It's unlikely that anyone with a ticket to the touring show of Disney's "The Lion King" will be disappointed.

The technical effects grab attention, and the evening is filled with excellent performances. Just as it does on Broadway, where the stage version of the animated movie has been running for 10 years, this "Lion King" startles audiences with its blatant theatricality in telling a story through puppetry and dance.

The show's success is largely credited to director Julie Taymor, who designed the costumes, masks and puppets and sold the concept. (Her new film, "Across the Universe," is similarly pushing envelopes.) Kudos also go to choreographer Garth Fagan. Both were true to the cartoon characters while redesigning the story to work in a totally new, live medium.

Picture a wildebeest stampede that traps the young cub Simba and his father Mufasa. It begins with small, projected silhouettes representing the galloping herd. They are joined in the middle distance by a platoon of rod puppets that bring the animals into closer view. Finally, the front of the stage is filled with dancers carrying huge masks, who surround and obliterate the father and son.

Backed by thundering, evocative sound, the effect of violent confusion is remarkably achieved.

Suggestion and symbolism create strong drama in the dance numbers for a pack of menacing hyenas and for a pride of lionesses that stalk and devour an antelope. The performers' skill allows the audience to readily accept these stage conventions.

When Taymor brought puppets — used to create theatrical drama for thousands of years — to Broadway, she used them in a way that merged medieval pagenatry with African tribal ritual. The result: a fresh, daring stage innovation.

The touring version at the Blaisdell Concert Hall is faithful to the original, with minor adjustments for on-the-road conditions. The concert hall has been modified with two new side aisles for the eye-popping "The Circle of Life" opener. As animals pay homage to the newborn prince, a procession of puppets, including a life-size elephant and rhinoceros, make their way to the stage, where birds swoop, antelopes leap, a cheetah gracefully swaggers and a pair of very convincing giraffes lumber.

As in the film, the comedy comes from Zazu the bird (Michael Dean Morgan) and Timon the meerkat (Nathan Lane soundalike John Gardiner), who manipulate rod puppets, and from Pumbaa the warthog (Bob Amaral), who wears a costume puppet.

Timon and Pumbaa also deliver "Hakuna Matata," one of the movie's memorable tunes. In the stage production, it is a bouncy way to end Act 1 but doesn't carry the dramatic weight that mark other numbers.

Mufasa and Scar are created by actors wearing headpieces that are works of art, but which allow for little movement and no real animation.

Former professional rugby player Geno Segers' resonant bass gives Mufasa a regal air. His warm delivery makes the father-and-son scenes with Trevor Jackson as young Simba emotionally satisfying. Kevin Gray delivers the evil Scar with a self-mocking, Vincent Price tone that keeps him truly evil but with comic undertones.

With energy and spirit Clifton Oliver, as grown-up Simba, captures a youngster about to come of age, and as grown-up Nala Ta'Rea Campbell rocks the audience with her powerful voice and presence.

Gugwana Dlamini brings a remarkable vocal sound to the role of Rafiki, the baboon shaman who initiates key points in the action.

Add a trio of slavering hyenas (Jacquelyn Renae Hodges, Rudy Roberson and Robbie Swift) and the daring to feature a pas de deux and two pair of aerial dancers to underscore the ballad "Can You Feel the Love Tonight," and you end up with a show that breaks the mold of what commercial audiences will accept.

They will accept it all when it's done with flair and skill. And this production of "The Lion King" has that in abundance.