Word: taymor
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...anyone who has seen The Lion King knows, Hakuna Matata means "no worries," but on this July afternoon in Minneapolis, Minn., director Julie Taymor has plenty of them. She is in rehearsals for her new stage version of Disney's animated film about Simba the lion cub and his struggle to take his rightful place as king of beasts. Her long, dark hair pulled back and an intense expression on her face, Taymor is trying to work out some kinks in the Hakuna Matata number, which ends the first act. The pop-up cactus plants need to inflate sooner...
...hard to tell, though, how the scene will really come off, since today Casella is working without the puppet he uses to portray Timon: days and nights of (literally) being attached to it have hurt his back. Taymor isn't the kind of director merely to sew up an actor in an animal costume. In the show, Casella stands behind the 5-ft.-tall Timon model, which he manipulates with rods and wires. Others in the cast wear elaborate headpieces representing the animals they are portraying. Indeed, Taymor's entire production is highly stylized and impressionistic. A rushing waterfall...
...might appear that Disney has hakuna matata'd right off the deep end. Taymor's highly stylized theater work--using masks, puppetry, mime and other non-Western techniques--seems as far from classic Disney animation (and from those dancing teapots in Broadway's Beauty and the Beast) as one can imagine. Taymor admits she was surprised when Thomas Schumacher, a Disney vice president, first asked her if she would like to develop a theatrical concept for The Lion King. "I'm sure if they find something that doesn't work, they'll tell me," she says. "But they asked...
...hiding anything. You'll see it happen in front of your eyes." Eight new musical numbers have been added, ranging from African-style choral music to new songs by Elton John and Tim Rice, the movie's original composer and lyricist. "It will be a tactile, visceral event," Taymor says, one that will break new ground for both Broadway and its creator. "The idea of reaching a large audience is thrilling...
...Taymor, 43, who has the long-haired, unadorned look of a college student and a precise but passionate way of describing her work that recalls your favorite professor, started acting at the age of 11, studied mime in Paris and worked in theater while majoring in mythology and folklore at Oberlin College. Her theatrical vision was shaped most decisively by a four-year stay in Indonesia, where she absorbed a whole non-Western ethic of theater. "I was so inspired by being in a culture where theater was the fundamental form of communication," she says. "In Bali, ritual performances...