BWW Interview:Mary Zimmerman Creates 'Theatre Nirvana' Through THE JUNGLE BOOK

Actress Anjali Bhimani is quite possibly Mary Zimmerman's biggest fan. After working with Zimmerman many times, Ms. Bhimani raves about the successful director's notoriously organic, inspiration-led process. She is clearly in love with the Zimmerman method.

Those in the theatre world remember Mary Zimmerman well for her groundbreaking adaptation of Metamorphoses (starring Anjali Bhimani) for which she won the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play in 2002. In the same year, she moved to opera, directing and co-writing the libretto for Galileo Galilei at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago. Embracing this art form even further, she made her directorial debut at the Metropolitan Opera in 2007 for Lucia di Lammermoor, subsequently setting Armida and La Sonnambula as well.

With this vast experience under her belt, Mary Zimmeran is currently undertaking The Jungle Book. This one is also at the Goodman, based mostly on the 1960 Disney classic, with the original Rudyard Kipling stories intermingled.

Anjali Bhimai, who plays the mother wolf as well as other roles in The Jungle Book, says from personal experience that Zimmerman always likes to experiment and throw around ideas rather than to meticulously plan. "Mary's style provides a tremendous amount of freedom in the rehearsal room... When Mary casts a show, she doesn't really have a set script, and she doesn't know who she's casting as what."

Zimmerman shows are primarily written around the performers themselves to take advantage of every talent they possess. She casts actors whom she knows are capable of bringing to life not just a play, but a theatrical experience. The characters then slowly emerge throughout this process.

Bhimani thus describes a rehearsal with Zimmerman as, "a collaboration all-around, from start to finish... The more [Mary Zimmerman] finds that you can do, ... the more stuff she can use." Her actors are cast because of who they are, not necessarily for who she wants them to become.

"Mary's willing to say, 'I don't know,' because she's discovering everything just as much as we are. And there's so much freedom when you're working with a director who says, 'I don't know yet. Let's find out. Let's figure that out together.'"

Mary Zimmerman's system allows the show to come together in chunks, so as the characters gradually come alive, so does the script.

In Bhimani's words, "Mary specifically said, 'I'm not entirely sure where I get my inspiration for certain things.' It just kind of starts to come to her from a lot of different places."

Wherever it came from, this inspiration has led her to develop the opening of the show beyond what the movie covered.

"The first 20 minutes expands on a story that the movie really doesn't touch on, which is how Mowgli is adopted into the jungle. In the movie, it's like a minute," Bhimani recalls. "So [the way we do it] sets us up for a very different story. The audience knows right away that it's not your mama's Jungle Book."

Enter Anjali Bhimani. Though the mother wolf had only a few seconds of screen time and no lines at all in the Disney movie, she is a significant part of the beginning of Zimmerman's adaptation.

"What I really love about it," Bhimani says, "is that in the movie, there aren't very many female characters, but now, we start out with a very strong depiction of motherhood and a very strong depiction of love and power that then sets up the story for why this child is so important."

Another visionary change Zimmerman has made to the movie is incorporating Indian culture into every aspect of her staging. So as a product of Zimmerman's passion for the country and her first-hand experience, this show heavily relies on Indian influences. But Zimmerman's staging begins and ends at influence, and she has never intended this to cross over into encyclopedic.

"[Mary Zimmerman]'s paid tremendous homage to the [Indian] origins of this story while respecting the fact that this is a world-renowned and beloved by the world over story, and it's a fairy tale," Bhimani says.

With the orchestra pit in particular, Zimmerman has found how to pay homage to the culture while staying true to the spirit of the Disney movie. Not only do American and Indian musicians play their contrasting instruments in tandem, but they play in new ways. "We have a guy on sitar playing the blues, the way you'd play on a guitar," says Bhimani.

The authentic instrumentation brings the timeless songs like "Bare Necessities," and "I Wan'na Be Like You," to life in a new way, but new music also revitalizes the story. The Jungle Book composer Richard Sherman personally unlocked an entire collection of all-but-forgotten songs written (but never used) for Disney movies from the past fifty years or so.

Anjali Bhimani could not say enough about how wonderful working with the Disney composing legend was, "[Richard Sherman] gave Mary and Doug [Peck, music director] tremendous freedom to choose. He's such an unbelievably generous human being, let alone a generous artist."

From Bhimani's descriptions of Sherman's pure happiness about his compositions for Disney, you'd think he was a wide-eyed beginner. Indeed, Anjali says, "The man is 85 going on 12 with his excitement and enthusiasm for life. So every time he came into the room, we knew everything was going to be ok. He was absolutely delightful."

Among the songs Sherman dug up and repurposed is one Bhimani herself sings as the mother wolf, as well as a Shere Khan (Larry Yando) solo sung to a tune originally written for Disney's The Aristocats in 1970.

She adds, "[Richard Sherman's] joy for putting his music out there is infectious, so it's really exciting to be able to add his music back in."

And it appears that since the show's opening on June 21, audiences have been just as excited about the music and the show as Bhimani is.

"What I'm hearing that people are getting from it is this uniquely theatrical live experience that they couldn't have experienced if they were sitting at home watching the television or reading a book."

Most of all, Bhimani says she wants to see audiences appreciate how Mary Zimmerman's style enhances the story in a way that no other medium could.

"Live theatre really does have the power to do things that nothing else does. And if you can do that in the commercial theatre, then that's it. That's like theatre nirvana."

The Jungle Book now runs through August 18. Tickets to The Jungle Book are $30-$125 and can be purchased by visiting www.GoodmanTheatre.org, calling 312.443.3800, or in person at the Goodman box office (170 N. Dearborn, Chicago).