Puppets and people become one in 'The Lion King'

The musical "The Lion King" is an object lesson in a hoary old truth: that a whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Take "Circle of Life," the show's opening number, which conjures up a spectacular pageant of African fauna. Reduce it to its components and what do you have? Human performers, some on stilts (for the actors playing giraffes) and no-nonsense materials such as carbon graphite and silicone rubber that make up the show's myriad puppets and masks.

But put the elements together and set them in motion, and the resulting burst of theatricality could awe even a seasoned showbiz pro.

"I defy anyone to watch the opening scene and not get goose bumps," said Michael Reilly, who has spent nine years with versions of "The Lion King" and is the puppet supervisor for the national tour, premiering Feb. 15 at the Landmark Theater. "I do every time."

If anyone should be inured to the musical's alchemy, it's Reilly: As the guy in charge of maintenance on the show's 230 or so puppets, he sculpts, paints, troubleshoots electric and mechanical systems, and more.

Zazu, a bird puppet, has gears so tiny that Reilly and his two assistants use miniature tools to work on the costume. The attributes of Scar, a lion character, involve microcircuitry. And no matter how complex and delicate, the masks and puppets are heavily used.

"They're like museum pieces that are being used as jackhammers," Reilly said, speaking by phone from Minneapolis, where "The Lion King" was performing in mid-January.

The wear and tear is unavoidable because masks and puppets are pivotal to the aesthetics of the 1997 Broadway musical directed by theatrical innovator Julie Taymor.

Recruited to invent a stage equivalent of Disney's 1994 animated movie, which is beloved for its family friendly storyline and Elton John-Tim Rice score, Taymor hit on a strategy of merging an actor with a puppet to create a single animal character. Often, the puppet is attached to the actor's body, sometimes as an elaborate headdress, and there is no attempt to hide the puppetry's logistics.

"We sort of dabbled with a new approach to theater that allowed the characters to be done in a very magical way" without diminishing "the importance of the human actor," said Michael Curry, who collaborated with Taymor on the show's mask and puppet designs.

The dual image of actor and puppet — Taymor calls it "the double event" — is enthralling because it requires the audience's imaginative input, Curry added, speaking by phone from his office in Scappoose, Ore.

"That's kind of what makes it beautiful: The audience feels like they're participating," he said.

To realize Taymor's and Curry's vision, artisans spent 17,000 hours creating the animal-character designs for the Broadway production, which won six Tony Awards, including a best-director Tony for Taymor, the first woman to collect that honor. Since then, according to Disney's tally, 60 million people in 14 countries have seen the show.

"The Lion King" also has been a milestone event for puppetry, said Vincent Anthony, executive director of the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta. He points out that "The Lion King" proved to producers that live puppetry could be successful on a big scale, opening the doors for subsequent Broadway shows such as "Avenue Q" and "War Horse."

Puppet supervisor Reilly and his colleagues have an impressive track record to live up to: It's no wonder they maintain a disciplined work ethic, checking up on all the major puppets first thing every day and communicating regularly with the actors.

The actors "let us know how things are working," Reilly said. "There are probably upwards of 10,000 different bolts in the show, and we can't check every single one."

A can-do attitude is also key from his perspective. When they're not doing maintenance shifts, he and his assistants take turns being on-call backstage during performances for emergencies.

"There's always something new," Reilly said cheerfully. "Pumbaa (the warthog character) ripped his ear off the other day. Whatever it is, you have to go with it. So you get out your tape and zip ties, and you run to where he is and you put him back together. And you send him back out for his entrance."

Reilly is also in charge of training new cast members to use the puppets, a necessary step because "The Lion King" recruits performers who are actors, dancers and singers — people with serious stage presence — rather than trained puppeteers.

"It's death to have somebody who can't hold the stage," designer Curry said. "No offense to puppeteers."

Piling puppetry duties on top of a demanding acting role can be a tall order. Mark David Kaplan, who manipulates a complicated bird puppet in his role as the hornbill Zazu, said the initial rehearsal was sometimes "daunting and exhausting," until his identification with the character led him to embrace the movement and mechanical skills.

"There's that day where it all clicks," he said, speaking from Minneapolis.

Comments from theatergoers about his character help explain the magic.

"I've heard people say — and I take it as a compliment — 'After a while, I forgot all about you. I just saw that bird!' " Kaplan said. "I understand that, if I'm doing my job right, that's the desired effect."

Puppet supervisor Reilly has observed the same phenomenon. "It's almost magical," he said. "The human and the animal become one."