|
Director Michael Grandage's new West End revival of Evita, with the tiny but strident Argentinian star Elena Roger as Eva Peron, is architecturally grand and impressively fluid. Palatial marble balconies roll into view, illuminated by shafts of golden light, as our country-born heroine turns cosmopolitan actress and promiscuous social climber. Tangoing with crowds of her gentleman-admirers, she raunchily flicks her stilettos, swirls and is borne aloft like a soaring bird, fast becoming the masses' glam icon before dying young.
It must be said, Roger's climactic pairing with Philip Quast's huge tubby bear of a Peron makes the presidential couple look dangerously akin to a comic duo. She can hardly reach to seductively stroke his ear. Her bona fide accent sometimes makes her sung-through political speeches hard to decipher too. But, according to Matt Rawle as the sardonic narrator Che, most of her revolutionary promises were vacuous anyway. Lloyd Webber produces a clutch of unforgettable tunes drawing on folk harmonies and Catholic choiring - not least 'Oh, What a Circus', 'Another Suitcase in Another Hall' and 'Don't Cry For Me, Argentina' - though the bursts of Seventies' rock now seem anachronistic and there are some dull, thudding choruses. The Perons' story is also so compacted by Tim Rice that their dictatorial dark side - including Argentina's disappeared - is barely discussed.
Thanks to Gregor for forwarding this review.
© Independent News & Media (UK) Ltd.
