Although the runs are far shorter, 3D Theatricals has stepped in to fill a part of the musical void left by the departed Civic Light Opera of South Bay Cities. And while the number of local performances (the company also operates in Fullerton) are fewer in number–only one weekend’s worth of shows next season–the production values are topnotch and the current “Tarzan” is no exception.
This is a relatively new musical, having premiered on Broadway in 2006 but just now making its major regional debut. Chances are most Beach Cities residents haven’t seen it, but may recall the 1999 animated film with songs by Phil Collins, including “You’ll Be In My Heart,” which won an Academy Award. The stage version includes a few more tunes and a book by accomplished playwright David Henry Hwang.
Although based on the novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs, “Tarzan” the film and “Tarzan” the musical are Disney products, and although it didn’t have the stratospheric success of “The Lion King” or “Beauty and the Beast,” “Tarzan” is no less streamlined and polished.
A young couple and their infant (this part of the review is called the synopsis) survive a shipwreck off the coast of Africa and build a treehouse in the jungle. The parents are soon dispatched by a leopard (fine slithering by Remmie Bourgeois). A female gorilla named Kala (sung and played with tender emotion by Daebreon Poiema) rescues and adapts the infant, having just lost her own son. Kerchak (not to be confused with the Dodger pitching ace) is the headmaster and patriarch of the gorilla family, and he’s played with stern gravity and a stentorian voice by Marc Cedric Smith.
Kerchak is wary of humans from the start, and at one point he tells Tarzan that gorillas only kill to protect their families whereas “your kind kills for sheer pleasure.” One may think of poor Cedric the lion, recently gunned down “for sheer pleasure” by Minnesota dentist Walter J. Palmer.
The adult Tarzan is played handsomely and smugly (as they all are) by Devin Archer, and Jane Porter, the young naturalist he falls head over heels for, is performed by comely Katie DeShan. Not surprisingly, Tarzan is quite naive about ulterior motives, and he’ll accidentally put his simian family in grave danger. He learns some lessons the hard way but, this being a Disney musical, love prevails.
As theater, as engrossing entertainment, “Tarzan” is well done and gets off to a visually breathtaking start when Tarzan’s parents are washed overboard, are swimming through turbulent seas, and
emerge exhausted from the shoreline. Nick Petrillo conducts his spirited orchestra and they give the tale added depth and dimension.Throughout the story there are seamless and often graceful aerial acrobatics, at times almost becoming a kind of weightless ballet. After all, when we think of Tarzan we think of the Ape Man swinging fearlessly through the treetops.
The show never loses its cartoonish, that is, its humorous elements, but it smoothly transcends them, too, blending sorrow and compassion, the thrills of discovery, ignorance and knowledge, pleasure and pain, and of course the joys of true love.
“Tarzan: The Stage Musical” is being performed Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m., with Saturday and Sunday matinees at 2 p.m., in the Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center, 1935 Manhattan Beach Blvd., Redondo Beach. Tickets, $20 to $70. Coming up, Oct. 31 to Nov. 8: “The Addams Family: A New Musical Comedy.” Call (714) 589-2770, ext. 1, or go to 3dtshows.com. ER
