THEATER

by D.L. Groover

BARGING DOWN THE NILE

Elton John’s Aida opens in Houston for the first time

The pleasure boats that ply the Nile can be pretty high end. Polished mahogany, waxed brass fittings, fresh flowers, and an educated staff pamper the tourists along such watery stops with legendary names like Dendera, Edfu, Tell el-Amarna, and Kom Ombo. You’re never far from the pharaonic life once aboard. For all their four-star luxury, though, the ships never detract from the stupendous archeological sites that always take center stage. This cannot be said for Elton John and Tim Rice’s Aida, playing through June 15 on its national tour at the Hobby Center.

Aida is produced by Disney Theatrical Productions, whose current Broadway shows, Lion King and Beauty and the Beast, rake in a nifty 93 percent weekly average attendance. Aida has had a bumpy ride down the pre-Broadway cataracts. After a disastrous and critically panned Atlanta world premiere, the show was completely overhauled. A behemoth of a rotating pyramid was the first to go. The director, choreographer, set designer, and leading man followed. Infused with cash from Disney’s bottomless pockets, tightened and stripped of excess, given a Zen-like design gloss, the show opened in New York to respectable reviews and four Tony awards in 2000 (original music and lyrics, leading actress, set design, lighting design). It’s still running.

While not the groundbreaking theatrical experience that is Lion King, nor the inelegant knockoff that is Beauty and the Beast, Aida is at least slick and diverting. Taking its source from Verdi’s opera masterpiece, yet unfortunately retaining none of its barbaric splendor nor seething volcanic emotions, this show straddles the politically correct and smoothes out the rough edges of miscegenation, messy political intrigue, and those familial themes that so obsessed Verdi. Aida’s been Disneyfied. However, if you love signature Elton John music, this show’s for you. The ballad “Elaborate Lives,” the campy “My Strongest Suit,” and the pop-rock “Like Father Like Son” are so vintage Sir John you can imagine him pounding on a piano behind the scrim.

Giving a sitcom spin to the musical, or unwilling to play the drama straight, the creators have camped up the opera’s romance triangle by turning the Egyptian princess Amneris into a Nile valley girl. She lives to shop. Her mantra is “I am what I wear.” As in the opera, her betrothal to the war hero Radames is compromised when the enslaved Nubian princess Aida and Radames fall in love. For all their soulful rock-star wailings, the lovers, played by Jeremy Kushner and Paulette Ivory, don’t spark much interest, and their fabled coupling to last the ages is dry as mummy dust. Only Lisa Brescia’s Amneris and Mickey Dolenz’s Zoser, Radames’ scheming father, bring the musical to life. Yes, that Mickey Dolenz, the ex-Monkee who has made a credible musical theater career out of touring shows as varied as Grease and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. His supporting role as the villain is way too short, but he struts the hell out of his two numbers.

It’s Lisa Brescia’s spoiled princess who steals the show with her legally blond attitude and over-the-top fashion show. She also gets to emerge from a royal bath in one of Bob Crowley’s most breathtakingly imaginative sets. Each of his designs steals whatever Brescia doesn’t. The work of these two is reason enough to sit through Aida.

David Groover saw Aida in Columbus, Ohio.

TALKING WITH AMNERIS

Backstage, scrubbed and out of her gowns, Lisa Brescia exudes sweetness and level headedness. Unassuming, she is the most refreshing of actors. When she says she’s thrilled to be in the show, you believe her.

Hired as Amneris’s stand-in, she has played the role since September. She is a late bloomer to musical theater, having paid her show-biz dues as a member of the Mamas and the Papas international revival tour from 1993 to 1998. The last time she was in Houston was playing Six Flags as a mamma. A stint in Jesus Christ Superstar on Broadway followed, as did musical theater work at Connecticut’s prestigious Goodspeed Opera House and roles in regional musical theater across the states.

“My friends would say, you’re doing Brigadoon? Rock-and-roll girl is doing Brigadoon?

“I took a circuitous route. I went to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts with every intention of doing straight plays, and quickly found that it’s close to impossible to survive pursuing that. It’s been a short history in terms of musical theater. I’m always impressed with people who have a résumé a mile long and have been working professionally since they were 12.

“I’m just gonna continue on this ride while it happens, which is going so well and is so enjoyable, and then change careers. I may still be doing this in 10 years and surprise myself. It’s so much fun, but I see friends of mine who are in their mid-to-late 40s struggling. I’d really like to eventually settle into something more predictable.

“I don’t want to find myself praying for a regional gig for the summer so I can pay the rent. All the best people in show biz have some ambivalence about it. They seem to be the most well-rounded, too, with the most perspective. It’s not life or death to get the job, be a star, have to be famous. It’s really not something I want. I just want to work.

“I’d like to continue my education and become a therapist, a certified social worker. I don’t know if that will actually happen, but it’s something I’ve always wanted to do. I’ll have all actor clients. It’s not that far-fetched.”

Brescia laughs at that notion. She is so well grounded, you know she would make the best damned therapist there is. She is already the best damned Amneris. DLG

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