Theatre
From nothing
Peter Jenkins Evita (Prince Edward)
It was a compulsory success. Failure would have been too horrible, and far too expensive, to contemplate. Who can say, with Concorde a loser, this might be the last British export? If Evita were to sink on Broadway we'd all be sunk. The opening was a patriotic occasion; the first-nighters behaved dutifully like first-nighters and most of the critics raced to their phone booths to rave. Perhaps it was easier on the second night to be less carried away. Certainly the audience was. Or perhaps by then it was impossible for the show to come up to the expectations raised. Evita is more inter esting as a commercial and sociological phenomenon than as a musical. The publicity man should get the Oscar. It wasn't until the second half that I dared to admit that! wasn't liking it enough. I had been warned that it would start slowly. Much too slowly! would say, for it was half way through the first act before you could feel the audience begin to tingle a bit. Musicals have to have a sense of excitement. Evita begins with the death of Eva ,Peron. We see the stricken faces of the shirtless bereaved on a back projection. We are in a Buenos Aires cinema, an unfortunate association seeing as the Prince Edward theatre feels like a cinema (which it was) and not the sort of place to see a stylish musical. The rest is an episodic flashback. Eva, as everyone must by now know (and how Argentina won the World Cup) slept her way up from nothing to become first lady of the New Argentina; she was a kind of nympho-populist, that is to say she loved many people and the people loved her. On the way up she leaves behind her first lover, a Latino Svengali called Magaldi (played with great style by Mark Ryan) who is the only character in the show who looks as if he belongs in a musical, not least because he so resembles that lovely man who plays gigolos and co-respondents in the Fred Astaire films.
We also see the rise of Peron. He becomes top colonel in a game of musical rocking chairs, a smart piece of direction by Hal Prince except that it isn't as good as Joan Littlewood's 'One staff officer jumps over another staff officer' in Oh what a lovely war. Joss Ackland is such a good actor that he can dominate the stage simply by being on it. He is far too big for this part, this cardboard dictator, and splendid though he is he does look as if he has arrived at the wrong theatre, expecting to play in an Ivor Novello revival.
Prince does the best he can with it. His tricks aren't at all vulgar. He can make a small crowd of extras seem like a vast crowd at a rally. But what can you do with a musical with no jokes, no dancing, no glamour? He is best when he can be subtle and charming and Rice and Lloyd Webber provide few opportunities for that. The best scene in the whole show is the one in which the polo-playing classes and the officer corps express their disapproval at Peron taking up with a tart. They warn what will happen: Once you allow a bit on the side to move to the centre where she's not qualified.
Prince has the officers (some colour at last in their Ruritanian uniforms) precisionmarching up and down the stage while the Upper classes glide around it in a frozen tableau, white-tied and tailed, champagne glasses in hand. Witty and to the political point. Meanwhile, David Essex — officially the star of the show — is being a kind of Brechtian alienater, wandering on and off dressed up as Che, commenting on the story
and providing it with narrative links, rather as if he were the political correspondent of Time Out introducing an edition of Panorama from the New Argentina. David Essex is typecast as David Essex and very good at the part he is too. He has the star quality, or at least the pop star quality, essential surely to any kind bf successful musical. But what of Eva herself? Her big moment comes after the interval (and, I must warn you, a very expensive drink) when Prince puts her high on a balcony, like Tosca, to sing — wait for it — 'Don't cry for me Argentina' which she does, meltingly. Elaine Paige establishes herself as a kind of mini-Merman and if she fails to make us love her it is not for want of energy, verve or voice but because Eva herself—the part — is not the stuff that musical queens can be made of. That's the problem with Evita. The music I'm not really competent to judge. 'Haven't I heard that before?' I muttered half way through act one. 'The LP?' No I meant about five minutes ago.' But maybe the Lloyd Webber's sound is so distinctive that it sounds repetitive to the untrained ear.
Across the stalls the electronic music came It got no better, it was much the same.
And the lyrics? Eva is at the top now, her hair up too, all first-ladylike. She's getting above herself. She sings.
I care for the people They need to adore me So Christian Dior me From my head to me toes.
Good? Well, clever — but Lorenz Hart, not Tim Rice.
I am their saviour That's what they call me. So Lauren Racal! me Anything goes.
Good? Not so good — sub Cole Porter, Tim, But the real trouble lies with the whole conception of the thing. Half way through the second act I was bored with Eva Peron (in spite of Miss Paige), bored with Argentina, and tired of the whole squalid affair. I couldn't cry another tear for either of them. What delight was to be had from this dreary epic in this drab place? Where was the glamour of the Big Musical? Why should we suffer football crowds on the West End stage — even when directed by Hal Prince? How I wish I was at A Chorus Line again! Oh, for a joke. The officer and the upper classes return to liven it up a bit but the show is dying half way through the second act. So is Eva. She does her Traviata bit. She snuffs and the production simply fades away, with David Essex leaving the stage — a superb moment of anti-climax. 'She had her moments, she had some style' he tells us. So cic)es Evita but by no means enough of either, and neither the brilliance of Mr Prince nor the excellence of the performers can lift it above the level of mediocrity to Which it aspires.
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