On Broadway, Timon and Pumbaa have entertained audiences for years with their Brooklyn accents.
However, in China, the famous meerkat-warthog duo not only speak Chinese, but they also do so with a distinct beifang, or northern, twang.
The rough-around-the-edges Chinese accent is one of several localized elements that infuse a Mandarin-language production of The Lion King at the new 1,200-seat Walt Disney Grand Theater. The theater is an anchor of the US$5.5 billion Shanghai Disney Resort, which opened on Thursday.
Sitting in the audience at the premiere on Tuesday was a contingent of Disney executives, including chairman and chief executive officer Robert Iger. Local officials and a sprinkling of celebrities, including former NBA player Yao Ming (姚明), also attended.
There were other elements added to enhance the show for Shanghai — different regional dialects, riffs on Chinese pop songs and, for the first time, a new character, the Monkey Master, who is based on the Monkey King, a figure of Chinese legend.
“The Monkey King is China’s favorite character,” director Julie Taymor said in an interview the day before the premiere. “These little touches of familiarity are absolutely what you have to do. It makes the show recognizable.”
The character wears a red-and-yellow Chinese-inspired costume designed by Taymor. Two feathers protrude from the monkey’s hat like antennae. While Monkey Master does not speak, he bursts in to help fight for Simba, the lion protagonist, in several action scenes.
Since its Broadway debut in 1997, The Lion King has been translated into eight languages, including Japanese, Portuguese and Mandarin. In each translation, producers have sought to adapt the script to the local culture, while maintaining the spirit of the original. Altogether, The Lion King has taken in US$7.2 billion from domestic and international productions.
Localizing Broadway’s top-grossing musical has been the focal point for the Shanghai Disney Resort. Disney officials have repeatedly asserted they would create a resort that is both “authentically Disney and distinctly Chinese.”
At the resort, Chinese elements abound. At the Wandering Moon Teahouse, the signature restaurant, for example, visitors can honor the “restless, creative spirit” of Chinese poets. In the Garden of the Twelve Friends, 12 mosaic murals re-imagine Disney characters as the signs of the Chinese zodiac.
Still, the challenge to be “distinctly Chinese” can be difficult to overcome in China, where audiences, especially film audiences, have become adept at sniffing out imported cultural products that plop in so-called “Chinese elements” with little sensitivity.
Producers of The Lion King said they are confident that audiences here would find a seamless integration of Chinese elements into the show.
“The Lion King is, from conception, a very universal piece, both the story and the physical world of it,” Disney Theatrical Group director of international production strategy Felipe Gamba said. “It is an experience that transcends the musical theater genre, which has made it successful in places where musical theater is not a deeply rooted tradition.”
Discussion about bringing a Mandarin version of The Lion King to China began in 2011, Gamba said, the same year officials broke ground on the Shanghai resort. The company had decided that it would build a theater as an anchor for Disneytown, the retail and dining area of the complex.
Within the first few hours of the discussion, it became “quickly obvious” that The Lion King would be the choice, Gamba said.
It helped that the company had toured an English-language production of the show in Shanghai in 2006 to great success.
Soon after, Disney began a search in China for performers who could act, sing, dance and, in some cases, operate the animal masks Taymor designed. However, casting proved to be far more difficult in China, where Broadway-style musical theater is still relatively new. The experiences of earlier adaptations of other musicals such as Cats and Mamma Mia! were helpful.
However, Chinese actors are typically affiliated with theater companies and schools, which limits their availability for outside jobs.
Disney’s reputation in China as an entertainment company did not help, Gamba said.
“A lot of it was about us showing the artistic directors and the actors what a piece of art Julie created,” he said.
In the end, casting took about two-and-a-half years — more than three times the average, Gamba said.
The cast of more than 50 features mostly Chinese actors and others from nations including the Philippines and South Africa.
Gamba said decisions about the length of the show’s run and future productions at the theater depend on how The Lion King fares.
“Right now, we are thinking: ‘Let us just get through the opening,’” he said.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
‘POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE’: Leo Varadkar said he was ‘no longer the best person’ to lead the nation and was stepping down for political, as well as personal, reasons Leo Varadkar on Wednesday announced that he was stepping down as Ireland’s prime minister and leader of the Fine Gael party in the governing coalition, citing “personal and political” reasons. Pundits called the surprise move, just 10 weeks before Ireland holds European Parliament and local elections, a “political earthquake.” A general election has to be held within a year. Irish Deputy Prime Minister Micheal Martin, leader of Fianna Fail, the main coalition partner, said Varadkar’s announcement was “unexpected,” but added that he expected the government to run its full term. An emotional Varadkar, who is in his second stint as prime minister and at
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia