Musical Monday: King Kong

Author’s note: I wrote this review immediately following seeing King Kong. After further discussion with people whose opinion I value, I began thinking about my view of the show. I do wonder if my experience being in the second row on a ticket I got for free from a wonderful friend thoroughly colored my opinion. This show was huge and in my face, and I might have felt much differently had I been further back or in a different experience. Looking back, I don’t remember anything about the story and I remember less about the music. I do remember that gorilla. With that in mind, below are my honest, immediate opinions on the show.

Full disclosure: one of my lifelong best friends had the nickname growing up of Godzilla. Why he had it isn’t terribly important, mostly because I don’t exactly remember, but I tried to give myself the only cooler nickname one could have: King Kong. It didn’t stick in any way because giving yourself a nickname is broadly frowned upon, though I still hold it would be a cool nickname. With that in mind I say this somewhat surprising fact: I was really excited to see King Kong on Broadway. I never liked the 2000’s King Kong movie, but this was going to be awesome. When I first saw video of the puppet (link), my hopes got very high. That is a dangerous thing.

Even with high hopes, I was so thoroughly pleased with the production that I saw in its final days of previews earlier this month. Yes, the King Kong puppet is incredible—like maybe the most incredible puppet I’ve ever seen. It is massive and grand but refined and emotional. It is an absolute masterpiece of theater, and I don’t think anyone who even dislikes the show will be able to say the puppet isn’t very well done. Throw in some really amazing scenery and the grand scale of the show, and I think the creative team knocked this out of the park. The top of the Empire State Building is very creatively done, New York feels massive in scale, and perhaps the best thing is the actual boat to Skull Island. I was very, very pleased with the entirety of the visuals from the show.

What really made me happy though was that the show did not rely on visuals alone to carry the story. There is some large scale choreography in the show, which was a very pleasant surprise, and the dancing helped set the scene in a way that this was taking place in the 1930’s. Christiani Pitts, as Ann Darrow the female lead, is a real force on the stage, which helps as she shares it often times with no one other than a 2,400-pound puppet gorilla.

The score wasn’t terribly memorable, to be fair, but I don’t know if that’s because I was so lost in the wonder of the visual that I wasn’t thinking much of the score. It felt like it complemented the show, for sure, but I don’t know if there was any real standout number. I would like to listen to a cast album that came out removed from the visuals to really take in the show. I can see why some might not think it has a great book—it doesn’t differ immensely from the original King Kong story, and that might not be for everyone. That being said changing the lead to have much more agency and strength, and to a black woman from a blonde damsel in distress figure, did feel like it changed King Kong’s troubling racial undertones 

Ultimately, I really did love this performance. It felt big and left me with the sense of wonder and awe that a King Kong story should. The puppetry is incredible and will get most of the press, but this is a big show throughout and should be applauded as such.