Aladdin on Broadway is a marvel- and the cast is only too happy to gush.
Adam Jacobs and James Monroe Iglehart, who play Aladdin and Genie, had known each other for a while even before playing together on Broadway and have an easy chemistry together as they discuss their roles.
I actually just saw it- and I noticed that you have a lot of autonomy. It seems like you’re often able to break the fourth wall, and I caught that Lemonade reference- very topical. So I was wondering, have you had roles like that where you were able to ad-lib or is this something new?
Iglehart: Not on Broadway, but one of my favorite things to do is improv. I do it with a group that I’m a part of, I used to do it in college a lot, and I’ve had other shows where they’ve given me the freedom to kind of play and break the fourth wall. My favorite type of show is to talk directly to the audience. I like telling stories and being able to see the audience, get their reaction. To be in a show like this, and to have these kind of fun moments, it’s really good for me. So I have a couple moments in the show where I get to play and- you also want to talk about something that’s topical and people know, so Lemonade is one, and it’s everywhere right now so why not?
Okay. So I have another question. It seems like especially in Disney we have this thing where we keep coming back to the elegant villain up against the ruffian, and why do you think that people love that story so much?
Jacobs: I think it’s an underdog story, and it’s a Cinderella story even though I’m a guy, you know, rags to riches story, and people just always- they always love to root for the underdog, they love to see the journey of a guy’s rise to fame and then his fall, his triumph at the end…it’s a hero’s journey. You learn about it in high school. It’s- there’s something about it that- the heartstrings, and if you’re familiar with it too, you’re able to then play with it a little bit, play with the form, and even though it;s a musical comedy, push the boundaries of what to do, and have fun.
I also noticed that- the first thing I noticed when watching the musical was they took away your monkey! Replaced him with friends, a squad.
Jacobs: That was an original idea, in the film, the original idea, and they had to get rid of that for whatever reason, and I think it’s okay. I think it’s, you know, those guys are so much fun and I like having a group of guy friends. At one point I think we were a boy band- we have many different-
Iglehart: Street Rats.
Jacobs: Street Rats, Street Rats on three! Mesopotamia’s Got Talent…
Iglehart: That was mine. Yep.
Jacobs: It’s been through a lot of different variations, but I’m very happy with the way it’s turned out.
Yeah, I was going to ask- do you think Aladdin is a better character?
Jacobs: Yes, well, only because I think it informs his character for the audience members, and it gives him a little bit of struggle to play against because his friends are “thieves” and, you know, buskers, pocket-pickpockets, and that’s what they’re used to doing. He’s able to have to struggle between going straight and making his mother proud, and going back to his life of crime, essentially. So whenever you have that sort of conflict in play it’s good stuff.
One last question. I wanted to know how you feel about playing the Genie, who is this trapped character, trapped essentially for so long, especially as an artist. How do you get that feeling of being trapped?
Iglehart: I think there’s a moment where everyone in their life has felt trapped at some place, whether you’re a teenager in a home and your parents just “don’t understand you”, or you’re surrounded in a group of folks where you know you’re, you have things you want to do, but your boys and girls don’t want to do that. Everybody’s felt trapped, and I kind of go back to that feeling of- you have all this energy, you have all this- but you can’t do anything with it! And you meet someone who says you do got- you do have something special. I’m gonna set you free and let you go.
Jacobs: I mean- you didn’t lock yourself in a box for about a week?
Iglehart: I tried that for a second, but it didn’t work- it didn’t work- method acting, I was like okay look. The problem isn’t that I didn’t want to, the problem is I’m a big guy- I’m like 6 foot 280 pounds
Jacobs: He gets in there-
Iglehart: To find a box that I could fit in, that someone would help me fit in was kind of hard. So I just went back to the mental box, that’s how I felt. Trapped. Although when I was moving to my new apartment, I did get in a box and mess with my wife, but she doesn’t get scared easily, I was just a dude in a box. I was like Boo! Get out the box, man. I was like thanks babe, thanks.
Jacobs: Thanks.
Next were the actors who play Jasmine and Jafar- Courtney Reed, best known for her role in In The Heights as Carla and Jonathan Freeman, with a long list of roles- including Jafar in the original movie Aladdin.
