This is what I hope to be a series of holiday... err Christmas blogs from me. Sorry I've been a lil out of the loop with blogging lately but now that The Conventioneers are on their Chrismas break and CASBYs are well into production I had the time to sit-down and write this review and you can look forward to some seasonal cynicism on the way from Jay!

REVIEW: Aladdin: The Magical Family Musical! (with Bret Hart)



I had the opportunity to attend Opening Night of Ross Petty's production of Aladdin: The Magical Family Musical at The Elgin theatre. If you want a regular review of the play then go ahead and do a Google search for it and you'll find opinions from a series of Canadian theatre critics; However, you're reading this review on BITEtv.ca you probably don't care much about a snobby theatre critics opinion, so considering Bret Hart is involved in this play, consider this a review from a wrestling fan... for a wrestling fan.

Overall it was a great show and if you have kids, nephews or nieces and want to take them for an outing that involves wrestling but isn’t wrestling (cause perhaps their parents think wrestling is "too violent")... well this is the show for you.

Don't walk into Aladdin with a big blue Robin Williams style Genie in mind, this is definitely not the Disney version of this fairy tale (actually they take a shot at Disney mid-way through the play... this is a Ross Petty production full of bad puns and pop songs, hammy acting and cross-dressing baritones, but its all done intentionally and it works.

Imagine this play like a return to the 1980's WWF product. It's a production filled with colourful costumes, larger then life characters, and each and every person on stage is over-acting so that the person in the last row of the auditorium knows what's happening on stage. It's harkens back to a time when good guys were good, and bad guys were bad, there's certainly no Stone Cold shades of grey on this stage. And much like a Sunday afternoon card at Maple Leaf Gardens, the Elgin Theatre crowd is encouraged to interact with the stage performers by cheering the babyfaces and booing the dreaded heels!



In regards to Bret's performance, I found that he had more confidence in the role the second time around (as compared to his run as the genie in 2004 production) but sadly there seemed to be a disconnect with the intended audience.

Though there were references to being a "FIT MAN with a strong HEART" and a sharpshooter thrown in at the end of the play for good measure (minus the Vince McMahon screwjob) I found that the majority of the crowd, being under the age of 12, didn't understand the reason why the genie was in a wrestling ring at the end of the play. Considering that Bret hasn't wrestled in more then 5 years and any of the kids that this play is aimed at were in diapers when Bret Hart was considered a 'big name' in the world of professional wrestling I don’t think the majority of the intended audience knew who Bret was. Having said that though, I still remember the man referred to as "The Excellence of Execution", and if you're reading the BITE's website then you will too. So grab a kid to use as an excuse to go and check out Bret in his pink and black geneie pants as Aladdin!

Aladdin The Magical Family Music runs from December 6th - 24th at The Elgin Theatre in Toronto. Check out www.ticketmaster.ca or www.rosspetty.com for tickets.

JAY

MSN - bitetv@hotmail.com
EMAIL - biteme@bitetv.ca