Review - Aida Tour - 1/20/07

State Theater - New Brunswick, NJ

1/20/07 - 8:00 pm

Intro notes:

I had never seen Aida on Broadway. It was out during my few year boycott of theater passion. When my Adam Pascal obsession began, I learned he was in Aida. After finally wanting to branch out from the RENT Cast Recording, I finally picked up the AIDA one. At first, I wasn’t into it. But after a few tries, the obsession grew quickly. I started listening to it non stop and fell in love with the story. Of course, I became upset that I could never see this story I fell in love with live. That changed when someone on BWW happened to mention the tour. So that is what I saw tonight. I waited in long anticipation for tonight. Having said all of that, I cannot compare the tour version and broadway version. I have read a lot of reviews with heavy debate involved, but this will not be one of them. Ok, here goes.

Sets: Not bad. One steady two story set with some statues/walls that were moved in and out by cast members.

Costumes – Not as bad as people had made it out to be. Radames wears Jeans for most of Act 1, but unless you are in the front rows you can’t tell too much. I knew going in this was a tour, not broadway, so I didn’t set high expectations. The only thing was the Michael Jackson impersonators (ministers)…..just weird!

Cast:

Amneris – Leah Allers

When the show started I got very scared. “Every Story is a Love Story” was very rushed. You could tell immediately that she had a beautiful voice, but she rushed through each lyric. The audio acoustics were not on par for the beginning of the show, which made it worse, but they did fix it soon after. However, by the time she came on for “My Strongest Suit” she was on her game. She was very funny and played the roll exactly how I pictured it. She did well in all of her scenes, but “I Know the Truth” blew me away. I had tears in my eyes. Her voice was not the same as Sherie Rene Scott, but it fit well with the play.

Radames – Casey Elliott

One word – YUMMY! I could hear the collective gasp from the ladies in the audience when he first shed his shirt. What a sight. Now I love Adam, and I would love nothing more that to have seen him in this role, but Casey is in quite good shape. I could wash laundry on his abs! Ok, back to point! His singing, like Amneris, was rushed in the beginning, but it eventually slowed down. I had chills during “Elaborate Lives”. However, in ACT II is where he really shined. In ACT 1, I heard many people commenting in the audience that it sounded like he was trying to hard to sound “rocker-ish”. And to a point I agree. But in ACT II, it all just came together. No one will still top Adam, but he did a good runner up position. I REALLY hope one day to see him in NY. Out of every song he sang, surprisingly, I left with “Radames’ Letter” as my favorite.

Aida – Marja Harmon

I have mixed feelings towards her. She was not the AIDA you see in the tour pictures (Edit - I just checked and she is the same person in the tour pictures. However, she now has hair and those pictures on the website do her no justice!). Her voice was strong and beautiful, but at times I felt she was trying to channel Heather a bit too much. The accent started interfering with her singing notes, in my opinion. She did make you feel for her character. She had decent chemistry with Casey. “Easy as Life” and “Elaborate Lives (reprise)” were her two best songs.

Mereb – Dane Harrington Joseph

I really thing his talent was underused. He got the most laughs and had a beautiful voice. I could picture him as a few different roles currently on Broadway.

Zoser – DJ Rudd

Ummmm, I was hoping other reviewers were over reacting, but they weren’t. He was so, umm, blah. Zoser isn’t exactly the most important character, but there is so much you can do with it, but he did not fulfill. “Another Pyramid” was rushed and you could barely understand what he said. “Like Father, Like Son” was very disappointing, but he did hit the end note decently.

All of the other characters were good, no complaints. Some good dancers but there were a few that were just plain off. Now I don’t have a rhythmic bone in my body, but I could even tell they were off.

- Few notes and observations overall:

- - I thought Radames and Zoser knew they were related the entire time, but in this production it was “announced” or “discovered” right before “Like Father, Like Son”. Am I missing something?

- - The props used were odd (i.e. machine guns, janitor mop buckets, janitor mops, etc.) but unless you were nitpicking, nothing too important that it ruined the story. The mop buckets were the only thing that made me chuckle.

- - Was there always “lap dancing” or something similar to it during one song (I think it was Another Pyramid, but I could be wrong)? It seemed a little risqué for a Disney show.

- - In the broadway production, did Radames really give all his possessions away and start scrubbing the floors, etc. right before “Elaborate Lives”? It just seemed a little over board, even for someone in love, to just do out of no where. But I could also be reading into things too much, like usual.

Like I said, I never saw the broadway production, and I’m sure this paled in comparison. But for what it was, I thought it was very good. It felt so wonderful to see this story I love brought to life, plastic mop buckets and all.

I’m sure in the next few days I’ll remember more and have more questions.

The theater itself was nice. We had 3rd row in the Balcony which were decent. I've been getting spoiled with seating lately, but it still wasn't bad. Funny note - We got there just on time and I went to turn into valet parking line. Well there wasn't enough room, so the guy made me pull my car completely up onto the sidewalk in front of the theater. Needless to say, everyone was staring at me while going into the theater, probably thinking I was drunk =). I had a really loud annoying older gentleman sitting behind us. He kept shouting "This sucks" or "Time to go back to sleep". We had to turn around twice to ask him to be quiet. His wife was mortified.

Edit - I found this on youtube.com. It's a 3 minute highlight of the tour... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gP72dggQzMg. It did a good job capturing the show, but does Casey & Marja no justice. They looked and sounded 5x's better last night then on this video.