

And what about special effects? Are they bigger than those of, for instance, “Les Miserables”?

“Oh, it’s much more complicated than ‘Les Miz,’ ” technical director David Benken, who was also the “Les Miz” technical director, said by phone from New York. “When it came right down to it, ‘Les Miz’ had four or five big effects. ‘The Lion King’ has over 60 effects.”

Yet sheer size is not the key to the phenomenon that is “The Lion King.” It turns on something more abstract: the creativity of Julie Taymor, the show’s director, costume designer, and mask and puppet co-designer.

Taymor, known as an avant-garde director, wanted to create something “wild and fabulous,” according to choreographer Garth Fagan. During the show’s first preview, in Minneapolis, it was obvious that she had achieved it.

“The first number was ‘The Circle of Life,’ where we have all the animals dancing on stage,” said Fagan, by phone from New York. “After that number, the place went wild. There was such a roar, and such a noise and so much whistling and stomping.

“It was a showstopper – and at the beginning of a show. Nobody had ever heard of that before. And then, the applause just kept going and going and the standing ovation at the end just wouldn’t stop.”

The same thing happened when the show opened on Broadway in November 1997. Even New York Times critic Vincent Canby gushed like a happy kid: “One of the most memorable, moving and original theatrical extravaganzas in years.”

And all of this for a project which was at one time dismissed as merely a vehicle for Disney to milk more dollars out of its hit 1994 animated movie. Yet according to Canby, Taymor managed to tell the story “with a sophistication that has little to do with the usual Disney cuteness.”

In addition to its popular success, it practically swept the Tony Awards and most of the critics’ awards.

For Spokane, the most eyebrow-raising statistic isn’t about the show’s size. It’s about the smallness of the Spokane market.

“We are, by far, the smallest market that ‘The Lion King’ has ever played,” said Jack Lucas of WestCoast Entertainment, the Spokane entity which presents the Best of Broadway series at the Opera House.

For instance, this “Lion King” company has recently played San Diego, Philadelphia and Portland, among others. Spokane, with a city-limits population of around 200,000, will be trying to sell about 120,000 tickets.

“All of the New York agents think of Spokane as the little city that can,” said Lucas. “Not ‘could.’ Can.”

For one thing, the market extends into a huge Western region which includes Montana and big chunks of Canada. You’ll find plenty of “Lion King” billboards in Missoula.

Lucas said Spokane earned its reputation after it sold out multiple tours of “Les Miz” in the 1990s. The reputation was further cemented by “Phantom,” which sold every one of its 82,500 tickets. More than 40 tour buses, some from as far away as South Dakota, were lined up at one single performance of “Phantom.”

“The Lion King” is not yet sold out, but the people at WestCoast are confident that it will sell out, or at least come close, as soon as the show opens and word-of-mouth takes over.

In one important way, “The Lion King” has a big marketing advantage over “Phantom.” People don’t just buy only two tickets; they buy four or five and bring the kids or grandkids. The show has a built-in audience of kids who have memorized the DVD of the animated movie.

The show retains many of the movie’s elements: the music by Elton John, Tim Rice and Lebo M; the vivid characters, including Simba the lion, Scar, his evil uncle and Timon the meerkat; the themes of unity and continuity; and the basic plot, in which Simba finds redemption and returns to reign over Pride Rock.

Yet Taymor attempts to transcend the film version in many ways, partly through the use of ancient African mask and Japanese Bunraku puppetry techniques, as well as through innovative dance.

Fagan, a well-known dance innovator from Jamaica, originally thought that transferring the movie to the stage was hopeless.

“I thought, ‘Hell, no,’ ” he said, with a laugh. “It was impossible. The Stampede, for instance – what are you going to do with that?”

But once he talked to Taymor about her vision, the more excited he became.

“Julie wanted the duality of the animals and the people – she wanted the person always in view,” he said.

“If she had just wanted the animal, we could have done that in a traditional fur suit. But she wanted the lionesses, for instance, to have lions’ heads and claws, but they are actually very sensual women in silks and in straw. So I used both of those ideas. The lioness, she’s going to kill and eat me, but, whoo, she’s fine.”

Other challenges were more abstract. For instance, Fagan was charged with having dancers represent, of all things, the grassland.

“The human body is so beautiful, and you can get the body to sway,” said Fagan. “You get these lovely specimens, and on top of their heads, you have these trays of grass, which echo their movement.”

Technical director Benken had his work cut out for him as well. For Broadway, he had to create a Pride Rock which rises dramatically through the stage floor. That proved to be impossible in the touring shows – some theaters don’t even have basements. So he had to create an even more complicated version which arrives from offstage.

“This Pride Rock can travel in a straight line, and go in circles, and turn corners, and collapse in the wings,” said Benken. “You miss the effect of it coming out of the floor, but we can do things with it on tour we can’t do in New York.”

Benken said there was one other element they considered dropping on tour. That was the opening procession, in which the animals march down the aisles of the Broadway theater. Many theaters, including the Spokane Opera House, don’t even have aisles, except on the sides.

“We tried it once, using the side aisles,” said Benken. “It just didn’t have the impact of coming through the audience. Everybody kind of decided, it’s such a big moment, no matter what it costs, it’s worth doing.”

So “The Lion King” has already sent a crew to the Opera House to take out seats and create two new aisles to left and right of center. Those seats will be restored after the run.

The show has been going strong on Broadway for eight years – tickets are still tough to come by on weekends – and it remains a career pinnacle for many of the people associated with it.

“Besides winning the Tony and Olivier (London theater) awards, thank God, I got every award possible,” said Fagan, who is celebrating the 35th anniversary of his own innovative dance troupe.

“I’ve been asked to do other Broadway musical projects, but I want to do something as special as ‘The Lion King.’ I’m holding out for that.”