Contributing Reviewer, Stan Mazin

I enjoy reviewing shows that have heart… shows in which you can see the cast members enjoying themselves.  And that is what I saw at today’s matinee of ‘Aladdin’, TNH Productions’s and Casa101’s re-visualized version playing at the Los Angeles Theatre Center in downtown Los Angeles through September 15th.  The show played Casa101 in January of this year, but this version was revamped by Jim Luigs and Jose Cruz Gonzalez, with music by Alan Mencken, Lyrics by Howard Ashman and Tim Rice, with music adapted, arranged and orchestrated by Bryan Louiselle.  This time out the show was 80 minutes with no intermission and ran overall quite smoothly.  The musical direction was by Caroline Benzon, with cute choreography (including a very nice tap number) by Tania Possick, with very attractive costumes by Abel Alvarado, and sets by Marco De Leon.  The lighting was adequate by Sohail J. Najaf (I say this because in one scene the romantic couple was on their flying carpet placed high above on a  huge box, and I felt the lighting would have been better with less light focusing more on the couple so we wouldn’t have to see the box they were sitting upon).  The projection design was by Yee Eun Nam with sound by Vincent A. Sanchez.  This production was directed as the last one was by Rigo Tejeda.  The cast of 20 worked very hard and as I stated the overall pace of the show was fine.  Special attention goes to Sarah Kennedy playing Princess Jazmin, Lewis Powell III playing the Genie, and Luis Marquez playing Jafar, the villain in the play.  My feeling about Daniel Sugimoto was that he could have been a little stronger and more charismatic, and his voice seemed to be at a lower level than other people on the stage, although he looked the part and certainly was as handsome as any Aladdin I have seen.  Supporting characters Andrew Cano playing Iago, Jafar’s pet parrot… Sebastian Gonzalez playing Abu, Aladdin’s pet Monkey… Rosa Navarrese playing Rajah, Jazmin’s pet tiger… Evan Garcia playing Captain de los Cardias… Danielle Espinoza as the Magic Carpet… and Blanca Espinoza, Shiner Sanders, and Beatriz Tasha Magana playing the Royal Translators all did fine work with the material given them.  And the balance of the ensemble including the ones who doubled doing the other roles filled out the fine cast beautifully.  This dual language edition seemed to work more than it didn’t work, although some of the sections seemed to be too long without using the second language… but the audience really enjoyed the performance.

The PR person is Steve Moyer and the number for reservations is (866) 811-4111, or online at https://www.thelatc.org/aladdin-duallanguage-edition.  To view performance footage of the musical, please visit https://youtu.be/UgqkZGpNojU.

 Reviewed by Stan Mazin, September 10, 2017 matinee (5pm)