AIDA by Madeline

I really wasn’t sure what to expect from the performance of Aida. All I knew about the play had been learned from the synopsis we all received before the performance. I was much more familiar with the music of Elton John and Tim Rice, so all I really knew was that I would most likely enjoy the music. I wasn’t disappointed, either; I found the musical very entertaining and well done. The songs and dance numbers were especially impressive—my favorite song was “Dance of the Robe.” I also liked the ending a lot; at the beginning of the performance I didn’t really understand why the story opened in a modern-day museum, but the ending tied it together very well. The only things I didn’t enjoy about the performance were, first of all, the extreme volume of the actors’ microphones that would often be so loud that the words the actors spoke were difficult to understand. Also, I was disappointed to see that while all the actors performed very well while singing, the acting ability of some, but not all, of the actors seemed to diminish whenever they had to say their lines rather than sing them. Their emotions became less pronounced, and some actors seemed almost awkward speaking onstage. The actor who played Mereb, despite being an excellent singer, was visibly struggling with his spoken lines, and he appeared unsure if he was even saying the right lines. The exception to this, of course, was Amneris, who sang and acted with equal brilliance. She was funny and believable, and she made the character her own. Overall, it was a wonderful show, and I would recommend it to all my friends.

The presentation after the show was really fun, and I liked talking with people who had made careers out of their love of theater, and I liked the way they had real advice to offer us and could speak frankly from experience about being an actor. From them, I learned that it is extremely difficult to succeed in the performing arts, and that the only way anyone can hope to make a career out of acting is to keep trying, over and over and over again, until you can get a job working in a wonderful show such as Aida.