EVITA opens in Toronto

[frontrowcentre2]

Posted: 4/29/05 at 4:41am

The touring EVITA opened April 28 in Toronto for a run that has now been extended to June 5.

I saw the original when it opened on Broadway but it has been 12 years since I last saw a production using Hal Prince's staging.
It's wonderful to see it again, and much of what worked 25 years ago is still very effective.

Kathy Voytko heads the current cast. Her singing mimics the cold steel of Patti Lupone but her acting tends to go from pale to overly dramatic with little shading in between. At key dramatic moments she could use a lesson in "less-is-more."

As Che, Bradley Dean occasionally succumbs to the histrionics but then lightens up as if to convey that he isn’t taking things too seriously. The best voice in the cast is Philip Hernandez who makes a commanding Peron.

Kate Manning sings “Another Suitcase in Another Hall” quite nicely but her character appears for the one scene in act one then vanishes so that by the finale she is all but forgotten. Gabriel Burrafato plays Magaldi as a stereotypical tango singer. That he can’t do much more with the role is the fault of the script, not the performer.

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s music remains his best-developed and most satisfying score. Tim Rice’s lyrics are functional, often falling to awkward rhymes and curious turns of phrase.

Flaws in the writing are glossed over in fast-moving production. Whenever the book shies away from details, Prince uses film and photos of the real Eva Peron to lend an air of historical accuracy.

Just how accurate is EVITA? Many books written about the Perons offer conflicting accounts and rely too much on tales that have become part of the Peron myth. But the myth does make for a fascinating character study.

Updated On: 4/30/05 at 04:41 AM

[MTRBOI24]

Posted: 4/29/05 at 8:52am

Im glad its there for so long, Im gonna definitley check this show out seeing as I have never seen it before.