Home Geek Geek Reviews Review: King Kong is Alive on Broadway

Review: King Kong is Alive on Broadway

December 27, 2018

King King is alive on Broadway. “It was Beauty killed the Beast.” It was Kong killed it on stage. King Kong appearing on Broadway has been inevitable since the giant ape graced the silver screen. The greatest monster to ever walk the streets of New York City was destined to make his way to Broadway eventually. And with a little practice, maybe the giant ape should learn to sing, and crash through Carnegie Hall.

King Kong made a cozy little place to nestle in my heart back when he was shot frame-by-frame and filmed in black in white back in 1933. I didn’t get to see him for the first time until about forty years later. King Kong instantly became my favorite giant monster. It would be another thirty years or so before I realized, like the fiend in Frankenstein, the monster isn’t the monster. It doesn’t matter if it’s Victor or Denham. The monster has always been mankind. Master animator Willis O’Brien understood this concept, and brought heart and life to the metal armature model, and we fell in love. He made Kong the hero of his story.

Eighty-five years later, a group of ten puppeteers dressed in stage black turned an otherwise lifeless, stylized, giant ape into a creature, we have no choice but to fall in love with. Fast forward to the bows at the end, and it was that group of life-givers who got the standing ovation.

We all know the basic story: struggling actress, Ann Darrow, is whisked away to the remote and mysterious Skull Island by producer, Carl Denham. They meet, then subdue the beast, and exploit him at home. He rampages, he is killed, and some of us walk away with enough guilt to realize it was wrong to abduct this great wonder because you can’t capture great wonder. It’s not something we get to hold. Wonder is supposed to hold us in its giant leathery fingers.

What’s important to note here, before I go any further, is that magic exists in this show. If you have kids, take them to see King Kong Alive on Broadway. If you are a fan of King Kong, go see King Kong Alive on Broadway. If you don’t live in New York, find a way to go. If you live in New York City, you better just go before you never have a chance again. This show is not going to last very long at the Broadway Theater. And let me be the first to say, I hope I am wrong. The show just does not feel like it will draw a typical Broadway crowd for very long, and it’s not the fault of the ape. I regret never having seen Spider-Man on stage. I postponed and waited for the price to go down, and eventually missed the opportunity. Critics tore it apart in the nicest ways possible. They adored the theatrics of it, and they cheered for the endeavor of it all; but just as fandom demands good writing in films we need good writing in a live show on Broadway.

Through the entire performance of King Kong Alive on Broadway, I was jaw to the floor, moist eyes, pinned grin in love with the giant puppet. I promised myself I would do my best not to watch the puppeteers too much for fear they would take me out of the experience; but they were the experience. These weren’t just puppeteers, but acrobats performing physical stunts in order to bring Kong to life. His glassy, dark eyes were just the first ingredient to making a realistic creature. The cooks in the kitchen were amazing to watch. I found myself lost in imagined rehearsals as King’s Company experimented with movement. They leapt from the back of the beast, lifting the giant fists with body weight and pulleys, then, depending on the scene, slammed the fist to the floor, allowing the sound effects to finish the action. Even the twisting of a wrist and other tiny gestures required precise giant movements by the puppeteers.

I may have been transfixed by the puppet so much that I was less than impressed with the rest of the cast. Eric William Morris’ Carl Denham was just slimy enough to get by, but there was nothing wrong with how he played him. The problem may have been the script. The truncated version of an already simple story was convoluted with character development that had very little to do with the point of the story. Denham realizes too late that he’s got loyal employees he’s been taking for granted, but we never get to see the real impact of his ingratitude. The death scenes of actual people in the original story is what makes us realize he’s a creep. We don’t root for Kong because he kills people. We root for Kong because Denham selfishly exposes people to the violence of uncapturable nature. Instead, we are treated to a tiny lesson on how he shouldn’t have bullied the simple “Lumpy,” a caring, loyal man Friday whose nickname is all that appears in the playbill (so it’s truly only Ann Darrow who is respectful enough to address him by his real name). Erik Lochtefield plays a fine “Len,” but the character isn’t enough to bring humanity to the story.

Maybe it’s blind love for all things King Kong, but I didn’t fall in love with any of the human characters in the Broadway show. The ensemble of background characters gave flawless performances, and the main cast played their roles to perfection, but the combination of the lackluster story telling and the awkward musical numbers kept me focused on the underused main character: King Kong.

In all of the film versions of King Kong, Ann Darrow has been the voice of the creature. She’s been the one to express to the audience (and to the other characters) that which we are not deciphering ourselves. But instead of having her teach us the lessons we are meant to learn about the human treatment of this great wonder we call Kong, we are treated to a lesson on girl power. I would normally champion this kind of effort in a script. They do have to make this version of the tale its own thing, and I usually enjoy watching men squirm through the current pendulum swing that has produced strong women characters in the entertainment world. It’s about time that we get to see strength and courage exist outside of the Flash Gordon mold. We all know that without Dale Arden and Princess Aura’s help, Flash would have been toast many times over. But Kong is a capable hero. He sacrifices himself to protect Ann Darrow. That doesn’t make her a damsel in distress. That was the story. That was the lesson. Christiani Pitts plays the script perfectly. It’s the script that is flawed. Why is she singing about the wonders of the world ten seconds after…I suppose there should be a spoiler warning here…don’t read the rest of this paragraph if you don’t know the story that climbed the tower of our culture for the good part of a century: Why is she singing a happy song when Kong has just died?

I admit I was oblivious to that last part at first. My wife pointed it out to me. Darrow was happy at the end. I was too busy wondering why I wasn’t crying. I was still thinking about the outstanding light and animation on the stage that gave us the feel the King Kong was moving faster than he was. I was too busing admiring how well the scenery throughout the adventure brought us into cinematic environments, cutting away to new scenes in an instant. I was busy realizing that the reason I was deprived of a good Kong chest beating throughout the show was because it was his last hoorah. My own lungs filled with air, and my heart fluttered in the moments before the fall. Kong was Alive on Broadway. And I was privileged to see it. Go see it for the sake of our favorite ape.

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