The Lion King Sleep No More Analysis

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Is a play without actors a play? Possibly. However, not all plays would survive without actors- especially actors that contribute to the mise en scene of the play. Neither The Lion King, Sleep No More, nor Miss Saigon would be the masterpieces they are without their ensemble breathing life into the scenes and transforming a script into art. One incredibly unique play, in the case of mise en scene, is The Lion King. The beauty of this particular show is the jarring realization that the placement of props tended to be sparse. For someone who has not seen the performance, this might seem like an impossible scenario. After all, The Lion King is known for being a Broadway hit and you cannot become a Broadway hit by having no props, right? Turns …show more content…

With Miss Saigon, there are more props on stage as compared to The Lion King, however, many of the props double as two different settings based on which characters are present at the time. For example, Dreamland doubles as an unnamed building during the day and an underground brothel during the night. It is possible for audience members to determine whether Dreamland is the brothel or not by the presence of bargirls and/or American military men. The duty of differentiating parts of the set is not the only way actors in Miss Saigon contribute to the mise en scene of play. They are also used in splitting the set and creating location. One scene in Act I has Kim and Ellen both singing about their love for Chris. The kicker is that they are both in drastically different locations during this musical number. Kim has been left behind in Saigon, or Ho Chi Minh City as it is now known, and Ellen is in bed with Chris in America, Atlanta specifically. The way audience members can distinguish the separation between the two sets is all because of the actresses (and some set elevation). Ellen had never been to Vietnam, while it is revealed a little earlier in the play that Kim never got to leave Vietnam. Miss Saigon has a variety of locations that the play flits to and from in order to give an encompassing view of the narrative. Without the actors standing fast in their respective locations, it would be incredibly difficult for the audience to keep track of what is occurring, where it is happening, and to

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