Assam playwright, Oz director, S African producer recreate ‘Aladdin’

Mumbai-based Assamese playwright Lakhinandan Boruah has teamed up with veteran Australian director Glenn T Hayden and producer Anjil Naidoo of South Africa to recreate middle-eastern folk tale ”Aladdin” that opened in Durban late last month.

”Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp” features a cast of 20 actors and dancers from across the world and its background score and songs are composed by Pranashan Singh and choreographed by Bertwin D’Souza and Shampa Gopikrishna. The dance cast consists of a few Mumbai-based dancers.

Boruah says ”Aladdin” over the years has been told by many storytellers in different ways and so ”our approach was to remain more truthful” to the folk tale than the other western adaptations.

”If we read the ‘Tales from 1001 Nights’, we’d find that there were multiple genies in Aladdin’s story. We found it very interesting. So, we kept multiple genies in our adaptation, and it turned out to be a wise decision as it helped us explore different dimensions of Aladdin’s character,” Boruah told PTI.

”We also kept the evil magician from the original story as the main antagonist. Similarly, Aladdin’s mother plays a prominent role in our play. We wanted the women in the story to be strong. Our princess and Aladdin’s mom feature as very strong women in our adaptation,” he says.

After opening in Durban on September 30 with an international cast and crew from South Africa, Germany, India, Australia, USA and other countries, ”Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp” is…