KING KONG – MEDIA CALL - Preview + Photos by Joe Calleri.

What – KING KONG – MEDIA CALL

Where and When – REGENT THEATRE - Monday, 27 May 2013

Reviewer + Photographer - Joe Calleri.

Full Disclosure - I attended a media call for this preview.

The 8^th Wonder of the World. The Lord of the Apes. From Skull Island to New York, to the Regent Theatre. King Kong in all of his muscular, mechanical, monstrous majesty is set to marvel Melbourne’s theatre-goers.   

After five years in the making, and an unprecedented 6 months of rehearsals at the Regent Theatre, Melbourne theatre audiences will bear witness to King Kong who is part marionette, animatronic and puppet. One who is 6 metres tall, and constructed of steel, aluminium, lycra and latex. Certainly, a far cry from Willis O’Brien's Kong model which measured a mere 18 inches in length. But, O’Brien’s ground-breaking stop motion mastery meant that, when Kong debuted on film in 1933, the film – still a classic - threw audiences into widespread panic.

At the media call, we first hear Esther Hannaford’s Ann Darrow singing the tender Full Moon Lullaby to a dozy, placated Kong. Darrow, as Kong’s human “love interest” is suitably platinum blonde, and petite. A striking contrast to Kong’s mass. Much of the success of this production will ride on the credibility of the interaction between Darrow and Kong.

The second sequence, The Chase, set to Marius de Vries’s sampling of Justice’s “Genesis”, sees Kong rampaging across the stage.  

Designer, Sonny Tilders, let media into some of Kong’s behind the scenes secrets: the ten “King’s Men”, all circus artists, and former NICA graduates, who manipulate some of Kong’s on-stage movements; and the 3 puppeteers who operate Kong off-stage using “voodoo” controls.    

Audiences will be gob-smacked at Kong’s remarkable range of motion that makes him seem life-like. And when Kong roars, he will make the theatre shake.

Can King Kong become one of the great, enduring theatrical events? Only time will tell. But, for the present, Melbourne audiences should prepare themselves for an encounter with King Kong – a formidable creature, from a far-away island that time forgot, and the likes of which they will never have witnessed.

Esther Hannaford as Ann Darrow with a drowsy Kong

Some of the "King's Men" who operate Kong.

Stunning attention to detail of Kong's features.