When I ask Lebo M what it took to stage The Lion King in South Africa, he offers a grim summary, one he playfully calls a ‘rosy picture” of the past three years. It is one that included ‘intense negotiations” with Disney (who first released the animated feature film in 1994) for a licensing deal; a year and a half of trying to find a theatre to refurbish; then ‘seven months and 100 coffees a day” to convince Rob Collins and Jabu Mabuza of Tsogo Sun to build a new theatre to accommodate the production; then several more months of scrutiny from senior Disney personnel and another journey all together to secure sponsorship.
‘It has taken me three years of negotiations, and seven years of brokering,” he says over coffee near the brand-new Teatro, the venue built big enough to house the show for its 20-week run. ‘In this case, it wasn’t what it would cost to convert a theatre, because it would have cost more money,” he says. ‘It was what would it cost to build one?” The 7 700m2 venue cost in excess of R100-million and seats 1 900 patrons.
‘The South African staging of the show is unique and special,” continues Lebo M. ‘It is the 10th production and it has been 10 years since the first one, so we wanted to make a big global statement. This is the first 100% South African owned Lion King. It has a South African cast, a South African orchestra and 30% of the technical production is being done by people from previously disadvantaged backgrounds.”
Moreover, adds Lebo M, the inflection of the play has changed. New songs have been added, others rearranged and rewritten. The dialogue has been modified to contain numerous South Africanisms.
The Lion King (both the film and its various theatre incarnations) has been such a phenomenal commercial success that it has overshadowed many of Lebo M’s other achievements.
Lebo M, who left South Africa for Lesotho in 1979, then the United States soon after, had been performing a variation of his and late compadre Vernon Molefe’s ‘survival hustle” in Los Angeles when his dues started netting returns.
The hustle, which was basically odd jobs and church keeping in between singing, led him through the doors of the music industry, thanks to bass player and industry insider Del Atkins. Lebo M’s break was assembling an African choir to celebrate Cry Freedom‘s Academy Awards nomination, which then led to a string of score co-production and co-writing credits, most notably The Power of One, where his partnership with film score composer Hans Zimmer began.
Around this time, in 1989, Lebo M also worked with Quincy Jones in his epic ‘comeback” album Back on the Block, before being invited by Mbongeni Ngema to join the cast of Sarafina, which was touring the States and Canada in 1990. While on sabbatical in South Africa, Lebo M was pursued by Zimmer, who recruited him to help score the Disney epic, which was how his association with The Lion King began.
Admittedly, he is not quite done with milking this cash cow for all its worth. ‘I think The Lion King might still continue for another 10 to 15 years,” he says. ‘But we’re moving on to the next phase with Till Dawn Entertainment, which is a record company, a television and film production company. We’ve used the theatre business as our global entrance into the entertainment stage.”
Although he has been rather discreet, Lebo M has made some inroads into the industry. The three groups signed to his company, namely Puleng, Adilah and Redeemed, all won Metro FM awards in 2006 with their respective debut albums. Till Dawn has plans to put out The Lion King Live on Stage CD and is currently airing Maropeng: The Spirit of the Lion King on SABC2 every Sunday.
There is also a film in the works called Let It Rise: Spirit of Africa, whose script is currently in its second treatment. ‘It [The Lion King] has been a blessing and a curse, that’s the practicality of it,” muses Lebo M on whether or not he’s been compartmentalised by the musical. ‘I don’t think one can reject a blessing. Over the past 10 years I’ve had the privilege of employing a cast of young South Africans and helped to change people’s lives.”
In continuation of this, the Lebo M Foundation has founded Blue Nightingale, a training organisation that focuses on technical-production learnerships and has afforded participants an opportunity to increase their skills and be part of The Lion King‘s production team.
Towards ensuring that ‘just about every South African sees it”, Back-to-Back, a community outreach programme, will bus in at least 40 000 schoolchildren from previously disadvantaged communities.
And maybe every South African should see it, purely because The Lion King is quintessentially South African.
With 53 cast members and the most elaborate costumes I have ever come across, The Lion King is an overwhelming spectacle. Technically, the production endears even more and is nothing short of magical, with a mechanised stage that transforms into various landscapes as is required. But beneath all the wizardry, there are holes where substance should be.
Sello Maake-ka Ncube brings an imposing presence to his role as Mufasa, but his impact is weakened by an inexplicably stilted, conservative accent, probably picked up on the West End. As the villainous Scar, Mark Rayment is brilliant but decidedly English while Andile Gumbi displays promise but lacks intensity as Simba. He is also shown up as a mediocre singer.
The colloquialisms work well to inject humour and quirkiness to the production, and somehow do not seem out of place, but the singing, and some of the more dramatic conflict scenes towards the end are flat and anticlimactic. The high point for me was the performance of One-by-One, which ushers in the second act. Beyond the feel-good Disneyland anthems and stereotypical African ditties, there is something ominous, current and defiant about it. As a vocal and physical performance, it is unmatched throughout the production.
Overall, The Lion King makes for a light, entertaining night out, albeit a strange confluence of Disneyland and Africa.
The Lion King is currently showing at the Montecasino Teatro
Teatro de Montecasino’s Mr Delivery
Bryan Hill is in the foyer of the magnificent new Teatro de Montecasino where he is the recently appointed general manager. We are standing on a walkway leading to the gallery and there is a guy beneath us from Mr Delivery trucking a bag of pizzas around looking for a way backstage.
It’s about 5.30pm and someone in the cast of The Lion King has obviously ordered some junk food to scoff before the show.
Hill is bemused while Mr Delivery is promptly escorted off by a guard. Looking out the bold glass façade on to the new Montecasino piazza I ask Hill whether he actually likes what he sees. Tactfully, he says he is in love with the sleek interior of the 1 900-seater theatre and that the outdoor piazza is a pleasure when it comes alive with people after the show.
Hill, a fortysomething veteran of playhouse management and big stage musicals, was tour manager and second company director of Richard Loring’s African Footprint for seven years before tiring of the nomadic life and setting down roots here. He says that on such major overseas excursions as he has managed he functioned as ‘wet nurse” to the cast, but now he is ‘learning about the running of a building”.
To learn about his job Hill visited the Lyceum Theatre in London where he got the in on things like ‘bar service, merchandising and displays outside the theatre”. At some stage he trucked off to the gigantic tent-like Theater im Hafen in Hamburg where he saw The Lion King played to an audience of 4 000.
So one gets a picture of Hill’s current lifestyle. He is employed to go ‘shopping for product”, which means that once a year he does just that: packs his bags and goes hunting for the stuff that Jo’burgers may wish to see. When I ask him how one is to judge what is going to be suitable, he points to ‘the brand. If the audience knows the brand then they will part with their money. So we’ve got to be pretty sure.”
Does that mean we are going to get a glut of Disney musicals in future?
‘This may be the start of a great Disney partnership,” says Hill, ‘but do we have the population to support it for six months? Perhaps we could actually expand the theatre-going population.”
Either way, Hill says that the new Teatro is a commercial venture where ‘capitalism rules”. The place is supposed to give added value to casino adventurers and so there will also be events tailored to meet specific clientele needs — like a Chinese New Year celebration and possibly imported Greek pop stars. Otherwise Hill expects that the venue will also see the likes of locals such as Steve Hofmeyr and Mandoza.
He expects, too, that the current high price of tickets will be reduced. — Matthew Krouse