Yes, there’s really some sly alchemy coming out of that lamp!
Disney’s Aladdin, the 2014 hit musical based on the Academy Award®-winning animated film, opened on Broadway at the New Amsterdam Theatre to critical acclaim and quickly established itself as one of the highest grossing blockbusters of all time.
The show nabbed five Tony Award nominations and, as of March 2024, has been seen by more than 15 million people worldwide.
Two U.S. tours followed, one in 2017 and the second tour hitting 36 cities, which is now playing at Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa through May 12th. This newest engagement of Aladdin employs approximately 75 theater professionals traveling with the show and about 40 additional locals in each city.
As directed and choreographed by Casey Nocholaw, and adapted by the book writer Chad Beguelin, “Aladdin” has an infectious, syrupy spirit. Not to mention enough baubles, bangles and beadings to keep a whole season of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” contestants in runway attire. I'm still shaking the stray sequins from my clothing.
Mr. Nicholaw, best known for the spectacularly smutty “Book of Mormon,” has infused the original material without any subversive aspects, or even a single naughty word. But while it mostly sticks to the formulaic pattern of the movie—spirited princess falls in love with cute commoner, evil vizier snarls, helpful genie makes like a veteran of the stand-up circuit—the stage “Aladdin” also joshes the well-known antecedent conventions of the genre with a breezy insouciance that scrubs away some of the original material’s much-loved gloss. (“We don’t have time for self-discovery,” the villain, Jafar, snaps at one point.)
The score (by Alan Menken, Howard Ashman and Tim Rice), which features several extravagant numbers written for the movie that didn’t make it to the screen (and some new ones with lyrics by Mr. Beguelin), is fabulous, and pays energetic tribute to everything from the Cotton Club to Las Vegas to vintage Hollywood.
As many will recall, the 1992 movie was all but upended by the anarchic performance of Robin Williams, who provided the voice of the shape-shifting blue Genie. Here a similar feat is performed by Marcus M. Martin, a genial presence who presides over the proceedings with a wink and a sly smile, and stops the show on cue when he emerges from his lamp to sing the hyperactive “Friend Like Me.”
As Mr. Martin races through Ashman’s witty lyrics with impressive breath control, the gold-dripping cave designed by Bob Crowley explodes with members of the chorus performing a series of antic divertissements. Fez-wearing dancers proffer piles of food, glittery showgirls fling their gams in the air, Genie and Aladdin do a brief tango and a sliver of a square dance (I think), all followed by a big-finish tap finale featuring blindingly colorful costumes.
This almost maniacally entertaining number seems to interpolate snatches of songs from other Disney movies (like “Beauty and the Beast”) into the accelerating mayhem, and includes allusions to disparate cultural markers like Oprah Winfrey, “West Side Story” and “Let’s Make a Deal.” Behind Door No. 3 is a miniature pyramid, inspiring an immortal pun from the Genie: “Now you and King Tut will finally have something in Tutankhamen!”
This kind of ba-dum-bum humor happily dazes us all through the familiar mechanics of its central story line. Sometimes that's hard to remember if you get caught up in the glitter, but in a nutshell, it involves the travails of Princess Jasmine whose father, the Sultan (Sorab Wadia), is determined to find her a suitably regal husband.
Naturally Jasmine, one of Disney’s earlier girl-empowerment figurines, sticks up for her right to make her own choice in husbands. (“Why are you so determined to pawn me off to any Tom, Dick or Hassim that comes our way?” she huffs.) Although she’s played with a likable light touch by Senzel Ahmady, she may as well have “spunky” tattooed in henna on one hand, and “sweet” on the other.
Escaping from the palace in disguise to mix with the common people one day, she meets Aladdin (a gleaming Adi Roy, played with boyish comic verve and high athleticism), who’s poor but hunky and lovable. Mr. Roy (Broadway: “Jagged Little Pill”) is constantly trailed by a trio of ne’er-do-well companions (Colt Prattes, Jake Letts and Nathan Levy as Kassim, Babkak and Omar) who trade snarky remarks and crack jokes as they scrape a living by any means possible.