One of my first questions is for you. You mention in the playbill that Jasmine is your favorite character and that you’ve loved her ever since you were little so I wanted to know what did you think about this change- and I know that it was originally supposed to be in the movie but Jasmine has three friends now instead of a tiger. How do you think that’s changed her character?
Reed: I don’t think it’s actually changed her character very much. I think, people are so funny, they joke around to me all the time, they’re like yeah but what about Raja? Raja, where’s Raja? What about the monkey? They’re so freaked out about it but by the time they see the show, they’re like oh. We didn’t even miss this character. I think it would have been super cool, yeah, to have a live tiger, but I don’t know. That would have been terrifying. Every night? Nah. No one would pay attention to me at all. They just- they wouldn’t care! No one would care about me, they’d just be watching him the whole time. But I don’t think it’s changed the character much. I think in fact it’s probably enhanced her character, because it parallels the three friends with Aladdin, so he has his three friends, I get to have my three friends. She has this sort of support group and I think especially within these palace walls, they are really the ones who encourage her to go out to the marketplace and see the world. And so that’s so good. It’s also nice to have other ladies backing you onstage, like Destiny’s Child, so that’s good.
It’s really an ensemble production. That’s what I kept coming back to, so how do you think it fits in that unlike the movie there are all these very real three dimensional characters? It’s not just Aladdin and Jasmine against the backdrop of the city of Agrabah, but it’s all these other characters with their own stories.
Reed: You want to take that one Jonathan?
Freeman: No, you take it. You have more to say about that, actually I think.
Reed: You know, I think, I always feel like the ensemble of any show…and especially our show. They are doing so much work and aren’t as celebrated as the leads, you know. They’re literally, there are girls standing in columns for four minutes before the columns drop, there are girls doing choreography with silk, guys are fighting with swords, knife-fighting, they have to do quick changes in 9 seconds- it’s some of the hardest work on Broadway and I feel like they don’t get appreciated. Without that, you don’t have a show at all. You don’t have your ensemble, and an incredible ensemble. Our director would always speak about the ensemble, and how much our ensemble- not just dancing and singing their faces off- but also how much they were investing in their characters. Like that fruit vendor- oh, he has a story, he has an arc. So it’s not just these random characters moving about. These are real people, who have a story, you can tell where they just came from. The woman who’s walking around with the baby, what’s her relationship with the baby-
Freeman: I think they really help create Agrabah. Not the sets and the lights, I mean all of that, but it’s the activity and the energy. They create real energy onstage. They really create energy. And even the guards! The guards with those snakes on their shoulders, you know, all of it- it’s like they really make it happen. And I feel like sort of they kind of power it a little bit, because there’s a lot of energy under it to keep it going.
Reed: Yeah. They’re so talented too. Not just onstage, but offstage they have so many other talents. You wouldn’t even believe- like we have a guy who can edit and shoot a film, and just put up a masterpiece in ten minutes, and people who have these crazy voices where they’re riffing all day and making music videos on the side- and he’s a magician, and some of these people have kids! It’s like, it’s unbelievable! It’s very inspirational!
I also wanted to ask you. Jafar is a very elegant villain, and it seems like this is a theme that we keep seeing in Disney films, the elegant villain time and time again, and what do you think of these villains that seem so aristocratic?
Freeman: Well, there are a few villains that are not, but you’re right. There are a lot of villains that are, high percentage. I think that it’s because of a certain duplicitousness-
Reed: Ooh.
Freeman: Good word, right? I hope it’s a real word. That creates something that is like, it’s very powerful in a way, I think. I think when you don’t really know how someone’s going to behave. It’s like if the curtain goes up and there are a lot of doors, and you don’t know what’s going to come out of these doors, like what’s going to walk through that door next? SO if you have this villain who seems to be very elegant, very luxuries, and you know that as soon as the person goes through the door and the door closes again, and that person just goes psychotic and lose his mind. I do think there’s something to that, it helps power the story also. There is something to this idea, of what’s going to happen next. We don’t know what he’s going to do next, because now he’s so nice, oh now he’s so….perhaps thats it, I don’t know. I think also from a visual standpoint, a graphic standpoint, in the animation world it’s a lot of fun. A lot of fun to have those smooth, beautiful, I like to say that Disney villains have a certain cruel beauty. I like that idea. It appeals to me, as I’m sure it appeals to other people.
And appeal it does. Aladdin on Broadway has tickets on sale through the end of December, with more coming soon.