KEARNY –
Real-life spouses Mary Costello and Jim Hague will share the stage in the West Hudson Arts & Theater Company’s production of A.R. Gurney’s play, “Love Letters.”
Performances are Friday, March 9, at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday, March 10, at 1:30 and 7:30 p.m., at the Arlington Players Club, 12 Washington Place. Tickets are $20.
In the play, Costello portrays an artist, Melissa Gardner, and Hague is cast as an attorney, Andrew Makepeace Ladd III, who begin a longterm correspondence as second-grade classmates and continue – even as they lead separate lives – for a halfcentury.
Both Costello and Hague said they welcomed a chance to participate with W.H.A.T. in helping revitalize the performing arts in the region.
Costello, a Kearny resident who was raised in Harrison, is a Hudson County Superior Court judge. In her only prior acting experience, she played a judge in a 2008 Attic Ensemble production of “Night of January 16th.”
Several years ago, Costello saw “Love Letters” performed at the Attic Ensemble by her current director, Mark Morchel, and Joanne Smith. “I was one of many wiping tears away. I think if you can watch (the play) and not be moved – either to laughter or tears – because there are also lighthearted moments in the play – there’s something wrong with you,” Costello said.
And “Love Letters” resonates personally with Costello for another reason. “It’s a play about two people who love each other – and that’s us – Jim and I – so it’s not too big a stretch,” she says.
Hague, a sportswriter for The Observer and for other papers, said he relates well to one of the show’s themes, a faithful partnership kept alive by the couple’s exchange of the written word.
Elaborating, Hague said that in the play, his character explains his preference for writing rather than telephoning is based on the fact that, “letters are more personal, part of your personality, which is what writing is all about and, as a writer myself, I can relate to that.”
Picking up on that notion, Costello says she finds relevance to today’s technologypaced word. “These days, everybody’s texting, blogging, calling each other on the cell phone,” she says. “(Jim and I) are guilty of it, too.”
Hague’s prior stage experience includes two stints as Norman Bulansky in “The Boys Next Door” in 1991 and 1993. He also played legendary Mayor Frank Hague in “The Chase and Sanborn Mystery Hour” for the Attic in 1994.
“I’m excited about this new venture,” Hague said. “It’s huge to have theater out here. I’m all for it.”
And, he confesses, it could have something to do with the fact that “I’m a huge ham.”
JERSEY CITY –
Carlos Campos, the accused killer of his parents and niece in Harrison last summer, was arraigned last Tuesday, Feb. 21, before Hudson County Superior Court Judge Patrick J. Arre, sitting in Jersey City.
Campos’ court-appointed lawyer, Hudson County Dep. Public Defender Joseph Russo, told the court he hadn’t yet received all the discovery he’d requested from the state’s representative, Asst. Hudson County Prosecutor Michael D’Andrea.
“And some if it is not readable,” Russo added.
D’Andrea, meanwhile, advised the judge that he had made “no offer at this time” for plea bargaining the case.
D’Andrea said he’d be filing an application for a “forensic examination” of the defendant which, he added, would include a request for a “bite mark.” Later, outside court, the assistant prosecutor declined to elaborate.
Campos is charged with murdering his parents, Carlos A. Campos-Trinidad, 57, and Ruth Pereira, 58, and his 3-year-old niece, Gabriella Morales, Aug. 16, 2011, at the family home on Hamilton Street.
Campos, who remains in Hudson County Jail, Kearny, on $1 million bail, is due back in court Sept. 10.
-Ron Leir