Unsurprisingly, and after many trips around the bazaar, this bunch triumphs over the machinations of the nasty Jafar, played with epicene menace and great lashings of eyeliner by Anand Nagraj, and whose Red Lory sidekick has also been transformed into a human one, a Gilbert Gottfriend-like mini-meanie called Iago (Aaron Choi), spouting his own steady stream of one-liners as he bustles behind his evil overlord.
Produced by Disney Theatrical Group, under the managing direction of Andrew Flatt, Aladdin features music by Tony Award and eight-time Oscar winner Alan Menken (Beauty and the Beast, Newsies, Sister Act), lyrics by two-time Oscar winner Howard Ashman (Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid), three-time Tony Award and three-time Oscar winner Tim Rice (Evita, Aida) and six-time Tony Award nominee Chad Beguelin (The Wedding Singer), with a book by Beguelin, and is directed and choreographed by two-time Tony Award winner Casey Nicholaw (The Book of Mormon).
Aladdin is designed by seven-time Tony-winning scenic designer Bob Crowley, eight-time Tony-winning lighting designer Natasha Katz, three-time Tony-winning costume designer Gregg Barnes and sound designer Ken Travis. The production team also includes illusion designers Jim Steinmeyer and Rob Lake, hair designer Josh Marquette and makeup designer Milagros Medina-Cerdeira. The music team is headed by music supervisor and music director Michael Kosarin, who also created the vocal and incidental music arrangements, joined by orchestrator Danny Troob and dance music arranger Glen Kelly. John Macinnis is the associate choreographer, Jason Trubitt is the production supervisor and Myriah Bash is the general manager. Anne Quart serves as executive producer.
CAST: Genie: MARCUS M. MARTIN; Jafar: ANAND NAGRAJ; Iago: AARON CHOI; Aladdin: ADI ROY; Jasmine: SENZEL AHMADY; Sultan: SORAB WADIA; Babkak: JAKE LETTS; Omar: NATHAN LEVY; Kassim: COLT PRATTES; Shop Owner: TYLER JOHNSON-CAMPION; Razoul: KOLTEN BELL; Henchmen: COLLIN J. BRADLEY, BRANDON J. LARGE; Prince Abdullah: BRANDON BURKS; Attendants: LIZZY MARIE LEGREGIN, SONIA MONROY, ADRIANA NEGRON; Fortune Teller: ADRIANA NEGRON.
ENSEMBLE: KOLTEN BELL, COLLIN J. BRADLEY, BRANDON BURKS, JAES CALEB GRICE, EVIN JOHNSON, TYLER JOHNSON-CAMPION, BRANDON J. LARGE, LIZZY MARIE LEGREGIN, ADAM MANDALA, SONIA MONROY, GABRIELA E. MORENO, ANGELINA MULLINS, ADRIANA NEGRON, JESSICA MALLARE WHITE.
STANDBYS; For Genie/Jafar/Sultan: NICHALAS L. PARKER; For Genie/Sultan/Babkak: J. ANDREW SPEAS.
SWINGS: KYLE CARESS, EDWARD CUELLAR, NICOLE LAMB, KYRA SMITH, ASTEN STEWART
UNDERSTUDIES: ALADDIN: Collin J. Bradley, Brandon J. Large; JAFAR: Kolten Bell; JASMINE: Nicole Lamb, Lizzy Marie Legregin; KASSIM: Brandon Burks, Edward Cuellar; OMAR: Collin J. Bradley, Kyle Caress; BABKAK: Adam Mandala; IAGO: Evin Johnson, Adam Mandala.
DANCE CAPTAIN: EDWARD CUELLAR; ASSISTANT DANCE CAPTAIN: KYRA SMITH
FIGHT CAPTAINS: EDWARD CUELLAR, BRANDON J. LARGE.
CAVE VOICES: COLT PRATTES
Chris Daniels
Arts & Entertainment Reviewer
The Show Report
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