Word: evitas
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...cause of all this commotion is Evita, a pop opera that opened to rave reviews in late June. A hotter West End commodity than either A Chorus Line or Annie, this song-and-dance account of Argentine First Lady Eva Perón (1919-52) may be the biggest London smash since Jesus Christ Superstar opened there six years ago. Like Superstar, which will soon pass Oliver! to become England's alltime longest-running musical, Evita is the creation of Composer Andrew Lloyd Webber and Lyricist Tim Rice. Both shows also share a producer, Robert Stigwood, who is best...
These are very lucky men, for Evita's London success far outstrips the show's merits. Though extravagantly staged by American Director Harold Prince, whom Stigwood imported for the occasion, Evita is a cold and uninvolving show that does little to expand the traditional musical comedy format or our understanding of a bizarre historical figure. Evita is often spectacular in its pretensions, but it is not even the best musical to touch on the subject of political repression. That honor belongs to two of Prince's Broadway productions-Fiddler on the Roof and Cabaret...
...Many of Evita's failings are a function of Rice's libretto, which never aspires to much more than a comic-book version of history. The author dutifully chronicles Evita's impoverished youth, her Buenos Aires radio career and her rise to power once married to Colonel Juan Perón (Joss Ackland). But Rice's point of view on his heroine is pure show biz; he's so agog he might as well be describing the career of Judy Garland. By the time Evita dies of cancer at age 33, we know...
Almost as offensive as the show's characterization of Evita is its use of Che Guevara (David Essex) as narrator. Though Argentine-born, Guevara had no prominent involvement in the history of his country during the Perón era and did not know Evita. Why Rice has included him is a mystery, since the writer seems to know little about him. In Evita, Che is a bland, almost apolitical character who, his guerrilla garb aside, might just as aptly be called the Stage Manager or, for that matter, Nick Carraway...
...Rice were a dazzling writer, such silliness might be tolerable, but his lyrics rarely rise above the cute. ("The people ... need to adore me/ So Christian Dior me," sings Evita to her couturiers.) The show's structure is clumsy. In addition to the narration and flashbacks within flashbacks, Rice introduces an irrelevant character just to plug his best song (Another Suitcase in Another Hall). That sort of contrivance hasn't been seen in a musical since Carol Haney sang Hernando's Hideaway in The Pajama Game...