Aladdin cast rushing through 10/4 evening performance

Long time lurker, first time poster.

I know this complaint won't be met favorably by a lot of people on here, but I have to say this somewhere. I have complete respect for theatre and everyone that works to make a show come together.

Last night I was able to take my entire family to see Aladdin. There were five of us and I believe our tickets were around $150 and they were in the orchestra. I'm pretty familiar with the film and things like the Tony performance.

When the show began I noticed that when the characters were delivering lines, it was at a hastened pace. One actor would deliver a line and the next line came right out of the next actors mouth. I know some parts are meant to be fast-talking, but there were stretches of conversations where it was just line delivery. No sense of real communication by the speaker or the spoken too. There was also a general lack of emotion. I didn't feel a connection between any of the characters. There was very little energy or a sense of enthusiasm throughout. Special effects would happen but just fall flat because the actors were seemingly racing through the show. The genie's big number didn't really get much of a sustained applause.

I know I'm going to get grief about this complaint on here. I'm just really disappointed in what I saw take place. I know the cast had an earlier performance, is this common when there is a matinée? We walked away talking about the beautiful sets but disappointed overall.

*edit for date, I had 10/5

Updated On: 10/5/15 at 10:07 PM

I know I'm going to get grief about this complaint on here.

Actually, what you wrote sounds pretty awful. Like something a Rosie O'Donnell would do because she was pissed off at the producers.

Well, it SHOULDNT be the norm just because they had two shows. Sounds awful.

Everyone has an off day. Very sorry you had that. I'm sure it wasn't intentional.

Iglehart was out both shows yesterday. His standby was on.

That could explain the lack of energy for the Genie. Nerves.

Iglehart was just on vacation for a bit, so his understudy has gone on before.

When I saw Alladin. They did the same thing. I think that's the style of the show. It's not really about the book.

Iglehart is actually out a decent amount- his standby posts every time he goes on, and it seems like Trevor goes on maybe once or twice a week...

The stage managers take notes during every performance as a part of the 'performance report' that must be submitted every night so there is a record of every show. The stage manager who calls the show records the start time, the break time for intermission, the start of Act II, and the end time. When I job shadowed the stage manager of The Lion King, she noticed that one of the bird puppets was upside down when it was being waved and recorded it in the report. Absolutely everything that happens during a performance is logged so if a problem is reported it can be corrected before the next performance. Some performances are just better than others. When you pay for a ticket to a live performance you are not paying for the guarantee that that performance will be like the last. It's called theater. Seeing the evening show on a two show day (in my experience) is always the worst because everyone is exhausted from the matinee. Saturday nights aren't that bad because audiences tend to be more enthusiastic and the company feeds off that energy.

Maybe the company had a less than satisfactory rehearsal earlier that day? Long running shows like Aladdin are constantly in rehearsal. Typically, when they are not performing for a paid audience, they're in rehearsal. I took a friend to see an evening show of Aladdin back in February and the show was running 15 minutes behind schedule because rehearsal in the theater was running later than originally intended.