Feb 15

Feb 15 Disney's Aladdin at The Peace Center

There’s not just one thing that has made the stage musical of Disney’s Aladdin the popular phenomenon it has become — in its sixth year at one of the biggest theaters on Broadway and having been seen by some 11 million people worldwide. It’s a combination of smart decisions made in turning the 1992 animated feature into a stage spectacular: Give the genie his own persona and presence, inspired by Robin Williams’ voice performance and Eric Goldberg’s animation, but don’t try to imitate the film. Turn the biggest musical numbers into huge, thundering, funny productions that just keep going and going.

And make that magic carpet fly — like, for real. (Or so it seems.)

All of which is joyfully clear in the Broadway touring production running at the Peace Center in Greenville, South Carolina, through February 23. If there’s a significant difference between the road show and the original at the New Amsterdam Theatre in New York City, other than the cast, it’s not apparent. It’s not surprising that all the sets and costumes and mechanisms needed for Aladdin require some 30 tractor-trailers and a week for the load-in.

If you need a plot synopsis, you’re not the target audience for this show, since it closely follows the animated movie. There are differences — characters transformed or eliminated that couldn’t be reproduced in real space; the addition of new songs; the creation of two trios of sidekicks to give Aladdin and Princess Jasmine friends to interact with. But the heart of the story, and its key plot twists, remain intact.

Genie here is embodied by Korie Lee Blossey, who’s a bundle of energy and comedy skills and who puts so much into the amazing “Friend Like Me” number that you fear for his health (a concern amusingly and wisely built into the show). Aladdin is the charming Jonah Ho’okano, seemingly born to play this role. He not only has the good looks and physique to fit the part, he also has a wonderfully rich and expressive singing voice. (The night Asheville Stages attended the show, the well-reviewed Kaenoanalani Kekoa, pictured with Ho’okano at the top of this page, was absent as Jasmine, replaced by Cassidy Stoner, who was spunky but didn’t seem to be at her best vocally.)

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Jerald Vincent makes a fine Sultan, while Jonathan Weir seems a bit hamstrung as the villain, Jafar, perhaps because many of his scenes are staged with him standing still, facing the audience, often at the side of the stage. He only gets to command his full villainy in the final scene, which features more than one of those Disney-signature instantaneous costume changes. Jafar’s sidekick, Iago — a parrot in the movie, a jester-like character on stage — is the goofy Reggie DeLeon, who racks up the laughs.

But the real star of the show is the elaborate staging, blessedly conceived before giant video screens took over Broadway and washed away so many more realistic sets and backdrops. Almost all the wizardry onstage for Disney’s Aladdin is practical magic, from the giant piles of gold in the Cave of Wonders to the jaw-dropping choreography in “Arabian Nights,” “Friend Like Me” and “Prince Ali,” to that flying carpet that sails nimbly around the stage with no visible supports, through stars and clouds, while Aladdin and Jasmine ride along and sing “A Whole New World.”

Fans can debate the quality of the new characters and the new songs — I enjoyed Aladdin’s ballad “Proud of Your Boy” and his sidekicks' doing comic battle in “High Adventure,” two songs by lyricist Howard Ashman and composer Alan Menken cut from the film — but the core of the movie remains, and the stagecraft is often stunning.

The musical debuted on Broadway the same season as Beautiful and the highly overrated (and largely forgotten) A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder but still managed to come away with a Tony Award for James Monroe Iglehart, who originated the role of Genie onstage. There’s a reason the logo for the Broadway tour is the genie. You’ve never had a friend like him.

Disney’s Aladdin plays through February 23 at The Peace Center. For details and tickets, visit peacecenter.org.

(Photos: Deen Van Meer, courtesy of The Peace Center)