After giving a hit show in Mumbai, Disney Broadway Musical — Aladdin is all set to rock Delhi. From finding the right talent, training rigourously for singing, dance and act on the go, the production and starcast have left no stone unturn to give you once in a lifetime experience. Sangeeta Yadav reports
Set in the town of Agrabah, Princess Jasmine is on the edge since her father wants to find her a royal groom. Meanwhile, the Sultan’s right-hand man, Jafar, is plotting to take over the throne. When Jasmine sneaks out of the palace, she forms an instant connection with Aladdin, a poor yet charming guy and reformed thief. The duo are caught and Aladdin is has to be punished. But Jafar gives him a way out — to fetch a lamp from the Cave of Wonders. In the cave, Aladdin unwittingly lets the genie of the lamp out.
Get ready to experience the enchanted world of Aladdin that will unfold live with much fanfare and grandeur. After getting rave reviews of Disney’s second live Broadway musical — Aladdin in Mumbai, the show is all set to come to Delhi — July 6 to 15 at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium — and leave you enthralled.
Adapted from the Disney’s original Broadway production, it took five months to modify the script for the Indian audience. “The Disney Broadway musical team had written two and a half hours version which was given to us. Though it was a completely in English, we introduced the element of Hindi into it. It was tough because there was no reference point and we had to identify the right dialect,” says director Shruti Sharma.
Everybody has read Aladdin and have created their own magic around the story. For Sharma, scripting the already popular fable was a challenge.
“Everyone has a perception of Aladdin, there is a possibility of disappointing someone for being different from what the audience would have expected it to be. It was difficult to get our hands on to that. So I gave up trying to live up to other’s perception and did the best version of what I know and hopefully people will accept and appreciate Genie and Aladdin that I have created,” Sharma shares.
After auditioning over 1,000 actors from across the country which went on for five months, Sharma finalised the part of Aladdin (played by Siddharth Menon and Taaruk Raina), Jasmine (Kira Narayanan), Genie (Mantra) and Jafar (Vikrant Chaturvedi).
For Siddharth Menon, playing Aladdin was a dream come true and has been preparing for it since January 2018. He gives credit to the team who worked on them behind the scene. “The amount of patience and believe that they had motivated us to push ourselves. When you preparing for any role, there comes a time when you start questioning yourself that are on the right track or not. You become unsure but people like them constantly told us that ‘no you are getting there just breathe and practice’, and before you know it, you are just there. It is so much fun to tell this beautiful fable on stage and reimagine it in such a huge set and audience was fun,” Menon says.
Recalling a challenging moment, Menon says: “There is an action scene and right after that, I have to sing a mellow song. This was challenging as for the first 10 minutes, my breath wouldn’t last. I was so nervous about that but now I can say that this is the favourite part of the entire play. Our vocal coach Suzane D’Mello taught us a lot of breathing techniques which helped us control the voice. The key to singing well is to rightly catch the emotions and understanding that every word has its scale and note.”
To strengthen the core and increase stamina, the actors had to follow a strict fitness regime. “Our fitness coach Nupur Shikhare trained us. He worked on us from inside out rather than just from outside to look like our characters. We did a lot of workouts like bodyweight, capoeira, power core and calisthenics. We had simple home-cooked and also had cheat days once a week,” Menon adds whose best part from the show is flying on the magic carpet.
To step into the shoes of the Jasmine, Kira Narayanan too worked a lot on her acting and singing. “Jasmine is honest, and one who speaks her mind. We had so much material in the script itself and to do justice to it, we equipped ourself with skills and had a rigourous training. The challenge was to make her look believable which I did. There is one scene where Jasmine walks up to Jafar and says ‘When I am queen, I will have the power to get rid of you’ and exits from the other wing. So many nights have gone by delivering that line but at one of the performances, after I run off stage, heard a little girl from the audience shout ‘yeah Jasmine’. I was so overwhelmed.
“I realised that the audiences know what we are saying and they could feel it too. I had an action sequence and the audience cheered and shouted so much that and they didn’t let us carry on. I feel so excited every night to perform in from of 30,000 people,” Kira says.
Varsha Jain, the production designer, has created a grand set which is been getting constructed in Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium depicting 14 locations. Choreographers Shampa Gopikrishna and Bertwin D’Souza beautifully choreographed the dance sequence. Costume Designer Gaviin Miguel made many drafts and did test trials with the actors to finalise 450 lavish costumes.
“Gaviin gave an illusion of Genie floating in the air by making the bottom half of his pants look like white cloud. Genie has 5,000 daimontes in his costume. I tried different kinds of hairstyles on Genie and seven different lengths of fez hats on Aladdin,” Sharma tells you adding that with the rising live entertainment scene, it will be interesting to making Broadway musical shows on the short stories of Rabindranath Tagore would be a great masterpiece.