Watching a play in London West End, The Lion King ( 13 March 08)

My trip to London this time round was supposed to be an uneventful one, as I would be concentrating on my upcoming exams.

Luckily I decided to take a little break with my friend, Jiayun at night to watch a musical. We chose Lion King as it had been one of the top musicals ever performed at the London West End.

I had my reservations at first; it was based on a Disney cartoon and there was seriously no secret of the plot and ending. However, I found the experience certainly mindblowing with really breathtaking sets of Pride Rock and Elephant Graveyard and their creation of the savannah and the movement of the animals.

What really blew me away were their employment of puppets such as Zazu, Pumba, cheetahs,etc. If it were up to me, I would have just thought of putting Zazu or Pumbaa into large animal suits. But instead, the producers deployed very visible puppeteers (dressed in complementary colours of the puppets they were operating) to operate their puppets. The effect was certainly amazing, as the animals were more flexible and nuanced in their acting, expressing lifelike movement of animals which would have been severely restricted if operated by humans in fully dressed animal costumes.

My favourite had to be the wildebeest stampede in which Mufasa is killed. The effect in the theater was fantastic, as seemingly thousands of wildebeests seem to be rushing straight at Simba -- and at the audience. With the clever usage of canvas scrolls, mirrors and a series of rollers, it created an illusion of thousands of racing animals driving forward.

Back to the details of the musical:- I really thought lots of research were done to create such a great affect. Inspired by Japanese Bunraku puppetry, the puppeteers were dressed in complementary colours instead of black. If full black costumes were used instead, you would have just noticed the puppeteer sticking out of nowhere in the musical. I must mention in this blog of their effective usage of shadow puppetry (Which i suspect was inspired by our very own Wayang Kulit!) to create the illusion of the giraffes walking at a distance, which of course were amazing!

The beauty of watching a musical in London was the fact that there are special theatres for each and every show. For instance, The Lion King perfomances would only be at the Lyceum Theatre whereas Les Miserables would only show at the Queen's Theatre. This would allow the creation of extensive sets and more nuanced acting as the characters were allowed to sharpen their performing skills being in a fixed place compared to a travelling group where they would have to adapt to a new theatre and the sets would be constraint by the logistics of the hall they were performing all the time.

All in all, the experience is something not to be missed and I look forward to seeing another musical again at London West End.