Behind the Green Room
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The role of Kerchak posed challenges to both David and Phil Collins as they had to expand on a character who was simply a monolithic alpha male in the movie. In Act I the silverback has two numbers, No Other Way, that demonstrates that Kerchak is only thinking of the safety and well-being of the troop and Sure As Sun Turns to Moon which is a tender scene revealing Kala’s fondness for the father of her dead infant. “The overriding goal was to humanize Kerchak,�? David admits. “Tom had said that during production of the movie that they kept trying to put material in the story for him but it was better for him to be two-dimensional. It would have been futile to try and accomplish the same characterization for the play. Ultimately Kerchak is right about everything he feels. One thing he is wrong about is an inability to distinguish individual members of a species. He is a good person who has suffered great harm at the hands of humans. That gets us a certain way towards making Kerchak more appealing. Having Shuler Hensley in the role adds weight too as he had such great ideas about the character. Sure As Sun Turns to Moon only happened during rehearsals by observing the relationship between Shuler and Merle [Dandridge, Kala].�?
The metamorphosis of Young Tarzan into an adult occurs during Son of Man when Josh Strickland arrives on stage from the rear of the balcony on a pulley. Audiences may not realize that Tarzan is actually a little younger in the musical than the movie. “I knew that I wanted a younger adult Tarzan when he is still half-boy and half-man,�? Bob says. “He hasn’t seen a woman yet and so it made sense to make him 18 or 19. Our Tarzan is before he becomes Tarzan the Legend. We literally saw hundreds of performers and then this boy came in, looking gorgeous and singing like an angel. He was also new to all this and came with no baggage.�? That was Josh Strickland the former American Idol finalist. Phil Collins concurs that Josh was perfect for the role: “I attended the auditions as I wanted someone with a great pop voice. That is how I write music and it made sense to have someone that wasn’t Broadway.�?
The Son of Man sequence unfolds with animation created specifically for Tarzan by Little Airplane Productions, Inc. This company specializes in creating children programming and was founded by Josh Selig, a former writer on Sesame Street. Viewers of Playhouse Disney will recognize their work from the Go, Baby! interstitials that are designed to encourage viewer interaction as the baby completes a series of tasks. However Special Creatures specialist Ivo Coveney had originally designed a different sequence for the musical. “After the Buenos Aires workshop Disney thought I could be useful on other parts of the project,�? Ivo says. “The Son of Man scene was originally going to feature live shadow puppets rather than doing the same effect with animation. I remember Bob saying that he wanted a full size elephant during rehearsals. I grabbed some polystyrene and wood and mocked-up the puppet. It helped to have me on the side of the set the whole time as I could make something en-situ very quickly for them to play with. Otherwise Bob would have had to place the order and by the time I had delivered they could have moved on to another idea.�?
Jane’s arrival in the jungle is played out with the number Waiting for This Moment (that was originally Jane’s Secret Life). During the first previews this scene played out at over eight minutes and was eventually trimmed for the final product. In the animated movie Jane sheds her reserved British inhibitions over the course of the film through the metaphor of her clothing. The stage play employs a similar technique although it all transpires in this one scene. “Jane’s Secret Life was the only opportunity I had to balance the butch masculinity of the musical with something sensual and more feminine,�? Choreographer Meryl Tankard explains. “Jane is intoxicated by the smells, color and exoticism of the jungle. The sensation is almost as if she is high which brings another side of Tarzan that people might not expect. We wanted the audience to feel small in this scene and used huge flowers coming up. You get this crazy hallucinogenic feeling.�?
Jane is played by Jenn Gambatese whose previous credits included Penny Pingleton in Hairspray and dual roles in All Shook Up. “Jenn had such an ingénue quality about her when she auditioned,�? Bob marvels. “She seemed so innocent and was a bright as a button which is what we were looking for Jane. Her eyes are opened up to the world when she arrives in Africa as she discards the shackles of Victorian society. Jenn’s personality is jus so infectious and the role really came to life when she began rehearsing.�?
Only one character has altered drastically from the animated interpretation. The villainous expedition leader Clayton has morphed from Brian Blessed’s aristocratic giant into an American from the Deep South. “We all felt that changing Clayton would add a different kind of voice to the story,�? David says. “All of the humans are British and making Clayton American brought a different color to the piece. I didn’t necessarily think he was going to be a Southerner as I saw him as a rakish Indiana Jones or Rhett Butler-type character. He just evolved naturally.�?
The comeuppance of the villain is also realized differently for Broadway. Clayton retains responsibility for Kerchak’s death but he is imprisoned onboard the ship by his own men after the incidence. “In the Burroughs books Tarzan travels to the US and Jane married Clayton. That is in stark contrast to the movie where Clayton dies,�? David reveals. “There was never any question of revisiting the original source. There was extensive discussion about whether Tarzan should leave Africa in the final scene. However I felt that opting for that conclusion went against the “two worlds one family�? mantra of our story. I decided to leave Tarzan in Africa with Jane and his real family. I also wasn’t crazy about conveying the message that the bad guy has to always die. In most Disney movies including Tarzan the villain does die but it is basically at his own hands. That is one way to split the difference but there was something thematic gratifying about Clayton being imprisoned in the very cages that he wanted to put the apes inside. You can dispatch a thug without killing him.�?
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-- Posted July 6, 2007