The 3 Travels of Aladin With The Magic Lamp by Francoise Grund (review)

THE 3 TRAVELS OF ALADIN WITH THE MAGIC LAMP Conceived by Francoise Grund Music by Elizabeth Swados Directed by Franpoise Grund La Mama E.T.C. (New York) William 0. Beeman This original production by Frangoise Grund and Elizabeth Swados is one of the few efforts in recent years which like LaMama itself, aims at fusing the musical and performance traditions of vastly different cultures into a satisfying whole. The musical and stage effects are at times stunning -glowing with a kind of transcendance that comes only when the common roots of all tradition have somehow been reached. The sense of communality of tradition is nursed by the authors at every opportunity. Indeed, the vehicle itself, Aladin, is a story which transcends all of Eurasia. To match her transcultural story, Grund has selected a cast from a multitude of nations: Japan, Korea, Indonesia, India, Iran, Israel and the United States-Puerto Rico, American Indian and black American. The sense of staging and movement for the piece was drawn from the traditional theatre of the non-Western world as well. A model of what she was striving for could be seen in Mohammad Ghaffari's portrayal of Aladin's wicked uncle. Hissing and spewing his words like some human viper, fixing an electric gaze on the hapless boy, Ghaffari seemed the incarnation of some primordial demon from an Asian ritual drama. But if Grund and Swados aimed to remove their tale from the clutches of Western naturalistic theatrical idiom, they did their dead-level best to thrust its basic themes onto a universal plane. The portions of the story of Aladin they chose to tell form a love quest of the young boy for the unattainable Princess of China. Grund converts the story into one of sexual awakening, where even the fabled lamp becomes a kind of phallic symbol. Aladin rubs the lamp and a huge genie, played with great good humor by Michael Edward -Stevens, rises up to lead him to his chosen bride. The princess has an affliction; she cannot smile-that is, until she is conquered by Aladin (played by Javanese dancer Endo Suanda). He must undergo his own transformation-an awakening to a panoply of sexual and sensual delights on the way, including being treated to a harem of concubines led by their robust and ribald chief (Ronnie Gilbert). The quest for universality extends to the language of the piece. Swados has chosen to use a language which is no recognizable language at all (except for storyteller Larry Marshall's opening "Once upon a time .. . " in Arabic), preferring rather to allow the spoken word to be an extension of the vocal music of the piece. The use of non-language heightened the power of both movement and music. It was a daring move, but one which helped to under76 score the basic aims of the production. Instrumentalists were likewise integral to the texture of the production. Bells, a dulcimer, a Japanese shakuhachi, Indonesian gender and dozens of other wind and percussion instruments, including at one point, a bull-roarer , were used to create extraordinary sound textures. Swados's use of music was one of the high points of the production. She literally used her performers as the direct source material for the composition process. Each performer came to the production with material from his or her own artistic past which they performed for Swados, and she in turn wove it into her tapestry of sound. Remarkably, the classical vocal techniques of Korea (sung in an electrifying manner by Princess Youn Cho Park) bled into harmony which sounded for all the world like an East European Church choir. Mohammad Ghaffari and Sussan Deihim's Persian classical glottal trills moved effortlessly into the sunny Meditteranean sounds of the chorus in the universal bazaar scene that opens and closes the play. Swados had managed to do someting quite difficult-underscoring both the diversity and the unity of musical traditions. With this degree of intimacy between performer and material, it is small wonder that the effects created by the score seemed so effortlessly accomplished. Grund's staging was constructed in much the same way. Triple and quadruple casting, and kabuki-like...