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Word: rice (lookup in dictionary) (lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
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Usage:

...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 known to American audiences as a force behind the movies Saturday Night Fever and Grease...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Theater: Eva Peron, Superstar | 8/21/1978 | See Source »

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...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Theater: Eva Peron, Superstar | 8/21/1978 | See Source »

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...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Theater: Eva Peron, Superstar | 8/21/1978 | See Source »

...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...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Theater: Eva Peron, Superstar | 8/21/1978 | See Source »

...often catchy. Prince's staging is more problematical. Using a large company and rear-projected newsreel footage, the director has created some undeniably powerful tableaux: Evita's political rallies, her death and funeral have a dark and chilling majesty. But Prince is capable of sinking to Rice's simplistic level: Argentina's aristocratic class is symbolized by a phalanx of chorus people who seem to have stepped out of the Ascot Gavotte number of My Fair Lady. The director also cannibalizes his own previous work. Evita's portentous first-act finale (A New Argentina...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Theater: Eva Peron, Superstar | 8/21/1978 | See Source »

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