Theatre in the Park "Aida" review by JLin

The God's Love Nubia

Rating: 4

Aida

by The Theatre in the Park

Though I was familiar with the music, I had never had the pleasure of seeing Aida on stage prior to the opening night of the Theatre in the Park production.  It is a truly beautiful love story with just enough humor and action to appeal to almost any audience member and the TTIP cast delivered a fine performance of it.

The set was perfect with some very cool rolling staircases, and the costumes by Todd Hoover-Holthus were phenomenal (the star of the show, if I had to pick just one).  However, the rest of the technical aspects of the show were disappointing.  The audio was poorly balanced so the band often overpowered the singers, making it difficult to understand them.  There were also several occasions when the wrong mics were brought up, allowing us to hear the actors speaking backstage, and not hear the ones onstage at all.  The lighting design, by Caleb Stroman, was beautiful, but the cues were often wrong, leaving a scene in the dark before it was over, or lighting the wrong actor.  All of this considered, one has to remember that Theatre in the Park is a community theatre and each show only has a few days on the outdoor stage to work out the technical kinks before the show opens.  I'm sure that these problems will fix themselves as the run continues.

The choreography by Liz Ernst was incredibly impressive and the ensemble was clearly full of trained dancers.  It complimented the story and was quite a spectacle!  However, there was so much of it that it almost took away from how good it was.  Several of the dance sequences could have been shortened or cut altogether and the show would not have suffered from it in the least.

The actors in the principle roles had terrific chemistry with each other and beautiful voices.  I was most impressed by Lindsey Jones in the role of Princess Amneris.  She owned her character and nailed every note.  I knew from the first song in the show that she would be my favorite.  (And a question to the costumers: just how many dresses did she have!?)  I was slightly disappointed with Legna Cedillo (Aida) and Robert Hingula (Zoser).  Cedillo had a beautiful upper register and could belt like nobody's business, but there were several occasions when her singing was pitchy.  Also, her lower notes lost the clarity that was present in the higher parts of the song and sounded forced.  It also seemed that she learned how to act by watching Rachel Berry (played by Lea Michelle) on Glee.  Take that as you will.  Hingula was a terrific villain but his singing style didn't flow with the rest of the show.  He has more of a rock sound when the rest of the performers sounded more soulful.  This, of course, was just my personal preference, and says nothing against his level of talent.  I'm not sure if it was director Greg Shaw's choice to have Zoser sound so different from the rest of the cast or if it is simply the only way Hingula can sound.  I had a similar review of his voice when he played Roger in the Barn Players production of Rent.  Aside from these small critiques, the lead roles were well cast.  (The program fails to mention that Lauren Frazier played the role of Nehebka, so I'd like to make sure that she gets credit for her work).  This ensemble was a great team, and despite its large size, it was clear that all of the performers were like a family.  I recommend you check out Aida before the family splits up and moves on to other endeavors.  This is a show that will delight all ages (especially an extremely cool and well executed effect at the end of the play). 4 out of 5 stars.

The show closes on July 17th so make time to go out to the park with a family before the chance passes you by.


read the review at KC Stage