Tickets to see The Lion King in Detroit were amongst Calivn's packages under the Christmas tree this year, the show date being a perfect couple of weeks after the difficult return from Hawaii. This is a show I have wanted to see for some time. We've all heard so many great things about the costumes, the music, the stage presence. It's an epic show with a legacy larger than most. As a recent presence, it outshines the epic productions of my youth, like Phantom, Cats, and Les Mis. So what I'm about to say is going to be very unpopular. I was thoroughly unimpressed. I might even go so far as to say that I was utterly disappointed. The movie was sweet and charming with just the right blend of humor and intensity, but while the story remained much the same on the stage, a lot was lost to poor pacing, uneven use of space and characters, tasteless comedic additions, and a few new songs that seemed oddly out of place.
Over all I'm not sorry that we went, but it only gets three out of four starts from any of us.
