"Lion King": It took a pride of puppets to bring Broadway musical to life

This week, Seattle will finally get to see what all the fuss is about over "The Lion King," the international hit stage musical.

Thanks to the routing priorities of big-scale touring, the Northwest premiere of "The Lion King" is coming to us seven years after the show opened triumphantly on Broadway.

We're used to such lags: The earlier blockbuster musicals "Les Miserables" and "Phantom of the Opera" also took their time getting here. But "The Lion King" is, if you will, an animal of a different stripe than those pop-opera spectacles.

Julie Taymor's dazzling adaptation of the same-titled Disney animated movie, with songs by Elton John and Tim Rice and additional music by South African musician Lebo M and others, is a splendiferous African menagerie and ecosphere come to life. And many of its eye-popping effects are achieved with the oldest theatrical tools in existence: puppets, masks, drums, human bodies and human voices.

Still running in New York, London and elsewhere, "The Lion King" has won effusive reviews and dozens of major prizes, including six Tony Awards — two of which, for best direction of a Broadway musical and best costumes, went to Taymor. An intrepid innovator and boundary-crosser, she really has shown Broadway that imagination can pay off.

But of course, it took a team of creative wizards to unleash "Lion King" on the theater world.

Recently we talked with two of that team's other key members: Oregon designer Michael Curry, co-designer and fabricator of the show's splendid masks and puppets, and Thomas Schumacher, the head of Walt Disney Theatrical Productions, which has plenty more stage projects in the pipeline (see sidebar).

The work of Oregon native

"The Lion King" is a tale of many creatures and terrains. Though it focuses on Simba, a young African lion trying to avenge his father Mufasa's death and lead his pride, the fable also abounds with hyenas and warthogs, palm trees and savanna grass, towering giraffes and leaping gazelles.

For Oregon-based designer Michael Curry, helping his frequent collaborator Taymor transform this myriad of critters and plant life forms into a vivid, ever-shifting, humanized stage panorama was a welcome challenge.

"Julie and I did not want to make this a snapshot of the film," explained Curry from his busy studio and shop in Scappoose, Ore., near Portland, where most of the masks and puppets for "The Lion King" were crafted.

"We also felt a real reverence for the material, and for African culture, so much of what we did referenced and paralleled African designs."

The hundred-plus pieces Curry fashioned for the scores of "Lion King" actors include full and partial body coverings made of beadwork, cloth, armor and other materials, tall headdresses, bunraku-style "doll" puppets and, most strikingly, masks and puppets worn by performers whose human faces are also exposed.

"We thought, how amazing if the actors could play two roles in one," Curry notes. "That double face would be something extra for the audience."

Many of the characters are fascinating human-animal hybrids. Dancers playing zebras, for instance, are unmasked and costumed in white-and-black striped body suits. Each hoists a full-scale zebra puppet on one shoulder but uses human legs to propel the four-limbed animal forward.

The lion figures are draped in colorful, African-style clothing, and their majestic lion faces rest atop the actors' heads like urns. Though they appear as solid as wood or stone, the masks are made of carbon fiber and epoxy, and weigh mere ounces. And Curry, a trained painter, gave them a "radiance" achieved with layers of paint and glaze.

"I believe in creating a richness in the look with lots of little details," he says. "I work for both the close-up and the distance."

Trickier to maneuver are the mechanical body-puppets constructed for such characters as Simba's villainous uncle, Scar.

Curry explains that Scar's mask is "animatronic," with a wide range of head and neck motion.

"The actor wears very lightweight motors built into the thighs of his costume. He has cables running up his back and into his mask. And he has a computer control in the palm of his hand, which can activate the mask movement with very subtle motions of a thumb and a finger."

The Zazu puppet, a zany, clowning bird, is also manipulated by the actor "wearing" him. "Zazu became a puppet only after we tried four or five times to make him a full-body costume," notes Curry. "This way he's funnier and more useful to the actor."

Multigenerational magic

During a pre-Broadway run in Minneapolis, Curry says some Disney bigwigs worried the "double faced" creatures onstage might be confusing or distracting to the audience.

Not so, states Curry. "Most people are multi-taskers, and much more familiar with mixed-media techniques than we used to be. Also, it's important to show the humanity of the actors. It's always the human effects that work best — the human essence must be in everything I do."

Curry, who grew up in an Oregon logging community, began his artistic career as a sculptor. He first encountered Taymor in 1988, grew increasingly interested in film and theater, and collaborated with Taymor on her offbeat PBS film "Fool's Fire."

"Back then I was the technical guy, and Julie was the conceptualist," he notes, "but we found a middle ground where we both sculpted and drew [the designs]. Now she's more the director, dealing with the overall project. I'm the plastic arts guy, and I know how to realize her vision. We work beautifully together."

Curry now juggles many film and stage projects at a time. They range from collaborating with Taymor on a 2004 Metropolitan Opera version of "The Magic Flute," creating "costume structure designs" for the Salt Lake City Olympics opening ceremony (for which he won an Emmy Award), working on "Kà," a new Cirque du Soleil spectacle in Las Vegas, and serving as puppet consultant on the upcoming Monty Python musical "Spamalot."

But "The Lion King" holds special magic for Curry. "Name another show that a child and adult can enjoy as equally as this one," says the father of two. "This is the thing I wish more shows paid attention to. I've had fan mail from 4-year-olds. Five years later they write back telling me they want to be theater artists, too."

Misha Berson: mberson@seattletimes.com