An Evita for today
★★★
I doubt whether Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber‘s Evita has ever looked or sounded better.
As you enter the Open Air Theatre in Regent’s Park, you’re presented with a set that looks like bleachers or maybe a staircase which rises from the front to the back of the stage. At the bottom of the staircase, appropriately, is Eva about to embark on her journey of sleeping her way out of poverty and climbing to the highest office of the land.
She is a showgirl. Like her colleagues, she wears a short skirt and sits with her legs apart, making it clear that she sees her body as a tool in her ruthless ambition. It’s not long before attaches herself to up-and-coming General Juan Peron and helps him to become President of Argentina. Then tragedy strikes as she contracts cancer and dies, the announcement of her death providing the opening of the musical.
Andrew Lloyd Webber’s best score is movingly played
I’m not a big fan of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s music but I have to say the stirring swelling arrangements, the Latin American pastiches and the memorable tunes make this, for me, his best score. Coupled with Tim Rice’s clever, caustic lyrics, Evita is a pleasure to listen to and this production is musically excellent under Alan Williams.
Under the supervision of Alan Williams, the blockbusters Don’t Cry For Me Argentina (which I can’t get out of my head) and Another Suitcase in Another Hall are movingly performed, the former by Samantha Pauly, the latter by Frances Mayli McCann.
Just as the musical is intended to be sung-through, director Jamie Lloyd has made a decision to have it danced-through. Fabian Aloise‘s choreography, picking up on the Latin American rhythms, works exceptionally well. The lack of a flat stage could have made life difficult for dancers but Mr Aloise turns it to advantage by having the performers move up and down and along the steps. At times, he uses Soutra Gilmour‘s tiered design to create a spectacular wall of dancers.
The leads are excellent. Eva is played by Samantha Pauly. In her slip dress and trainers, she seems very young , much younger than other Evitas you may have seen. This is appropriate because the musical takes her from age 15 to 33. She is a pleasure to watch and hear. You have no doubt of why she would be attractive to Peron and the Argentine people. My only reservation is that she didn’t show enough ruthlessness on her face.
I came out humming Lloyd Webber’s tunes but wasn’t engaged in the story
The strength of this production which is the youthful energetic dancing is also its flaw because Peron should be older. Historically and in terms of this classic musical, it should be much clearer that Eva gave an unattractive older military man sex appeal, much in the way Lady Diana did for Prince Charles or Ginger Rogers for Fred Astaire. Excellent as Ektor Rivera is as a performer, he is too young and fit.
Trent Saunders is powerful in the role of Che the narrator. He has a strong expressive voice. The narrator not only tells us what’s going on but comments cynically until even he falls under Eva’s spell. He is also her conscience, experiencing physically her rejection and her contrition.
The Brechtian device of a narrator is meant to be alienating but I don’t find it works in Evita. Yes, we step back from emotional engagement to think about Evita’s populist progress but the downside is, we don’t care about the protagonists. While the biting libretto goes one way, the music goes another, slapping on emotion with a trowel. It tries hard but Andrew Lloyd Webber‘s musical passion fails to attach itself to Tim Rice‘s characters.
I came out humming the tunes but I wasn’t engaged in Evita’s story.
Evita was performed at the Open Air Theatre until 21 September 2019
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