Aladdin Previews — Page 9

There is an article in the NY Post about the show that says:

Jafar’s evil, wise-cracking henchman made it to the stage, only as a man (played by Don Darryl Rivera) rather than a bird. The script includes a cheeky nod to the movie character, though, when Jafar shouts to the little guy, “Must you parrot everything I say?”

Is there any independent confirmation of that? I assumed Iago was still a parrot. I guess the musical doesn't make it clear if he is or not.

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Despite all the reviews and everything, I'd love to see this regardless but I'm just that type of person I guess. lol. Especially if it's Disney and Aladdin. The cast and music sound great in this new sitzprobe video:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/ariellecalderon/things-you-didnt-know-about-aladdin-jasmine-genie-and-jafar

In the Toronto version I saw, there was a line at the beginning warning the audience that there were no talking animals here. But that was probably said by Babcak/Omar/Kassim, so I guess it's gone if they've been eliminated as narrators?

So is Iglehart back?

I thought it was a pretty near top-to-bottom disaster. I'm not even sure where to start.

The book is absolutely atrocious. There's just no way to sugarcoat it. Awful, awful, awful. The jokes are so beyond terrible and the sensibility of the whole thing is way off. It's self-referential in the worst ways and I chuckled maybe twice. It also puts no real emphasis on...oh, you know...the plot. I almost felt like it assumed everyone knew the story from the film, so why even bother hitting on the plot points in a coherent and pointed way. It just kind of sailed along, with no real drive behind it. Just a lot of bad jokes.

The score from the movie is obviously phenomenal...the new songs however, while not necessarily bad, aren't up to the standards of the film score. They stick out like sore thumbs. The orchestra sounds very good. I especially liked the orchestrations for "A Whole New World."

The performances are mostly mediocre. Jacobs is a fine Aladdin, but he brings just as much charm as the next guy would to the part. He could be replaced with any chorus boy and you probably wouldn't even notice. Fine, but generic and bland. Reed was...not great. Vocally or in terms of her acting. Iglehart was certainly the best of them all, but you would have to do a lot of convincing to make me believe that he deserves a Tony for this performance. Freeman is saddled with an entirely non-threatening version of Jafar (I never once thought of him as the despicable villain he comes across as in the film) and a horrible fake beard and lazy costume design.

The rest of the costumes have the requisite glitter and pizzazz you'd expect. The sets were mostly nice, but I absolutely hated the skrims they pulled down for the scene changes. Particularly bad writing during those "let's stall while they change the sets" moments, as well.

The direction was messy, unorganized, busy, and uninspired. Uninspired is also an appropriate word for the choreography.

I liked "Friend Like Me" enough (even if it tries WAY too hard to be a crowd-pleaser), but for me the one number that stood out was "A Whole New World." At least the first half. It was beautiful and simple...up until they had to throw in the blinking lights, people flailing a sheet around under the carpet, and a rotating earth behind them.

This ranks pretty far down on my list of favorite shows this season. All it did was make me want to watch the movie. If you skip this one, you're not missing much at all.

why would they remove the planets but still have the moon turn into the earth.... (ugh!)

any new updates on the show? has anyone gone to it recently?

Personally I thought Tarzan and The Little Mermaid were equally as worthy as musicals as the other more "more successful" Disney shows. Wonderful scores, even if the majority of the music and much of the dialogue came from the original movies, engaging performances, wonderful production values.
I saw Aladdin in Toronto and strongly agree that the corny jokes could be eliminated, but just about everything else was delightful. The Lion King has sidekicks dispensing corny jokes as well.

I really liked them as narrators, personally. I think that, since they're no longer narrators, it will probably make a lot of their jokes awkward at best, since many of their jokes were obviously meant to break the 4th wall and poke fun at the story. Like (off the top of my head) the slow-mo running or "I don't know what's came over us!" "It's the music."

I agree with you, homeimp, on Aladdin. It was the best night in theater I've had in a long time, minus a few things that needed tweaking.

Although I do wonder why the team has tackled all these other areas in the show (to the point of making a huge change like removing the trio as narrators and adding Genie in instead!) but they don't appear to have touched the climax, which was probably the biggest problem in Toronto? I don't think it would even need overhauling, just tweaks to add in some real tension...

It sounds like Disney is not really making any changes to the writing which seems to be the biggest problem with the show. Did they learn nothing from Tarzan and The Little Mermaid?

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The standing ovation after "Friend Like Me" seems like it's started by audience plants.

I had the same exact thought.

I will say that the original "Be Our Guest" at the Palace was most definitely worthy of a standing ovation. It was one of the most impressive things I've ever seen on stage.