Currently playing in Toledo (for the whole month actually) and I saw it last night. This thing has been hyped on top of hyped on top of hyped. I've seen the cartoon and expected some mind boggling super show here.
Eh.
First of all, the costumes were fantastic throughout. I cannot say enough about how cool those things were...with a few disturbing exceptions. This is a show for the kiddies, yet one scene had grown ass men dressed as grass running around in skin colored body stockings. Also, either every guy on Broadway likes to exaggerate his proportions and picks the largest cod piece available or the re's a woman doing costume design and she likes 'em big. Again, not normally stuff I would ever bat an eye at, but this is a kid's show and as a parent you tend to notice things like that a bit more.
Still, I thought the cheetah, leopard, Scar, and Mufasa costumes were great. The other cats were decent, but the ones I mentioned were visually stunning.
The set design was not out of this world, but I don't think there was much they could do with it since this is African plains. Thus, they used a lot of tricks, usually involving humans and scenery, which was cool.
There were no big name actors in the storyline, but several provided fantastic performances. The lady who played Rafiki had a lot of fun with the role and could sing those odd lyrics pretty well. The lady who played the older Nala was an amazing vocalist that blew everyone away. The guy who played Scar has the perfect Scar voice, he actually sounded like Jeremy Irons. Finally, the guy who did Zazu really stole the show in terms of laughs.
The storyline follows the movie exactly.
I actually have four complaints about the play:
1. The sound, at times, was horrible. I don't know if it was where I was sitting (2 rows back and on the left) or what, but there were quite a few times when the orchestrata, choir, drums (on the sides of the stage), and characters were all singing and it was just noise. You couldn't understand a word being sung. Worse yet, the guy playing drums closest to my seat seemed to be out of rhythm with the songs.
2. Some of the show is a bit boring. Mainly I give the "original" songs made for the play this honor. They just weren't catchy. On top of that, most parts of the play were in gloomy settings which didn't come off well.
3. I didn't understand the opening of the second act. It involved humans only, no costumes. Several were black people dressed in African garb. I get the African connection, but I didn't understand how that all fit into the plot. I've never seen a play before that had a scene that was so out of place. I mean, this is a play about talking animals, what did this little dance number have to do with anything?
4. The first act is WAY too long. In fact, I think it might still be going right now. There are 13 scenes in the first act and only 7 in the second. I think the first act should've ended with Mufasa's death (sorry if that's a spoiler for a 14 year old movie).
That being said, the opening of this play is something to be seen. I believe it to be the best opening for a play that I've ever seen. It's just an amazing spectacle with very good music.
Anyway, with all the hype, I just wasn't blown away and was actually bored at moments. (Particularly the boring second act.)
I get why this thing won all those visual awards (the elephant that comes through the audience is cool as hell), but I don't think it lived up to the hype. I saw a MUCH better play a few months back called "Spamalot".
A great play to get your kids into the scene, but keep in mind that some parts might bore them and a few parts might scare younger kids.
Oh, and to be fair, my wife and sister-in-law raved about the play.