If Aladdin had a magic mirror like Snow White's evil stepmother and he asked: "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the coolest of them all?", he would get an answer that might disappoint him, but not surprise him.
"Dear Aladin, you are the coolest one here.
But the jinn in the magic lamp is even cooler than you,” the voice would reply.
And perhaps Aladdin in the new production of the fairy tale at the Brothers Grimm Festival in Hanau would also find out that although he has the leading role in the play, there are two others playing the leading roles.
Marcus Abdel-Messih, at the festival for the fourth time, fills his part as Aladdin perfectly, but the role doesn't give enough to really shine.
Among the two that particularly stand out,
Luise Glaser-Lotz
Correspondent for the Rhein-Main-Zeitung for the Main-Kinzig district.
Follow I follow
Dressed in blue from head to toe, tall and sassy, Julian Boine dominates the stage as genie in the lamp as soon as he appears accompanied by pyrotechnics.
Although he is trapped in the lamp and has to fulfill all material wishes of anyone who rubs it, he always retains his sovereignty.
Above all, he can think of a snappy saying in every situation.
He also has – like Aladin, by the way – a good heart that millennia of servanthood could not spoil.
The jinn is a "cool sock" and almost everyone is happy when Aladin gives him freedom at the end.
How to win the princess?
In general, all the actors do a good job: Barbara Bach as Aladdin's mother, Kristina Willmaser as the bewitched sorceress Samira and Aladdin's faithful companion, Helmut Potthoff as the Sultan, Detlev Nyga as the eunuch and last but not least Victoria Grace Findlay as the enchanting and belly-dancing Sherazad together form an excellent ensemble .
But the second star of the evening alongside the Djinn is the play's villain, Sihr Fassad, vizier and magician at Sultan Mustafa's court.
Festival director Frank-Lorenz Engel, director and author of the texts for Aladin, gave his predecessor in the office of director a perfect role with this character.
As an actor, Dieter Gring is always an enrichment for the festival, whether often as a prince as in previous years, as odd Rumpelstiltskin, as Brandner Kaspar or as the Pied Piper of Hamelin.
Already the opening scene increases the expectation of what is to come: lonely, with a gloomy expression, Sihr Fassad stands on the upper level of the stage in front of a glowing glass ball, from whose spirit he wants to know how he can beguile the beautiful Princess Sherazad.
The vizier now learns about the magic lamp and about Aladin, the only one who can get it for him from the hiding place in the mysterious cave.
But whatever schemes Sihr Fassad concocts afterwards, in the end he is alone on the stage again, failed in his evil deeds and, as punishment, enchanted into a colorful bird.
For everyone else, the story ends well.
On the way there, director Engel has to overcome a number of challenges, such as Aladdin and Samira's flight on the carpet or the depiction of the caravan that Aladdin has to procure as a dowry with the help of the Djinn.
The idea of the trapped mind
The presentations succeed with ingenuity and without kitsch.
This also applies to the changeable stage and especially the costumes by Anke Küper and Kerstin Laackmann.
It often glitters and flashes, then again transparent cloths mysteriously play around the actresses, while the men act in heavy, richly decorated velvet fabrics in the oriental scenery.
The piece is not lacking in humor, but exaggerated slapstick doesn't spoil the atmosphere.
In addition, care is taken not to violate Muslim traditions and sentiments.
"Aladin and the Magic Lamp" is one of the particularly successful new productions of the festival and is well worth the admission fee.
The only question that remains is why this story was included in the long series of Grimm fairy tales at all, because "Aladin" belongs to the Arabic collection of fairy tales from 1001 Nights, which was created around the year 900.
The basic idea of a captive spirit that must grant its owner's every wish found its way into European narratives.
In the case of the Brothers Grimm, the substance appears in the fairy tale “The Blue Light”.
There, instead of Aladdin, an impoverished soldier appears, who is denied the pay he deserves by the king.
With the Grimms, the magician is a wicked witch, the treasury lies in a well with a secret passage, the ghost is a little old man and the sultan's daughter becomes the princess of the country.
After the play Aladin and the musical “Drosselbart!” there are two more premieres in the festival programme. "Brother and Sister" will be shown for the first time on June 4th at 4 p.m. in the amphitheater at Philippsruhe Castle. The premiere of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" will follow on June 11 at 8:30 p.m.