Lakhinandan Boruah, a Mumbai-based Assamese dramatist, has collaborated with veteran Australian filmmaker Glenn T Hayden and South African producer Anjil Naidoo to reproduce the Middle Eastern traditional tale “Aladdin,” which premiered in Durban late last month. “Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp” stars a cast of 20 international actors and dancers, with music and lyrics by Pranashan Singh and choreography by Bertwin D’Souza and Shampa Gopikrishna. A few Mumbai-based dancers make up the dance cast.
According to Boruah, “Aladdin” has been told in various ways by many storytellers throughout the years, thus “our goal was to remain more authentic” to the folk tale than the other western adaptations. “If we read ‘Tales from 1001 Nights,’ we’d discover that Aladdin’s story included numerous genies. We thought it was fascinating. So we kept many genies in our version, which proved to be a great option because it allowed us to explore different aspects of Aladdin’s character “Boruah stated to PTI.
“We also preserved the original story’s evil magician as the main enemy. Similarly, Aladdin’s mother is important in our play. We wanted the female characters in the plot to be strong. In our adaptation, our princess and Aladdin’s mother are both incredibly strong women “he claims “Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp” will go to Johannesburg and Cape Town later this year and early next year after debuting in Durban on September 30 with a multinational cast and crew from South Africa, Germany, India, Australia, the United States, and other nations.
In terms of size and quality, the play is regarded as a one-of-a-kind and spectacular performance rarely seen in South Africa. It has 3D projection mapping by Jasson Heffer and VFX artist Walid Feghadi from Los Angeles. Boruah claims that Naidoo inspired him to write this play in English. “Anjil had always enjoyed theatre but thought she had never made enough contributions. She chose to do what she had wanted to do for a long time after defeating cancer. Aladdin’s narrative was very close to her heart. As a result, she decided to begin her career as a producer with this narrative “he claims.
Boruah’s work was well known to Hayden. This was their third time working together. Boruah previously wrote one piece for Hayden’s theatre group and assisted him with another. The Australian director describes the experience of adapting Aladdin’s story for the twenty-first century alongside Boruah, who began his career as a documentary filmmaker in 2014. “The plot is jam-packed with action and themes that are a playwright’s dream. We particularly loved fleshing out the women in the story to complement Aladdin and to emphasise the need of nurturing communities that respect all of their members “Hayden stated to PTI. “Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp” was initially produced in Durban because Naidoo is an entrepreneur.
(source : PTI)
