My Review of The Lion King (As a Stage Play)

MINOR SPOILERS ABOUND, AND THERE MAY EVEN BE A FEW BIG ONES. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE PLAY OR THE MOVIE.

For some reason, the Lion King has always been my favorite Disney movie. Ever since I was little, I've loved it. I still love it, and I'm fourteen years old. And I knew they had made a Broadway production out of it, which for a long time I thought, "Hmm, well, I guess it might be cool to see that." Then about a year ago, someone I knew went to go see it and really liked it - and all of a sudden I was much more interested in seeing the Broadway show. I mean, for a Lion King fan like me, why wouldn't I want to go? But I didn't think I'd be able to. I never go to see Broadway shows. And besides, I didn't want to go all the way to New York just to see a play. Then one day, I was listening to the radio and a commercial came on to go see The Lion King in a big city near where I live! And I instantly thought, "I have got to see that." So I told my mom about it, she liked the idea and bought tickets, and finally, about a week ago, we went to go see it.
It. Was. Amazing!
I was completely blown away. I had been wondering how they were going to do certain scenes - for example, the gorge scene. And they made it work - unfortunately, I can't describe how because I was too entranced to pay attention to how they did it. You'd think I'd be less caught up by it because I've seen the movie half a billion times, but nope. Perhaps it was because I've never seen The Lion King this way before.
I really liked how they "humanized" everything - while you could tell, for example, who was Simba, Nala, Zazu, and everyone else, you could also see the actor there as well. As you can imagine, that worked much better than cartooney masks ever could. I loved the mixture of African culture there - it really helped transport me to the setting. Not to mention the superb acting going on - it was magnificent!
I also liked how they would raise and lower and bring in different sets without lowering the curtains. It helped everything flow well together throughout the whole show. I liked it a lot.
A little bit weird was Rafiki becoming a woman in the play, but by the end she had grown on me - it worked well, and made sense for some reason.
I almost wish I could have sat a little bit closer - we were sitting in the second to last row in the balcony. But the colors were bright enough that it was probably better farther away, because I could still see everything while almost blending the human and animal together, so it looked more real. And in any case, we did bring binoculars.
There are two things I would have changed - number one, I would not have tried to put the binoculars up to my eyes at the final second of the play. Bad move on my part. Number two, I would have not had two or three little kids sitting behind me. I'm not sure why people bring their kids to plays like that; they must know that the kids are going be loud compared to the relative silence, and that will annoy the heck out of everyone else, including me. The kids kept talking, and in a noisy crowd I wouldn't have noticed, but while I was trying to listen to the actors or the music, and that was the only sound except for those kids - grr. But in any case, those flaws had nothing to do with the play, just what was going on in the seats.
So, all in all, I'd give it five out of five stars. The show was brilliant, and completely blew me away.