Genie keeps this ‘Aladdin’ going
This version alters its film predecessor with new characters, new song and plot changes.
Just before the intermission of “Aladdin” at the Hollywood Pantages, the Genie finally emerges from his lamp. “Did you miss me?” he asks the audience before launching into a spangly, torrential, full-ensemble performance of the Oscarnominated song “Friend Like Me.”
We met him at the start, with his flirty introduction to the fictional kingdom of Agrabah, so we don’t expect him to be blue, as in the 1992 Disney film on which this musical is based. We know he’s a man, the actor Michael James Scott, not a wisp of smoke. He’s not Robin Williams, who originated the motor-mouthed, wisecracking character onscreen, but he knows how to make us laugh. He’s fabulous and sassy, and his wideranging pop culture references and impersonations have been freshened up by book writer Chad Beguelin. So yes, we did miss him. But there was plenty to see in the meantime. Scenic designer Bob Crowley dazzles us with the peach and rose market in Agrabah, the white lacy filigree of the Sultan’s palace against an azure sky and the vast, gold-encrusted Cave of Wonders, complete with stalagmites that slide onstage, then telescope up to their full height.
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.
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 rulebound Sultan (JC Montgomery), who insists she marry a prince; and his skeevy, black-gowned vizier, Jafar (Jonathan Weir), who dreams of seizing power.
We’re also introduced to new characters, because somebody realized the sidekicks play better onstage as people. Instead of a pet monkey, Aladdin has three stooge-like but affable buddies played by Philippe Arroyo, Zach Bencal and Mike Longo. 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 life as a commoner. 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.
Alan Menken (music) and Howard Ashman and Tim Rice (lyrics) have woven additional songs into the score. Some of these numbers were evidently written for the film but dropped; a few were added more recently by Menken and Beguelin.
The original set of six songs is thin for a stage musical, but it could be argued that the newcomers don’t add enough to the story to justify the time they take. We don’t really need “Proud of Your Boy,” in which Aladdin sings of his desire to be more than just a criminal. By the time we’ve sat through the laborious hijinks of “Babkak, Omar, Aladdin, Kassim,” in which the pals try busking, we begin to suspect the show of stalling for time. Is there some technical problem backstage?
Fortunately, the story picks up. During their meetcute in the marketplace, the disguised Jasmine and Aladdin run afoul of the law. He is arrested and dragged to the palace dungeon, where, through sorcery, Jafar learns this unprepossessing con man is “the diamond in the rough,” worthy of entering the Cave of Wonders that holds the magic lamp.
Jafar offers Aladdin freedom in exchange for retrieving the lamp. Once inside, though, Aladdin can’t resist grabbing a jade necklace for Jasmine, affronting the cave, which collapses and traps him and the lamp inside.
Now, the fun part: Aladdin rubs the lamp, and the Genie appears, a whirlwind of humor, ready and willing to fulfill three wishes and provide loads of spectacle in the process.
Nicholaw doesn’t stint on the showmanship during “Friend Like Me,” engulfing us in wave after wave of dance and acrobatic sequences, delirious with costumes and explosions of confetti.
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. Aladdin’s rapport with him is friendlier, warmer and more mutually sympathetic than the prickly, tentative bond he struck up with Jasmine in the marketplace.
It’s more obvious onstage than onscreen that these critical relationships have opposite vectors. Once 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. The price of finding love will be losing his closest friend.
It’s upsetting to imagine, because Aladdin and the Genie have fun together, as in “Prince Ali” (a highlight). When he’s with Jasmine, Aladdin is usually lying to her, apologizing for having lied previously or both.
She does enjoy his magic carpet ride — a charming rendition of “A Whole New World” in which the carpet really flies, though maybe a little slowly and unsteadily.
Aladdin is so worried about not living up to her expectations that he briefly reneges on his promise to free the Genie. He comes through in the end, and the Genie’s affectionate acceptance of him, flaws and all, strengthens their bond.
Aladdin’s chronic lying to Jasmine seems harder to forgive. Maybe her obligatory forgiveness isn’t convincing in the context of the high romantic standards she asserts throughout. Or maybe by embroidering on the movie’s plot, this stage version exposes some of its holes.
For whatever reason, the musical left me more concerned about the marital future of this attractive couple. The fun curtain call intervenes before we have to watch them 10 years in, their harem pants a bit tighter, sniping at each other over baklava as she lectures him about honesty and he grouses that he’ll never have a friend like the Genie again.