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Elena Roger is singing 'Buenos Aires' and there's a line in Tim Rice's lyric from Evita that goes : 'Stand back – you ought to know what cha gonna get in me – just a little touch of star quality.'
Watching director Michael Grandage, choreographer Rob Ashford and MD Simon Lee put Ms Roger through her paces, it's clear she has star quality in abundance.
Ms Roger takes the title role of Eva Peron in the ALW/Tim Rice show that opened 28 years ago with Elaine Paige.
The new Evita – completely re-imagined by Grandage and his team – has its first night at the Adelphi Theatre on June 21 and after what I saw at rehearsals on Monday morning, my sense is that it will be the musical hit of the season.
Not for a minute did it seem dated. Rather it appeared fresh and full of vitality.
As Grandage noted, the original production opened before Mrs Thatcher occupied No 10, so audiences then had no sense of a woman in powerful political position.
Ms Roger, who comes from Buenos Aires, agreed. She added that it must have been very difficult for Eva Peron to be trying to take power in 50's Argentina. "She had to fight a lot to get there and to stay there."
The actress's Argentine accent was a bonus for her for the role. "I have it, yes, but you have to understand me in English," she laughed, pushing back her unruly red hair and adding that she's having lessons to help with her pronunciation.
She has stellar company in the show, including Philip Quast playing Peron.
Quast, an Australian, said he'd found that Spanish-speaking leaders often saw themselves as matadors, something that has helped the Olivier-Award winning actor to get a focus on Peron.
Matt Rawle plays Che, the show's narrator, and he told me that unlike David Essex in the first production, he would not be playing Che as Che Guevara. "Che is the narrator, - he said. 'Che just happens to be his name."
Grandage and Ashford decided early on that their Evita would contain much more dance than the original production.
Ashford, who worked with Grandage on Guys & Dolls, has spent a lot of time in Buenos Aires and a lot of his observations are in the dance language of the show.
Grandage observed : "Everything seems to be clicking."
That could be down to the fact that before he went into directing, Grandage was an actor. "I saw a lot of things in a rehearsal room – and I try not to repeat them as a director!"
Big thanks to Carol for sharing the above article.
© Associated Newspapers Ltd.
