Lion King Feeling the Love at the Benedum in Pittsburgh

Lion King Feeling the Love at the Benedum in Pittsburgh

by

Good News Reporter, Joanne Quinn-Smith

Hakuna matata: Means no worries and you truly will leave the theater with no worries after this presentation.  There is almost too much going on with performers coming through the aisles and drummers in the balcony boxes.  What an event of sound and sight and experience.

What a mix of visual and audio entertainment Director Julie Taymor has put together.  My five year old was mesmerized even though it was a long show and she wanted to go to sleep she just could not.  I asked her the best part and she told me it was the young Simba and Nala played by Jordan Hall and Nya Cymone Carter, what wonderful delightful young performers.  She loved Simba in “I Just Can’t Wait to Be King.”

Personally I hate it when the bad guy gets less applause than the

Musafa

hero.  I found Patrick Brown in the role of the wicked yet funny Scar to be the perfect anti-hero.  Scar is Mufasa's brother and he feels that because of his superior intellect he should be king of the jungle. His quirkiness and campy swagger added a unique dimension to the musical. 

One of the two strongest performances was given by Steven Taylor as Mufasa Simba's father, Sarabi's husband and the former King of the Pride Lands; a righteous, wise, and kindhearted leader, but admirably powerful and courageous as well. Idolized by his son, with whom he shared a strong bond, Mufasa was envied immensely during his lifetime by his wicked younger brother Scar, who furiously conspired against his older brother in an attempt to end his reign and seize the throne. To the devastation of a young Simba, Mufasa was violently trampled to death by a massive stampede of wildebeests arranged by Scar while attempting to save his son's life. This lead to Scar's tyrannical kingship over Pride Rock after he convinced Simba he was responsible for his father’s death and that he should run away from home.

Rafiki

But my favorite character and the strongest performer of the Lion King is Rafiki played by Bron Liniwe Mikhize.  Rafiki is an erect walking mandrill so can use many props like gourds that other characters cannot. What a breath of fresh air, talent, energy and symbolism.  During the musical Rafiki sings a nonsense chant: "Asante sana, squash banana, wewe nugu, mimi hapana." This is a Swahili playground rhyme which translates to "Thank you very much (squash banana), you're a baboon and I'm not!" Like "hakuna matata" (no worries), the chant was heard by the original filmmakers on their research trip to Kenya.

Rafiki performs shamanistic services for the lions of Pride Rock so his chanting just fits in.

The costuming is amazing as many of the animals portrayed in the production are actors in costume using extra tools to move their costumes. For example, the giraffes are portrayed by actors carefully walking on stilts. For principal characters such as Mufasa and Scar, the costumes feature mechanical headpieces that

can be raised and lowered to foster the illusion of a cat "lunging" at another. Other characters, such as the hyenas, Zazu, Timon, and Pumbaa, are portrayed by actors in life-sized puppets or costumes. My granddaughter especially loved the stage personnel in conical Asian hat, sedge hat, rice hat, or paddy hats who skillfully flew the birds on stage and through the audience at the end of long sticks, simply a symphony of motion in my opinion. 

Seats are still available for Disney’s Tony Award-winning The

The cast

Lion King, presented by the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust and PNC Broadway Across America at the Benedum Center for the Performing Arts.  The show runs through Sept. 29; times vary; $65-$115; 412/456-4800, trustarts.org

But whatever time you attend you will leave humming either “Circle of Life” or “Can You Feel the Love Tonight?”

Joanne Quinn-Smith, Award winning internet radio broadcaster, blogger, author  and internet radio and TV network editor and publisher.  Joanne is the owner and CEO, Creative Energy Officer, of Dreamweaver Marketing Associates, a successful Pittsburgh-based marketing company. She is a grandmother and great grandmother, an unlikely trendsetter for online journalism and broadcasting. Joanne is internationally known as the “Get Your Google On” Gal.  But better known as Techno Granny™ to over one million accumulated online listeners worldwide.   Joanne has created a revolutionary online NEW MEDIA platform in Internet broadcasting, blogging and other social media participation that represents the new second generation of World Wide Web interactions, known in technology circles as Web 2.0. JQS is the online publisher of PositivelyPittsburghLiveMagazine.com, an online community magazine to disseminate the Positive News for Positive Pittsburghers.  PPL Mag is Pittsburgh’s First Internet radio and TV network with syndicated channels and online radio and TV capabilities.

