The Jungle Book directed by Mary Zimmerman (review)

The Jungle Book is a work of colonial nostalgia. This is as true of Rudyard Kipling’s original stories as it is of Walt Disney’s film, their many differences notwithstanding. Mary Zimmerman’s new stage adaptation, which premiered at the Goodman in Chicago before transferring to the Huntington in Boston, promised an innovative take on both Kipling and Disney. Unlike other adaptations of Disney films, Zimmerman’s The Jungle Book was produced “by special arrangement with” (rather than simply “by”) Disney Theatrical Productions—an arrangement that, according to Disney Theatrical president Thomas Schumacher, gave Zimmerman “enormous freedom.” Press materials emphasized the creative team’s research into Indian cultural realities and the involvement of Indian collaborators. It seemed that a decolonization of The Jungle Book might be in the offing. However, despite an exciting design concept, captivating musical (re-)arrangements, and thoughtful choreography, it failed to deliver on the promise of its politics. The elephants wore pith helmets and the king of the monkeys was black.

It is true, as many have suggested, that Zimmerman’s The Jungle Book was beautifully executed. Daniel Ostling’s impressive set featured moveable screens painted with larger-than-life renderings of leaves and flowers. The shifting two-dimensionality of these screens evoked Victorian naturalist illustration, colonial picture books, and hand-drawn animation in a deft play on The Jungle Book’s antecedents. Gestures toward the sort of kitsch that is typical of contemporary visual culture in India—for example, a smiling anthropomorphic sun with kumkum on his forehead, an enormous pair of hennaed hands—spoke to the intercultural design vocabulary of the production, as did Doug Peck’s musical arrangements. Peck paired a brassy jazz combo with Indian instruments to achieve a genuinely hybrid sound that went well beyond the tokenism of much fusion music. This musical hybridity found its answer in Christopher Gattelli’s dance numbers, which he developed in consultation with prominent bharatanatyam choreographer Hema Rajagopalan. Gattelli could have gone further with his use of bharatanatyam hastas—hand gestures that work within a complex visual and kinesthetic lexicon to convey meaning—but what he did incorporate showed real sensitivity.

The Jungle Book also featured compelling performances from a talented ensemble cast. Usman Ally’s Bagheera, whom Mara Blumenfeld costumed, ingeniously, in a black sherwani with a prosthetic tail, was particularly brilliant. His feline synthesis of explosive movement and languorous stealth was wonderful to watch. However, Zimmerman’s book did not give Ally and his fellow actors enough to work with. This may have been because the middle two-thirds of the piece drew almost exclusively from the animated film, with a few new scenes structured around additional music by Disney stalwarts Richard and Robert Sherman. (Perhaps the lure of the tried-and-true proved too great for Zimmerman, her “special arrangement” with Disney notwithstanding.) The stylistic eclecticism and episodic structure of the film, translated onto the stage, made for an atmosphere reminiscent of a musical revue, with crowd-pleasers like the “The Bare Necessities” (featuring Kevin Carolan as Baloo) given entirely too much stage time. Strict adherence to the aesthetic protocols supplied by Disney also locked Zimmerman into reductive colonial tropes—a blustery Colonel Hathi (Ed Kross) and his elephants of the Raj among them.

Akash Chopra (Mowgli) and André De Shields (King Louie) in Mary Zimmerman’s The Jungle Book.

(Photo: Liz Lauren.)

Most of the problems with the script seem symptomatic of Zimmerman’s approach to the project. In the run-up to the Goodman premiere, she made a number of statements that sidestepped the question of Kipling’s (and Disney’s) politics in favor of the supposedly apolitical ethos of good storytelling. While Zimmerman later clarified or repudiated most of these statements, her Jungle Book remains a work that shuns substantive political engagement. Most of the departures she made from her source texts felt more cosmetic than critical. She changed the lyrics of “My Own Home...