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NEW YORK - Tarzan say, "This not musical. This Disney-cal."
Thank you, big guy. You said that very well. Now swing back to your technologically luxurious jungle and make sweet love to Jane while we take stock of Disney's newest 500-pound Broadway gorilla.
"Tarzan," which opened Wednesday night at the Richard Rodgers Theatre, is a gaspingly beautiful design achievement that uses aerial choreography and a dazzling bag of optical tricks to plunge the viewer deep into the vortex of its Anglo-African tale. In an opening scene that will be talked about for years to come, designer-director Bob Crowley summons thunder and lightning to create a tempest of raging ocean and shipwrecked bodies falling through space. In a heartbeat, the blue of the ocean turns into the tangled green of the forest, and a lost boy's journey to become Lord of the Apes blazes off at whiplash speed.
(Insert Tarzan yell here.)
Notice we haven't mentioned any music yet. That's because composer Phil Collins' over-synthed, over-amped score sounds so canned that it might as well have been pre-recorded. Plot rushes by. But about all we've heard in the way of a lyric so far is a saccharine chorus that keeps repeating: "Two worlds, one family." Insipid.
You wonder, do our tickets say "Tarzan" - or "The Color Purple"? Because this soft-rock schlock is starting to sound a lot like another new musical, written by Broadway novices with pop pedigrees, that tried hard to emulate the brightly packaged, emotionally squishy Disney model.
One of the most expensive Broadway shows ever, rumored to cost between $15 million and $20 million, "Tarzan" again proves that music is at the bottom of the Disney checklist. The name of the game is spectacle - pure-T, jaw-dropping, ocean-swelling, swing-from-the-sky entertainment - and by that measure, "Tarzan" is one sexy ticket. (Cue for Tarzan yell.)
So we'll just sit here, look at the pretty pictures and watch the dangerously fascinating dance between human, animal, even botanical behavior. Fortunately, there's no head-to-toe fur for these apes. Crowley's fashion-conscious gorillas wear torso-revealing costumes in inky black, and Meryl Tankard's choreography turns them into beings that are playful, mysterious and strangely haunting.
More on the haunched ones in a moment. Right now, we need to say that the adult Tarzan is played by a young, virtually unknown Charleston, S.C., native named Josh Strickland. Swinging down from the balcony, over the heads in the orchestra section, it's one heck of a landing on the Great White Way. Strickland sings and performs handsomely, too, and once Jane (Jenn Gambatese) arrives, his Tarzan is a game, goofy and enthusiastic student of his lost mother tongue.
Jane gets a pretty swell intro as well.
After observing hothouse blossoms unfurl and glorious insects metamorphose, she gets trapped in a big spider web. Here Pichon Baldinu's aerial design recalls Cirque du Soleil. Bodies hang from bungee cords, twisting their way out of shimmering costumes, and Jane is literally snapped into place on the midair web by an invisible tether. Though Gambatese's portrayal of the clever English girl is a little too pert and idiosyncratic, her voice is pure and technically flawless.
Now back to those gorillas.
In one really smart move, the creators have fleshed out the story line involving Tarzan's ape father, Kerchak, and his mother, Kala. Kerchak, played by Shuler Hensley, knows that Tarzan's presence will upset the ecology of the ape clan, yet he's too kind-hearted not to love the boy ("No Other Way"). A Tony Award winner for Trevor Nunn's "Oklahoma!" and the only certifiable star in the lot, Hensley transcends his character's hulking form to evince a portrait of a tortured and conflicted soul. Are these creatures part human? Absolutely, and Merle Dandridge's Kala is an example of how they can be strikingly beautiful, too. Like the celebrated "Lion King," "Tarzan" sticks to the formula of the young prince who must banish his foes before he can claim his patrimony and be redeemed by love. (Remember Simba?) But Tarzan's conflict is deeper : His evil opponent represents the other side of his divided self. Alas, David Henry Hwang's book and Collins' lyrics keep the psychological material of Edgar Rice Burroughs' 1912 novel at cartoon level.
If only Disney could find a songwriter with the panache to match Crowley's genius. Here, Crowley, who won a Tony Award for his design of "Aida," marries the simplicity of Walt Disney's storybook sketches with the marvels of new technology. The adventures of Tarzan may be musically disappointing, but as the Disney-fication of Broadway continues, theater gets a whole new toolbox. Prospero's magic meets the Midas touch. And Tarzan gets the last yell.
Wendell Brock writes for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. E-mail: wbrock AT ajc.com
Cox News Service
