Review: DISNEY'S ALADDIN DUAL LANGUAGE EDITION at Creative Cauldron

The Creative Cauldron’s season finale in their new theater space was a whimsical and family-friendly rendition of Disney’s Aladdin Dual Language Edition. With a rub of a lamp, the Falls Church community theater turned into the singing and shining city of Agrabah, rounded out with a Spanish- and English-speaking cast. 

The multilingual musical itself not only translates pivotal points of the legendary Disney movie, but it creates lore for the language change: Jafar uses the Genie to wish for a language barrier to manipulate both the English-speaking common citizens like “street rat” Aladdin and the Spanish-speaking royals Sultán and Jazmín. Aladdin and Jazmín’s love story becomes about crossing not just a class divide but a language barrier, and Jafar’s villainy is heightened and his downfall more substantial. 

In order to build the city of Agrabah, scenic and puppet designer Margie Jervis and Costume Designer Nyasha Klusmann relied heavily on silk and gold fabrics and motifs. Particularly, the gleaming treasure piles and the lumbering elephant puppet were effectively formed by draping silks maneuvered by the ensemble underneath. The costuming was colorful, flowy, and covered in glitter, paying homage to the movie and adding their own twists. The set curtains could have used some WD-40 when the curtains came up on the Arabian city, and the cast needed some extra hair pins with how animated their roles required them to be, but other than that, the scenery, props, and costuming were well-decorated and whimsical.

The casting for every character was as perfect as one could wish for. Alan Gutierrez-Urista (Jafar) had a wickedly convincing evil laugh, and he employed it every beat he got. Ariel Friendly replicated Genie’s iconic lines with grit and energy, but her pipes were all original, and she belted the hits with bravado. The titular Aladdin, Brian Dauglash, worked up a sweat accomplishing acrobatics and crooning to the crowd. He had an intense, comical affect that was almost more animated than the movie version. His counterpart, Odette Gutiérrez del Arroyo as Jazmín, had a regal, strong-willed affect that carried into her singing, and their duets were romantic and convincing. 

The animal companions acted as translators for the human characters (and by proxy the audience) and carried the show in more ways than one. Anna Longenecker as Iago was especially funny and almost show-stealing, receiving the most laughs from the audience and portraying a perfect caricature of the parrot. Whit Jenkins’s Abu was cheeky and smart, and their energy truly fit the monkey companion. 

Throughout the production, there was a great blend, delivery, and retention of both languages from the ensemble. Every actor had an earnest attempt at both singing and speaking in Spanish, and the boisterous overacting of the cast made the plot approachable and entertaining for every age, language, or familiarity with the story. Their choice to highlight the message that language and socioeconomic status should not inhibit your connections with people made the Creative Cauldron’s Disney’s Aladdin Dual Language Edition a passionate production of a culturally resonant work that could speak to children and adults alike. 

Follow the link below to keep track of what Creative Cauldron is cooking. 

Run time: 90 minutes

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