MAY DAY! MAY day! There’s a small boy in a big jungle doing his thing with panthers and monkeys and as a result, you must immediately make your way to see The Jungle Book currently enjoying a season at Montecasino. Punted for the young, but suitable for all ages, this feisty and beautifully made show demonstrates that Walt Disney is not the only storyteller who could remagic the great classics into memorable musicals.
Directed by Daniel Butcher-Geddes, this remarkable piece features brand new songs, with unused lyrics, a clear and fresh reading of the original 1894 Rudyard Kipling stories, and an understanding of the jungle creatures of India that goes beyond the ‘Bear Necessities’.
It’s a moving tale about a young human foundling, Mowgli (Noluthando Mathebula) who is taken into the bosom of the jungle by mostly kindly beasts without hidden agendas. By and large, it is a tale of being decent to one’s peers, no matter how different they are from you, but it does carry an undertone of tribalism – or animalism – where each ultimately must hunt with his own and raise his own.
But in these values, there lies some extraordinarily wise costume-design, a beautiful understanding of the musical genre and a stage set, which in electric oranges and base greens conveys the rich and oft scary texture of a jungle. No fake furry onesies here: the essence of what makes a wolf, a wolf, for instance, are focused on with a sense of poetry that evokes the costume designs of Sarah Roberts in their wit and simplicity.
While there is an unwieldy wolf cave that has to be dragged inelegantly on and off the stage, from time to time, the set is otherwise replete with swings and ropes, a jungle gym and a slide that all play wonderfully into the complexity of a wild and very physical space.
It’s all, of course, fun and games, until the really scary beasts need to be part of the fray. And it’s here that you will see easily the finest snake puppet given life on stage in this country by Virtuous Kandemiri in the role of Kaa and some nifty footwork in an orange overall by Jonathan Raath as the apparently fearless and terribly feared tiger, Shere Khan, the big bad rival of the tale. Not to forget, of course, the inimitable Baloo, with his big teddy bear body, played by Grant Towers.
This is a fresh and convincing start to an understanding of the children’s theatrical production genre that raises the bars and the barres considerably. With beautiful attention to new ideas in a chestnut of a classic, the stage is ripe for brand new energy, both in front of and behind those footlights. Don’t miss this work. It is a gift to the industry and your youngsters!
- The Jungle Book is based on the eponymous 1894 classic by Rudyard Kipling, adapted for stage by and directed by Daniel Butcher-Geddes. It features design by Wessel Odendaal (musical score) and Ashleigh Butcher-Geddes (costumes) and is produced by VR Theatrical. It is performed by Thuto Gaasenwe, Virtuous Kandemiri, Noluthando Mathebula, Katlego Nche, Jonathan Raath and Grant Towers at the Pieter Toerien Theatre, Montecasino theatre complex in Fourways, until 16 February 2025.