- Aladdin the Musical Spectacular
Now at Disney California
Adventure, Soon to Set Sail on the Disney Fantasy.
At Disney California Adventure there
is a fantastic Broadway style live stage show. It is in the Hyperion Theater
and is free with admission to the park. The show is an amazing 45 minutes long.
According to Disney Aladdin will be sailing on the Disney Fantasy when she
takes to the sea in the next couple of months. I have enjoyed watching this
show many times at Disney California Adventure. I highly recommend anyone going
to DCA or on the Fantasy make sure you see this show. I hope that someday I can
sail on the Fantasy to see how they adapted the show to the ships theater.
The play starts out much as the
movie does with the storyteller coming out and singing a welcome and giving you
the background of the story of the Genie in the Lamp. As he leaves the curtain
comes up revealing the Cave of Wonders. Jafar and Iago send a poor helpless peasant
into the cave and the mouth slams shut!
There is a quick seen change and you are now
in the city of Agrabah. Aladdin comes running through the people and the chase
is on! He is finally captured and Jafar comes to his "rescue". Soon
Aladdin finds out that Jafar has other than altruistic reasons for helping him.
Jafar takes Aladdin to the Cave of Wonders and tosses him in! Now you get to
follow Aladdin into the Cave of Wonders meeting Carpet and Genie in the bowels
of the earth. There is a fantastic adaptation of Friend Like Me with a lit stairway and multiplying
Genies.
In just that short time you have seven
set changes and the show is just getting started!
Now the fun really begins as
Jafar tells Jasmine that no one is going to just walk into the castle and blow
a trumpet announcing the love of her life. At that point Genie comes in to a
great amount of fanfare with trumpets. He announces Prince Ali and a parade commences
through the audience! Aladdin comes in riding on a near life size elephant
puppet! There is much dancing and singing as the parade continues through the audience
ending at the stage where Prince Ali jumps off the elephant onto the stage to announce
himself to Princess Jasmine. Just like the movie she rejects him and goes off
leaving Aladdin, Genie and Carpet alone. Aladdin decides to use carpet to go
talk to Jasmine.
At this point Jasmine sings a
song written for the play. This is a beautiful solo replacing the scene with
Jasmine and Raja in the garden. (Raja and Abu are not in the play.) Aladdin
climbs over her parapet and Jasmine finally agrees to take a spin on the magic
carpet. Look up at this part and you will see Aladdin and Jasmine flying over
head! They sing "A Whole New World" as places famous in history are
played out on the stage of clouds by dancers. The song ends with Aladdin and
Jasmine on the stage with the dancers. During the song dancers, magical camels
and horses parade around the audience. Often they will come over to the
audience members seated near the aisle and let you pet them.
It is back to the castle for
Aladdin and Jasmine. She tells Aladdin that she is going to talk to her father.
Genie thinks Aladdin will keep his word to free him but Aladdin is too scared
of losing Jasmine and does not. Jafar and Iago hear the exchange and Jafar
takes matters in his own hands and captures Aladdin taking the lamp!
Jafar revels to the Sultan and
Jasmine that Prince Ali is really Aladdin. With Jafar in position of the lamp
he controls Genie. He tells Genie to make him Sultan. Genie does make him
Sultan. For his second wish Jafar tells Genie to make him an all powerful sorcerer.
Genie is required to. Aladdin tricks Jafar into believing that Genie, having
the power to make Jafar so powerful must be more powerful. Jafar then demands
to be turned into a Genie. As a Genie Jafar is all powerful but he must be
confined to the lamp and live under the control of whoever has the lamp.
There is much singing and
rejoicing that Jafar is vanquished and Aladdin is recognized as worthy of
Jasmine's love.
This show has many special
effects. As stated above Carpet flies above the audience, Genie and Jafar shoot
up into the "sky" and people and things appear and disappear throughout
the show. In total I believe there are over a dozen set changes and multiple costume
changes for each actor. It will be extremely interesting to see how Disney
adapts this marvelously engaging play to the stage of the Disney Fantasy.
What makes this show so wonderful
is Genie, Jafar, Iago and to some extent Aladdin are allowed to adlib. The show
is never quite the same. Genie is always changing the jokes so they hold the interest
of the adults without being inappropriate in any way. The jokes are usually
themed to current events in the news. I always love looking for the subtle
changes they make in the show. Here is an old example. When Martha Stewart was
in trouble Genie would tell the following set of jokes when explaining the "Genie
Rules".
You can only have three wishes.
Don't be greedy like Martha Stewart.
I can't make somebody fall in
love with you. Just like Dr. Phill.
I can't raise the dead. It takes
someone much more powerful than me, like Zeus, Apollo or Martha Stewart.
Another adaption of these jokes
is.
You can only have three wishes.
Bada Bing Bada Boom Don't think about it! (said in a Mafioso tone)
I can't make someone fall in love
with you. I tried it on Britney Spears and that lasted about 50 hours.
I can't raise the dead. I tried it once for a guy by the name of Jerry
Garcia and he was so not Grateful!
I hope that sometime you, each of
my readers gets a chance to see this wonderful adaption of the Disney movie
Aladdin either at DCA or on the Disney Fantasy.
