Tarzan in Russian Musicals

It’s time to introduce what is likely the most faithful recent theatrical play adaptation of Tarzan. Do bear in mind that Tarzan: A Love Story is clearly based on the best moments of the first Tarzan book and has an exclusive character in a detective named Mrs Hudson. 

Being a Pokolenie production, there isn’t a gorilla outfit nor a chimp costume to be seen there, but the people in crude Mangani costumes are clearly in this outrageously hard partying musical! Even more interestingly, Tarzan: A Love Story is basically a joyful mess, in spite of featuring a few pale skinned Russian actors and actresses as stereotypical characters of African descent. 

The musical’s producers are overworked Gen X and Millennial fanboys of the Tarzan books when they fully returned to Russia at the end of its Soviet Union period, just after 65 years of its infamous shadow-ban. Their rap and rock-infused writing is both enchantingly useful and pretty wacky at the same time. 

Konstantin Skripalev and hip hopper Daniil Stepanov both played Tarzan. Konstantin, however, has a rather too manly face but with a beautiful torso, which is pretty funny to be honest, as it just goes to show that for fellow semi-official and unofficial adaptations, any sporty guy and boy actor can play Tarzan; but the lesson is, just don’t get too close to infringing the goddamn frigging trademark! 

Zinaida Gromozdina, the plastic surgery ridden Natalia Kolesnikova and pop idol Maria Parotikova have all played Jane Porter in the musical. Of the three who portray her, the first one is herself a natural ginger. Still, it’s Zinaida as Jane Porter for that musical, who deserves an award for being one of the most book accurate theatre and onscreen Jane Porter variants ever, along with Margot Robbie as the same thing in WB’s Legend of Tarzan. 

Vadim Panfilov, Tatiana Petrova and Anna Goncharova, the theatre regulars who played Archimedes Porter and Esmeralda, are also leaning fairly closer to the descriptions of their comic counterparts, as if they’re illustrated by Russ Manning. Archimedes is basically a well-meant beardless twit, while Esmeralda herself is frankly not as insanely stereotypical as in the books’ older editions, which surely says something about how egregiously written they really are. 

Although the Mangani tribe of Kerchak has a lot of potential for the most part, it tends to be toned down from its members’ much more effed up counterparts in the ERB canon books. As with most of the less Disneyfied adaptations out there, they often look like a less hairy mix of four different African great apes, which kind of annoys some fans more than others. 

For edge-lords with a lot of bile fascination, the tribe of Kulonga is frankly played by Russians in stereotypical AF outfits for a few obvious reasons: although just as discriminated, Afro Russians are a smaller minority than a number of regionally indigenous non-Slavic peoples in that super-hot summer country. 

Now, here comes the Russian Tarzan Dance Party Musical. It is slightly more based on the Broadway model, albeit featuring a somewhat more nuanced take on both the animals and the local African villagers. It also is one of the few Tarzan-inspired musicals to feature a black-haired actress as a checkered dressed Jane Porter and an actor as a grungy eco-punk Tarzan. As suggested by its trailer, the dances are so on fleek! It’s also girlier looking than the Broadway musical, which is itself a work aimed more at an audience of tomboyish preteen-teen girls.