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As Sandy Wilson said in his 1953 musical The Boy Friend, "Some people's one desire is to go to Buenos Aires." That's certainly the case with the heroine of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber's Evita. About 15 minutes into Michael Grandage's pulse-racing revival, the gloweringly lit, cracked plaster back wall flies out as Lloyd Webber's infectious fast samba 'Buenos Aires' kicks in. Gone is Eva's peasant past; she's living for the future in the city of her dreams, thrillingly embodied by the entire company dancing as if their lives depended upon it. Such electrifying energy needs a source, and it's got it in triple-threat dynamo Elena Roger as Eva.
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Halfway through 'I'd Be Surprisingly Good for You', the number slows to a seriously smoldering tango in which Eva and Peron's teasing and threatening of each other is physically echoed by other pairs of dancers snaking themselves about. In that number, Philip Quast's full-voiced, mightily powerful Peron looks as if he could wolf down Roger's petite body as a quick snack. Yet seeing someone so tiny tame a man that big makes Eva seem even more dangerous.
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