3,000 Pairs of Trousers, Gyrating Parts and Rock n Roll

Andy Christoper as Buddy Holly

When the fateful plane crash that took 3 Rock n Roll icons including Buddy Holly in 1959 I was ten.  But my Aunt Mimi was 23 so I did not miss much of Richie Valenz, the Big Bopper or Buddy Holly.  It is amazing to me how Buddy Holly’s success stretched far beyond his  death. 

 

Although his success lasted only a year and a half before his death in an airplane crash, Holly is considered the single most influential creative force in early rock and roll.  It was quite refreshing to watch the show depict Buddy as chafing against authority long before it was popular and prefacing the sixties mantra of “You Can’t trust anyone over thirty.” The back story is always interesting and this musical told it well, seeping each song in its own history.  It was interesting to note that "Peggy Sue" was originally written as "Cindy Lou" (after Holly's niece), but Holly changed it prior to recording as a tip of the hat to Crickets drummer Jerry Allison's girlfriend, Peggy Sue Gerron.

Kurt Jenkins as Buddy Holly, Joe Cosmo
Cogen as Jerry Allison & Sam Weber
as Joe B. Mauldin

What a night!  It  was hard  for the audience to sit still in their seats.   We rocked out with the stars that night to the rockabilly swagger, of Buddy Holly and the Crickets.  Buddy explodes onto the stage in a jukebox musical fully loaded with classics  “Oh Boy,” “That’ll Be the Day,” “Well All Right,” “Not Fade Away.”

Two of my favorite parts were the spotlight interposes at corners of the stage of the various DJ’s that promoted Buddy and the Crickets.  I also love the scene when the Crickets play the Apollo in Harlem.  I loved it when the band arrived at the Apollo Theater, where Buddy and the Crickets realize they have come to "a colored theater," and the all-black audience is shocked to see that the guys they have been enjoying on the radio are white. Surprise! Surprise!

This show was two hours and 30 minutes of both high energy fun and drama. It was only marred by the one liners from some of Holly’s songs, but the mini concert at the Apollo simply “rocked out.”

Ryan G Duncan as the Big Bopper

Here’s a fun fact culled from the CLO website:  Over 3,000 pairs of trousers have had to be replaced from extensive Buddy knee-sliding across stages around the world.  That should give you an idea of how much fun the audience had watching the team of Kurt Jenkins Buddy Holly, Joe Cosmo Cogen as Jerry Allison and Sam Weber as Joe B. Mauldin in Pittsburgh CLO's "Buddy -- The Buddy Holly Story,"Also although he only appeared at the end Ryan Duncan was spot on as the Big Bopper.

Joanne Quinn-Smith, Award winning internet radio broadcaster, blogger, author  and internet radio and TV network editor and publisher.  Joanne is the owner and CEO, Creative Energy Officer, of Dreamweaver Marketing Associates, a successful Pittsburgh-based marketing company. She is a grandmother and great grandmother, an unlikely trendsetter for online journalism and broadcasting. Joanne is internationally known as the “Get Your Google On” Gal.  But better known as Techno Granny™ to over one million accumulated online listeners worldwide.   Joanne has created a revolutionary online NEW MEDIA platform in Internet broadcasting, blogging and other social media participation that represents the new second generation of World Wide Web interactions, known in technology circles as Web 2.0. JQS is the online publisher of PositivelyPittsburghLiveMagazine.com, an online community magazine to disseminate the Positive News for Positive Pittsburghers.  PPL Mag is Pittsburgh’s First Internet radio and TV network with syndicated channels and online radio and TV capabilities.