Pride parade

"I want to give the audience the hint of a scene. No more than that. Give them too much and they won't contribute anything themselves. Give them just a suggestion and you get them working with you."

-- Orson Welles, 1938

WHETHER or not Julie Taymor knows Welles' dictum, her production of The Lion King triumphantly validates its philosophy. Whereas other attempts to translate Disney animated films to the stage have opted for laborious literalism, entrusting The Lion King to Taymor ensured not only a poetic result but a work unto itself; creation, not adaptation.

As director, co-lyricist, costume designer, and co-designer of the expressive masks and puppets, Taymor's sensibility is omnipresent, even incorporating her love of Indonesian shadow puppetry. Her gamble was: Give audiences the idea of lions and gazelles, of stampedes and gruesome slaughter, and our imaginations would do the rest. After all, as children we have no problem accepting that a pointed finger is a gun ("Bang! You're dead!"), a stick is a horse. It's only when we grow up that our imaginations become flabby couch potatoes.

From the first moment, when Rafiki (Buyi Zama) assembles the animal kingdom from the four corners of the theater, artifice is proudly obvious. In effect, Taymor asks, "Are you going to play along?" The Lion King's unparalleled global success among Disney stage adaptations answers, "Yes!"

It matters not, for instance, that Zazu (Patrick Kerr), Timon (Damian Baldat) and Pumbaa (Adam Kozlowski) are clearly not a hornbill, meerkat and warthog, respectively, but puppet-bearing actors. The performers so joyously burrow into the essence of their characters that one gladly accepts them as the wondrous hybrid creations they are.

The Lion King's atmospheric strength lies in the power of suggestion. One "set" consists of nothing more than two pools of light. Forced perspectives, drop curtains, sliding ramps that ascend to form Pride Rock (the magnificent stage vistas are by Richard Hudson), vigorous employment of color and, yes, shadow puppetry all coalesce into a heightened version of Africa, a big-tune safari.

Which is where we encounter trouble. The Shakespearean scope of Taymor's concept cries out for the music of Verdi or Stravinsky, or at least score and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. What we get are decidedly lesser efforts from Elton John and Tim Rice. With no fewer than six additional composers and lyricists toiling in the kitchen, the stylistic shepherd's pie is both half-baked and overcooked.

Three of the best songs are the handiwork of Hans Zimmer, who lends a distinctly African tinge to the soundscape. The Soweto-inflected choral compositions of Lebo M and African chants penned by Tsidii Le Loka also bridge the cultural divide. Choreographer Garth Fagan completely achieves his goal of dances that "look like an integral part of this community ... [to] seem to come out of nowhere and surprise the audience, and then dissipate like ephemeral dreams ..."

Amid such creativity, the Rice/John songs are static islets of anodyne MOR pop. Whether or not one likes Andrew Lloyd Webber, he understands musical theatre and writes numbers that advance the action -- no wonder the truncated version of Phantom of the Opera, just up the street at the Venetian, "plays" so well. John's airplay-ready "Can You Feel the Love Tonight?", for instance, merely dwells upon the obvious. Rice's wordplay too rarely transcends puns like, "Always remember your pride." (Self-pride/pride of lions -- geddit?)

Arguably, Taymor's lone failing may have been not successfully doctoring the Roger Allers/Irene Mecchi script. Here again, we're in the too-much/not-enough bind. There's sufficient verbiage to deaden the between-song momentum but too little to qualify as more than shorthand where the plot ought to be. Even Jersey Boys' connect-the-dots book does a better job of maintaining tabs on all its characters.

Since the Lion King script keeps two strong presences -- Alton F. White's soulful Mufasa and Thom Sesma's decadence-oozing Scar -- offstage for long stretches, Australian powerhouse Zama's Rafiki must anchor the show, which she does magnificently, reaping the loudest plaudits. The only comparable singer is Kissy Simmons (Nala). Next to her sinewy tones and stylized physicality, Clifton Oliver (Simba) is just a guy in a funny hat. In addition to the noted excellence of Kerr, Baldet and Kozlowski, one has to give it up for Jacquelyn Renae Hodges', whose querulous Shenzi suggests Wanda Sykes channeled into a hyena's body.

As spectacle, The Lion King is one of the two finest offerings in town, surpassed only by KA (not insignificantly, another instance where a show factory thought outside the box in its choice of director). Will this dog's breakfast of source material satisfy, too? The Lion King's nominal show stopper, "Hakuna Matata," translates as "No worries." Considering the brief, tepid ovations on media night, perhaps that should be revised to, "No: Worry."