IN NEED OF A GENIE.

IN NEED OF A GENIE SCOTTISH BALLET EDINBURGH FESTIVAL THEATRE EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND DECEMBER 20-30, 2000

Aladdin, Scottish Ballet's ambitious new adaptation of the famous adventure fable from The Arabian Nights, is the company's first full-length production in seven years. Mounting it was former Artistic Director Galina Samsova's idea. Robert Cohan, the American-born founding father of modern dance in Britain, took to the notion. But it was Robert North, in his current capacity as artistic director, who gave the project a green light.

In a recent interview Cohan said he'd conceived of a piece "that looks as though it's always been there--like a classic." But willing a classic into being isn't the same as being inspired by artistic passion. While some aspects of the design and performance were pleasing, the septuagenarian choreographer's opus could hardly be embraced whole heartedly as classic material.

Cohan has drawn a heavy hand across his ancient source material. Paradoxically, he has also conjured an overlong and strictly lightweight entertainment that is neither very involving nor, ultimately, much fun.

As play-it-safe mediocrity, Aladdin fits right in with Scottish Ballet's present middle-of-the-road aesthetic. North's Romeo and Juliet, in a staging premiered by the company last summer, was similarly afflicted. Both productions exhibited superficially colorful palettes and far too little texture.

Cohan's storytelling misses clarity and drive. The scenario contains bits (a peasant's dispute, a sorceress's solo) that seem like padding. Characterization was thin even by fairy-tale standards. The Evil Magician (piratical Michele di Molfetta on opening night) was without threat or dimension. How can you hiss at a nonentity? Even the genie, the one thing universally associated with the story, lacked presence. He was reduced to a few flashy, expensive laser fragments.

There were fine nuggets of legerdemain, courtesy of the illusionist Paul Kieve. The vanishing tricks and a brief flying-carpet ride were neatly done. But, like the pas de deux for Aladdin (Jesus Pastor) and the princess (pallid Linda Packer), the latter floated around aimlessly in the same dramatic vacuum occupied by the rest of the performance.

The one live wire was Pastor's resourceful, innocent Aladdin. Handsome, supple and fluid down to his fingertips, this zesty company newcomer is a real find. He only faltered while writhing against a wall, bare-chested and in chains, like some overextended advertisement for homoeroticism.

Cohan gave the hardworking ensemble plenty of vigorous, effortful dance passages including, atypically, a slew of first-act jewels. That the effort showed in the performing was the problem.

Lez Brotherston's reputation as one of Britain's most ingenious designers remains unscathed, thanks to moving panels that continually redefined the space inside a glowing red proscenium arch. But composer Carl Davis's stirring but sappy pastiche of Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky and John Williams (E. T.) suffered from a surfeit of climaxes. No one here was operating at top capacity.