By Act II, we understand that as soon as the Genie has helped Aladdin win Jasmine’s heart by disguising him as a prince, Aladdin will use his final wish to grant the Genie freedom. It’s more obvious onstage than onscreen that these two critical relationships have opposite vectors. More important, Aladdin’s rapport with him is much friendlier, warmer and more mutually sympathetic than the prickly, tentative bond he struck up with Jasmine in the marketplace. Scott is occasionally left a touch out of breath by the obligation to be all over the stage at once, while sustaining a speech rate faster than most people’s train of thought, but he still comes across as superhuman. Nicholaw certainly doesn’t stint on the showmanship during “Friend Like Me,” engulfing us in wave after wave of of dance and acrobatic sequences, delirious with costumes and explosions of confetti. Here, we get to the fun part: Aladdin rubs the lamp, and the Genie appears, a whirlwind of energy and humor, ready and willing to fulfill three wishes and provide loads of Broadway-style spectacle in the process. Once inside the cave, though, Aladdin can’t resist grabbing a jade necklace for Jasmine, affronting the cave, which collapses and traps him and the lamp inside. Jafar offers Aladdin his freedom in exchange for retrieving the lamp. Aladdin is arrested and dragged to the palace dungeon, where, through sorcery, Jafar learns that this unprepossessing con man is actually “the diamond in the rough,” the one person worthy of entering the Cave of Wonders that holds the magic lamp. During their meet-cute in the marketplace, the disguised Jasmine and Aladdin run afoul of the law. Is there some technical problem backstage?įortunately, the story does get going again. By the time we’ve sat through the laborious hijinks of “Babkak, Omar, Aladdin, Kassim,” in which the four pals try busking for a living, we have begun to suspect the show of stalling for time. We don’t really need “Proud of Your Boy,” in which Aladdin sings of his desire to be more than just a criminal. Some of these numbers were evidently written for the film but dropped a few were added more recently by Menken and Beguelin.Īlthough the original collection of six songs is thin for a stage musical, it could be argued that the newcomers don’t add enough to the story to justify the time they take.
And Iago, Jafar’s gleefully amoral confidant, is now a brightly dressed servant instead of a parrot - although, as played by Reggie De Leon, just as screechy.Īdditional songs have been woven into the score by Alan Menken (music), Howard Ashman (lyrics) and Tim Rice (lyrics).
(Two of them seem to be channeling Nathan Lane and Ernie Sabella as Timon and Pumbaa in “The Lion King.”) In place of a tiger, Princess Jasmine gets a trio of lissome, emotionally supportive female attendants who urge her to sneak out in disguise to experience the freedom of life as a commoner.
Instead of a pet monkey, Aladdin has three stooge-like but affable buddies played by Philippe Arroyo, Zach Bencal and Mike Longo. We’re also introduced to new characters, because somebody realized that the film’s animal sidekicks play better onstage as people. Through it all we meet the characters from the film: Aladdin (Adam Jacobs), a poor “street rat” who lives by petty thievery, always “one jump ahead of the lawmen” the feisty Princess Jasmine (Courtney Reed), who wants to marry for love her father, the rule-bound Sultan (JC Montgomery), who insists that she marry a prince and his skeevy, black-gowned vizier, Jafar (Jonathan Weir), who dreams of seizing power. Gregg Barnes’ glittery costumes, luscious as a garden of cotton candy flowers, expose a dizzying array of pectoral muscles and belly buttons, which director and choreographer Casey Nicholaw’s lively dance numbers keep moving.
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