Chris Eldon Lee reviews “Evita”, which is at Wolverhampton’s Grand Theatre until Saturday 31st August 2013
The Grand is back with a bang after its short summer snooze…and if you were considering NOT bothering to see “Evita”, please think again.
This new production pops the cork on a bottle of very fine Argentinean wine, carefully laid down 35 years ago. Somehow Bill Kenwright’s revival is fresh and urgent and all the more powerful with the passage of time. True stories never fade.
I suspect people are flocking to The Grand largely to see Wet Wet Wet’s Marti Pellow as Che. He certainly doesn’t disappoint, but neither does he dominate. He plays the disconnected commentator with distinct detachment, never revealing his true feelings for Eva Peron. With the opening number “Oh! What A Circus”, lyricist Tim Rice has him criticising her in her coffin, just to remind us she was not quite as pure white as her famous ball gown.
He sings as an actor rather than a pop star, closely miked and husky voiced; pouncing on every nuance of the story so a new generation of audience can handle the history with ease. As the original producers intended, there’s no foreshadowing of Che Guevara’s later Cuban career. In fact it’s never made clear who ‘Che’ is, and Pellow plays him with the relaxed rolling gait of a world-weary campaigner rather than a petulant revolutionary. His working clothes, black cap and big boots momentarily reminded me of a Severn Valley Railway engine driver.
By contrast, Madalena Alberto is absolutely dazzling as the emergent Eva Duarte; the cheap brunette who sleep her way to the top and then transforms herself into the spiritual saviour of a nation. It’s a hell of a journey and Alberto – blessed with the vocal range of Kate Bush and the stage presence of Judy Garland – drips destiny. So when she opened Act 2 with a shy, almost apologetic performance of “Don’t Dry For Me Argentina” we were up on our feet applauding a moment of history as much as an immaculate performance of a timeless anthem. Seeing such a statuesque woman later contorted by the iron grip of cancer is a heart wrenching moment of theatre.
But my hat is raised to Mark Heenehan who takes the unglamorous role of President Peron and somehow, subtly, personifies the rise and fall of an entire country. It’s the fate of rulers everywhere not to see their own fate careering towards them. Peron’s desperate love of Evita makes him both all-powerful and deeply vulnerable. Heenehan captures that duality by playing Peron as a stiff, straight-laced, passionate lover. Even his final despair at Eva’s coffin has a military formality about it.
Seeing the show again after such an interval, it’s fascinating to see the famous songs slotted back into their niches…not always entirely successfully. “Another Suitcase Another Hall” feels like it’s crept in from another musical. And Andrew Lloyd Webber’s habit of over-working a tune must have already been well established in 1978 for “Oh! What A Circus” and “Don’t Cry” are pretty much the same melody.
The other thing that’s happened since the seventies is the Falklands War. Hidden in the story of ‘Evita’ is a clue to early Anglo-Argentinean tensions; for during her European tour of 1947, Eva Peron was turned away from Buckingham Palace. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?
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