‘Come Fall in Love’ Review: Stage Adaptation of Bollywood Hit ‘DDLJ’ Doesn’t Yet Measure Up to the Movie
Shalini Dore Features News Editor As with so many western films, Bollywood has taken a beloved smash and turned it into a stage musical. Aditya Chopra’s “Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge” opened in 1995 and is still playing in a theater in Mumbai, India, still popular thanks to toe-tapping songs that grabbed audiences from the start and a charismatic lead pair (Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol). The film seems to have created a built-in audience for the stage version, “Come Fall in Love,” now playing its Old Globe premiere in San Diego on its way to Broadway. The opening overture (the film’s composers are replaced here by duo Vishal-Sheykhar) includes snippets of the Hindi hit. Moving the story from cold and gray London to cold and gray Boston, the tuner opens on Baldev (Irvine Iqbal) who runs a small shop catering to racists and jerks, seemingly. He is saving up money for a venture he and his partner have set up in India called Maharaja Tours.