EVITA Revival on the way? — Page 2

Oof that City Center production was terrible. Amatuerish.

g.d.e.l.g.i. said: "What a pity he didn't... how many performers had to grind out their voices before the production consented to an alternate when spreading the load would have mitigated that a great deal? Much as it did at Encores..."

What are you even talking about? It didn’t spread the load much at all- the younger Eva was only used through “Buenos Aires,” then Solea Pfeiffer took over for the rest of the show. That’s what made it pointless: a marginally younger actress onstage for maybe the first 15 minutes of the show.

Kad said: "What are you even talking about? It didn’t spread the load much at all- the younger Eva was only used through “Buenos Aires,” then Solea Pfeiffer took over for the rest of the show. That’s what made it pointless: a marginally younger actress onstage for maybe the first 15 minutes of the show."

"Marginally younger" is exactly right. Solea Pfeiffer is only 6 years older than Maia Reficco and was around 25 at the time of the production. She was easily believable in the full 15-33 year old range of the role. I agree with another poster that the moment in Another Suitcase was effective, but that was just about the only time I appreciated the doubling choice.

Btw, Maia Reficco went on to play Natalie in Next to Normal at the Kennedy Center with Rachel Bay Jones and was really great. I'd love to see her do more musical theatre.

sco676767 said: "Excited to see what she does with a full production and grateful women are getting to tell stories about women!"

Completely agree. I thought Cannold's direction and staging were breathtaking. She did things with that material I've never seen done before. I can't wait to see how it has evolved since NYCC!!

I missed the City Center production and am looking forward to this revival. I also found Sammi's research very interesting. She specifically talks about why the two Evita's around the 8-minute mark.

Evita and the Responsibility of the Storyteller | Sammi Cannold | TEDxBroadway

Melissa25 said: "I missed the City Center production and am looking forward to this revival. I also found Sammi's research very interesting. She specifically talks about why the two Evita's around the 8-minute mark.

Evita and the Responsibility of the Storyteller | Sammi Cannold | TEDxBroadway

"

Sadly, it looks like she's a believer in Santa Evita. She also seems unaware that the show is a political satire, not a biography (and she's actually wrong about the musical being accurate; it's broadly accurate, but that's about as close as it gets).

And I don't think she does a good job of justifying the use of two actresses. You can't talk about "before" and "after" assault here and thus the need for two actresses to demonstrate the sharp distinction because she's already a victim of abuse (if that's how we want to read Migaldi's actions--the text of the musical makes him the victim entrapped here, not Eva, who is depicted as cunning and cold-hearted and using sex as a weapon) when we first see her in Junín.

I also think the reference to Prince's original concept is a bit to heavily stressed by some, both in this thread and in the video. As I understand it, the idea was a brainstorm Prince shared in a memo to Lloyd Webber and Rice after receiving an early tape of the concept album before it was released. They never acted on it in revising the work for the stage, nor did Prince ever try to incorporate it into the production, even at an early stage.

Updated On: 12/7/22 at 04:13 PM

I enjoyed City Centers Evita and especially Solea Pfeiffer but the character of Evita has been morphing more and more over time away from the bitter, craven and dangerous person she was and into a martyr who actually represented the hearts/minds of Argentinians.

I like the show but any attempt to downplay how vile she and her husband here--they were actual autocrats--is despicable.

I would be so thrilled to see this again with Solea Pfeiffer. I thought her singing was magnificent. What an amazingly beautiful voice. It was my last show in NYC prior to lock-down and remains a splendid memory.

CreatureKitchen said: "Sorry to drag up a kind of old thread, but I was thinking about the comment earlier in this thread that the cast would need to be mostly Argentinian. The revival of Spider Woman planned at the Kennedy Center also got me thinking about that issue.

Solea Pfeiffer is half caucasian and half African-American, not Latina at all as far as I can tell. Sam Pauly is Puerto Rican and Native American and Eden Espinosa is Mexican. None of those, especially Pfeiffer, are particularly close to Eva's actual ethnicity or cultural background. So, is the consensus just that Eva can't be played by someone white anymore? Is a white Eva ok if the rest of the cast is very diverse? I also was just thinking about how much this mindset applies to shows like Spider Woman, where the story isn't dealing with actual historical figures and events as blatantly, or at least not centering the story on them. "

I think many people genuinely don't understand that Eva Peron was 100% a white woman. Americans of all races have very little understanding of race in the southern hemisphere. I think there is a cultural feeling here in the western world that Eva Peron was in some way "exotic" and directors cast women of color based on that feeling. Even young Patti Lupone had an air of "otherness" about her thanks to having a very "ethnic" look. Eva Peron did not.

As for Spider Wonan, if we look at the the history of who is pushed into the limelight in countries that struggle with colorism, the likelihood is that a famous Latin American actress of the 1930s would be of Aryan descent. Personally I see nothing wrong with ignoring the history there since there are exceptions to every rule. I've always preferred that role cast with a woman of color anyway.

Yep, I agree with basically everything you said, Ke3. I have no issue with the casting of any of the actresses I mentioned, and I think both shows should have diverse casts. It honestly just confused me that people seemed to think Pfeiffer's casting was more 'authentic', and it seems like there's a different kind of racism at play there. Like, she's 'exotic', so she's somehow automatically more authentic in the role. Or, all POC are more or less equivalent, so it's fine (and, like you pointed out, I don't think Eva would have even identified herself as a POC). I saw someone raving about the revival with Elena Roger, saying that 'we finally have a brown woman playing the role', which...Roger is blue-eyed, pale, and has light hair.

Also, in terms of KotSW, I think Molina is pretty strongly implied to be part of the ethnic majority in Argentina (who were mostly Italian/Spanish/French). Especially in the book and movie, he romanticizes Nazi propaganda and talks about people with dark skin in a pretty stereotypical and derogatory way. There's every indication that he doesn't view himself as a POC either. In the musical, they do cut that Aurora is in a Nazi movie, but she does play a Russian princess in one of the films.

I wasn't trying to paint Argentina with one broad brush, so I'm sorry if it came across that way. Of course, there were and are indigenous people, immigrants from other Latin American countries, as well as many other racial and ethnic groups in Argentina. Eva, the individual person, was not part of one of those marginalized ethnic groups.

I agree that it's pretty pointless to say whether or not Eva would have considered herself a POC, since the term didn't exist back then in at all the same way as it exists now. I'm sure there's a much better way that I could have phrased that part of my comment.

I mean there are a lot of white Latinos (or white-passing at least), so I wouldn't personally be completely up in arms if a non-POC person played Eva Peron, but I think it would be nice for them to be Latino still, if not specifically Argentinian (though I should say that I am not Latino so not sure how valid my opinion is on this).

Based on Rachel Zegler's Instagram stories, my friend is convinced she's going to be playing young Evita in the ART run (assuming Sammy Cannold still goes with that conceit), which would be very exciting to me.

I hope they don’t have a young evita. It needs to be played by the same actress the entire time. Also, isn’t it a bit presumptuous to be saying it’s coming to Broadway?