Dear Editor:
Last week I saw a sign at CVS promoting performances at Hoboken High of “Aida.” It’s a powerful portrayal of a tragic love triangle, with heart wrenching melodies by Elton John and penetrating lyrics by Tim Rice. I saw it on Broadway a couple of times. My daughter and some of her friends saw it several times. It was one of my favorite theater experiences so I was disappointed when Disney dropped it from Broadway. It’s a great show that should be out there for people to see. I have kept my eye out for regional performances or any opportunities to see it again.
So when I found out it was being performed by the students at Hoboken High about a block from my home for a $10 admission, I made sure to take advantage of the opportunity. I knew its themes would resonate with the kids from Hoboken High. Hoboken has a history of turning out great singers. Hoboken kids are as soulful as it gets and I knew they would play the hell out of “Aida”.
I attended on Friday night, the opening night, and I was not disappointed. The Hoboken High kids really put it across. They recreated that story and musical theater experience with great energy and commitment. It was an emotional experience for the audience, certainly for me. For the work that went into it, the excellence of the acting, singing, dancing, choreography, lighting and set design, the play deserved to be packed for a long run. Unfortunately, it wasn’t as well known as it deserved to be and on Friday the theater was far from full. It’s a sad commentary on our priorities as a society when the general population is oblivious to a quality enterprise like Hoboken High’s “Aida” because they’ve never seen it on TV, while mobs of curious visitors constantly stand in line even in the most miserable weather just to get a peek at a local bakery because it has appeared on TV.
Also sad to me is the Republican legacy of so much money and effort put into SAT tests, which are essentially primitive stimulus-response exercises, while projects like this theater production are so under-appreciated, when it obviously calls forth the highest motivation and dedication from the students, brings them together in a spirit of cooperation and mutual support, and challenges them to reach beyond their current abilities to produce something really transcendent. I hope that as we as a society move from the oppressive and fear-driven atmosphere of the Bush-Cheney era we can reclaim some of the higher values that tend to get ignored when a government focuses too much on war and lets its domestic priorities lag.
In communities like ours, we should recommit ourselves to values represented by Hoboken High’s theater productions and give them the support they deserve.
David Cogswell