In Korea's 'Aladdin,' dazzling visuals and weak performances

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In Korea's 'Aladdin,' dazzling visuals and weak performances

Published: 26 Nov. 2024, 15:07 Updated: 26 Nov. 2024, 16:37

LEE JIAN
[email protected]

Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI

[Review]

Lee Sung-kyung as Jasmine, right, and Park Kang-hyun as Aladdin in the Korean production of ″Aladdin″ [S&CO]

A street urchin-turned-prince, an Arabian princess, an evil vizier to the unassuming sultan and a blue genie. “Aladdin,” is a Disney classic — a tale as old as time, if you will. That makes the shortcomings of the Seoul production, which made its Korean debut at the Charlotte Theater on Friday, all the more disappointing.

The original stage iteration, with a book by Chad Beguelin, music by Alan Menken, and lyrics by Howard Ashman, Beguelin and Tim Rice — renowned for Disney classics “The Lion King,” “Beauty and the Beast” and “Aida” — premiered on Broadway a decade ago. Still playing at the district’s New Amsterdam Theatre, it is a vetted art beloved by audiences around the world.

Korea's version is a physically dazzling production with stage designs that beautifully homage the original 1992 Disney animation on which the time-honored musical is based. But its cast, despite some big names, fails to live up to the same standard, with underwhelming cliché performances straining an already dated Disney plot.

It is worth noting here that musicals in Korea — no matter how big or small — utilize multiple casts, meaning that various actors take turns playing each role. Rather than set pairs, as are sometimes seen in U.S. productions, Korean musicals can display dozens of permutations of performers. Three actors are cast as Aladdin, the Genie and Jasmine, respectively, so audiences' experiences may vary.

Fresh-faced Lee Sung-kyung, who played Jasmine on opening night, is puzzling at best. The model-turned-actor no doubt looks like a princess — tall and with a lot of hair, donning a turquoise bra top and harem pants with gold heels. But unlike the bold and wise figure the world knows, Lee's Jasmine leans closer to a narcissistic hubris that divorces from the little agency Disney's plot allowed the character.

Lee appears stiff next to Kim Jun-su's Aladdin in the show's 12 o’clock number, “A Whole New World,” making for an unmemorable performance on a floating mattress disguised as a magic carpet. It's a stark contrast to the performer's 2021 viral social media clip, in which she sings the same song with gusto in a car. She has sung publicly on television in the past, all to high praise, but her Jasmine performance underscores the fact that doing so live, in front of hundreds, may require finer craft.

The technique behind the flying carpet is also less exciting than Broadway's version, a high-tech trick blending physics and optical illusion, which famously looks like it is really swooping around without any visible means of support. While the Korean production successfully veils some of its counterpart's magic with dark lighting, its carpet moves up and down comparably lethargically, with slow twirls.

Kim’s Aladdin, for his part, is too serious. The character’s charming playfulness and adventurous spirit are lost in ostensibly upbeat songs like “One Jump Ahead,” during which Kim busily zooms around the stage as Aladdin tries to escape the police. Meanwhile, an apparent emphasis on Aladdin’s inner struggles with self-acceptance adds more murk to the portrayal than it does nuance. For instance, “Proud of Your Boy,” during which street thief Aladdin confesses to his late mother that he hopes to become a better person, drips with a desperation and earnestness that adds a confusing heaviness to the character.

The show's lack of nuance doesn’t help the actors' troubling performances. When Jasmine and Aladdin meet for the first time at the market, a spotlight drops on them as they lock eyes, and everything suddenly goes in slow motion — a cliché portrayal that drew scattered laughter from Friday’s audience.

The exception is Jung Sung-hwa’s Genie, who appears as a more burly version of Robin Williams's blue cartoon fairy that is also more familiar to a Korean audience. Jung debuted as a TV comedian in 1994 and received positive reviews as Lola in “Kinky Boots” and Mrs. Doubtfire in the namesake musical. His creative string of jokes, from prop comedy to puns, are localized to register with a Seoul-based crowd and hit the mark every time.

“I’m the Genie! Though you may not recognize me because I’ve gained some weight,” he says, as he enthusiastically poofs to presence on a gold-gilded stage, donning a bejeweled blue velvet suit — this “Aladdin” features 237 costumes, 84 special effects, and thousands of Swarovski crystals, closely resembling Broadway’s scale.

Jung’s Genie then starts listing the food he’s been eating “inside the lamp”: Pizza, jokbal (pig feet), “and ramyeon. “Can you guess if I dunked in some rice in that after? I so very much did! I see some of you out there nodding! You know we all do it!”

Similar scenes were highlights of Friday's performance, displaying Jung’s excellent sense of comedic timing and thoughtful line tweaks that helped the material register with the local audience.

But even the best efforts of a veteran actor in a long-beloved role are not enough to overcome the foundational shortcomings of its miscast leads — and of the 32-year-old film, with which the production is, unfortunately, stuck.

But it is also, after all, those cliché romances and fanciful happy endings that have brought Disney's musicals such commercial success.

“Aladdin” is slated to run through June 22 at the Charlotte Theater in Songpa District, southern Seoul, and move to Busan's Dream Theatre in July.

BY LEE JIAN [[email protected]]