He bought me the tickets for my birthday but it was all booked out until February, and even still, Capitol Theatre was packed!
I've never been in Capitol Theatre before but it's so beautiful! The statues and artwork around it is incredible and the ceiling is painted this mesmerising blue that you can't help but think it's the sky. The randomly placed light bulbs don't help either, since they look like the stars in the night sky we never see.
The show was about 2.5 hours long with a 20 minute intermission in the middle. We were sitting in Row P, which I was afraid would mean we wouldn't be able to see much, but it was still an amazing view.
Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take photos of the musical (as expected), so here are some photos I got off Google and some photos that are from my $25 program book.
Best song (including the original movie songs and the newly added musical songs): Circle of Life
Firstly, it's hard to not make sure that it's the best song of the musical, since it's easily one of Disney's best songs in general. Secondly, it was the opening of the entire musical, so I didn't really know what to expect, and when the antelope dancers came in and the giraffes on the left walked through it was just amazing! And when these giant costumed elephants started walking down the aisles of the crowd, it was such a magnificent sight. The costumes were done so creatively to expose the artistic values of both the humans and the creatures they were playing. Thirdly, when Pride Rock came through, it was magnificent. They really took the original movie imagery and turned it into this amazing and towering staircase that (I have no idea how) managed to move around the stage in a circle. Fourthly, I love choirs! The choir for this musical was stunning and they had all these native African singers performing, it was beautiful.
Best props: Staircases
I couldn't really find many good pictures for the Prise Rock staircase, but you can sort of see the front of it in the Circle of Life picture. Here's a picture of it's side:
It was really cool because they curved it around this circle on the floor, and it looked so much more spectacular on stage.
Scar's elephant graveyard staircase was amazing too:
Best costumes: Scar and Mufasa's masks and the Hyenas
I really loved Scar and Mufasa's lion masks because they were so clever.
When they are just standing upright, the mask looks like a crown on top of their heads:
But then when they bend low to attack or threaten someone else, their mask drops down to add to the fierceness:
The hyena costumes were also amazingly clever, because the way they did it really helped bring out the ugliness of the hyenas.
The performers had their head as the hyena's hunches, with a mane on top connecting to the actual hyena face, while the hyena's front legs were sticks that the performers used as walking canes.
I guess you can't really tell in that photo because it's quite dark, but from far away the costumes definitely looked ridiculously disgusting and misshapen.
Best characters: Zazu, Timon and Pumbaa
All these characters were done really well, particularly because they sounded so similar to the original movie characters.
Zazu was amazing because the actor was just a puppeteer controlling a limp bird, but he himself acted just as crazy and colourful as his hornbill bird.
Timon was amazing because he too was controlling his meerkat like a puppet.
I know what you're thinking: the guy's green! It looks ridiculous, there's a green guy spooning Timon!
At first, yes, it seemed really out of place. But soon you started to forget about the green man because Timon looked extremely real. From the way he walked to the way he licked his fur clean, it was all done as if it was an actual meerkat. The green guy behind him of course stood out from the background, but the performance was executed so well that he seemed to blend into it instead.
Pumbaa's costuming was amazing, and the fact that all three of these characters sounded so similar to their original movie versions, I was so mesmerised by it. I hope they're all getting extremely valuable pay checks!
Best character adaptation: Rafiki
They changed our beloved shaman into a woman (and the program book says it's because they wanted a greater female presence in the story), but I think it was a great change. This same female Rafiki was the one who sang the Circle of Life opening, and she also did an amazing job at showcasing Rafiki's humourous nature. It was interesting that they actually made her look like a human, while they still referenced the fact that she was meant to be a baboon, but I think it added to the character's power and importance in the story.
All in all, this was an amazing musical, I definitely recommend it if you can still get any tickets. I hear that it's still performing even in April, so if you're thinking about seeing it, you won't regret it.
The only thing is that I didn't really like how they sung the songs, as they changed it up quite a bit, but it wasn't bad or anything, I guess I'm more of a traditional song fan. But it's definitely worth it for the choir, the artwork, the costumes, the entire atmosphere and the entertainment value of it.
One of the funniest quotes I think was when Mufasa was jokingly threatening to fire Zazu and Zazu was shocked, exclaiming, "FIRE ME?! NO! Please don't send me back to TASMANIA!!!" I don't recall it being in the original film and, in light of Diwan's recent Tasmania Med scare, I thought that was pretty hilarious.
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