Evita by Andrew Lloyd Webber (review)

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Reviewed by:

• Evita by Andrew Lloyd Webber
• Ryan McKinney

EVITA. Book and lyrics by Tim Rice. Music by Andrew Lloyd Webber. Directed by Sammi Cannold. American Repertory Theater, Cambridge, Massachusetts. June 16, 2023.

As audience members settled into their seats for the American Repertory Theater’s revival of Evita, a white, shimmering ball gown hung suspended over the Loeb Drama Center stage, floa ing with ethereal life, though unfilled by a human form. The musical’s [End Page 106] opening voiceover announcing the 1952 death of Eva Duarte de Perón rang out across the theatre, and then the dissonant chords of a requiem shattered the ensuing brief silence. A chorus of Argentines processed onto the stage, grieving the loss of Argentina’s First Lady, the suspended iconic gown serving as the only visual reference of her legacy. Who or what was being mourned here? A political figu e? A humble woman? A controversial criminal? A beloved icon? These questions remained at the forefront of this stunningly directed, performed, and sung revival of Evita.

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Shereen Pimentel (Eva), Omar Lopez-Cepero (Che), and the company of Evita. (Photo: Nile Scott Studios.)

Originally released as a concept album in 1976, Evita marks one of the first collaborations between Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice. Later produced as a stage musical in the West End in 1978 and on Broadway in 1979, Evita served as a star-vehicle for its leading ladies, Elaine Paige and Patti LuPone, respectively. These original productions, both directed by Hal Prince, and their associated cast recordings made artistic, design, and musical choices that have become embedded in the fabric of Evita. While the ART production honored Prince’s original vision, it also strove to reimagine Evita—the musical and the woman—by creating a piece of musical storytelling that tangled with class, humanity, and memory.

Based on an earlier 2019 production in the City Center Encores! series, the ART production featured many returning cast and artistic team members, including its director, Sammi Cannold, who staged this production with a great deal of detail, thoughtfully foregrounding the theme of memory. The musical begins with Eva’s death, but the timeline then leaps backward to Eva’s humble beginnings and progresses from there in a sung-through narrative that details her life. These unfolding memories and events are filte ed through the eyes of the musical’s narrator, Che, an anti-Perón revolutionary who serves as Eva’s dramatic foil. Cannold embraced this memory framework to clarify not only Eva’s own story but also that of the mystical figu e of Che. Although he serves as the audience’s entry point into the story, the character of Che is underwritten, leaving audiences to question not only his legitimacy as a narrator but also the much more basic question of who he is. While earlier productions relied on costuming to suggestively link Che to Che Guevara in order to forestall some of these questions, Cannold turned to the device of memory to solve this dramaturgical dilemma, placing a younger version of Che (“Young Cadet”) into the storytelling. This ghost of our narrator served as Che’s memory of his younger self, an eager soldier who was initially loyal to Perón but later leaves his post in Perón’s inner circle due to the [End Page 107] corruption within. This convention was established in the opening number “Oh What a Circus” when Che sang, “And who am I who dares to keep / His head held high while millions weep? / Why the exception to the rule? / Opportunist? Traitor? Fool? / Or just a man who grew and saw / From seventeen to twenty-four / His country bled, crucifie ? / She’s not the only one who’s died!” In Cannold’s staging, Che, the narrator, sang these lyrics to his younger self, effectively establishing Che’s personal stakes in this story, transforming him from a somewhat generic narrator to a storyteller with an invested, perhaps biased, interest in how we remember “Eva.”

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The company of Evita. (Photo: Nile Scott Studios.)

Cannold continued this thread of memory throughout act...