I saw Evita last Wednesday and attended the talk-back after with Shereen, Caesar, Omar, Alysia, Naomi, and Marissa from the cast plus Sammi Cannold and one other individual from the production team. Iain Armitage, who plays Young Sheldon, was in the audience and got to ask the first question at the talkback. Apparently his god-father was in one of the Broadway productions and he knew a fair amount about the show. Shereen and Caesar were definitely standouts for me and enough of a reason to make it worth seeing.
Regarding the show, I struggled to understand a single word for the first 15 minutes of Act 1, the sound was very unbalanced where I was seated in the orchestra. The orchestra overpowers the vocals a good bit of the time, especially for Che. I was not a big fan of the set and thought the arches were overused and added little to the narrative. When Don’t Cry for Me Argentina started, it felt out of place as the second song in Act 2, we had just seen the Peron’s take power at the beginning of Act 2. There was no reason to cry for Eva at that moment, the song didn’t feel earned. The flowers were cool when used but they didn’t feel like a balcony like you’d expect for the song.
During the talkback, Sammi talked about how the grey costuming was inspired by the lyric “She’s a Diamond in their dull grey lives” and due to the popularity of grey clothing during this period in Argentina. She liked it because of how certain lighting colors looked on the costumes. Overall, I didn’t think it worked the best and it made the chorus hard to see most of the time. Shereen also explained how her training at Julliard was in opera which led her to prioritizing understanding the lyrics over some vocal moments. I appreciated this as I thought Shereen and Caesar were the only 2 actors you could consistently understand what they were singing.
Sammi also explained that they put in a new version of the song “Another Suitcase in Another Hall” the prior night. The new concept has the younger mistress character going through similar actions Eva has gone through and Eva witnessing them, showing the cycle and pattern of abuse that is all too common. She said prior, the mistress sat center stage writing in her diary with Eva watching her. Omar explained that Che is not the character’s name, it’s slang for the word man, and it was never said during the show. His goal was to play the character to be any random man in Argentina narrating what happened which I really respected. When you could hear him, he sang the role beautifully. Overall, I’m glad I went to the talkback as it gave some good context for some choices made. If they continue to develop this, I hope they make some changes, it felt too close to a concert production instead of a full production for me.
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