New oresentation of "Evita"

Did anyone read this article on Playbill.com?

http://playbill.com/news/article/re-imagined-staging-of-evita-features-two-evas-to-balance-the-commentary-on-her-life-350240

It sounds like Stanford University is presenting "Evita" with a traditional woman's role of Evita, and then splitting the Che role into two parts, one played by a woman as "Santa Evita," if I am reading the article correctly.

It sounds slightly intriguing. The thing that worries me is that no where in the article does it state that the directors got permission from ALW or Really Useful Group to do this (unless I missed something). It states that they are not changing a word of the liberetto, but I know things like this are often frowned upon by rights holders (I know a theatre company here in Seattle got in trouble a long time ago for staging Sondheim's "Company" with Kathy and April being played by men without permission).

I read the article. My impression was that they haven't split up the Che role but instead the Eva role. That is, when she's speaking to Che or dancing with him, that's Santa Evita. I don't see how this is going to do much to resolve the issue with a male narrator or just work very well as a way of telling the story without making any other changes.

It bothers me less with student directors, actually. I kinda get why they feel they have to put their stamp on it to prove something--and they can't really usually create their own musical. When pro directors do it, I question it more...

I'm sorry, but it is not the director's job to add characters and reassign songs/dialogue, and this sounds like an unnecessary idea which, unless permission was granted, is illegal.

Nymph, in they oresentations, be all my sins remembered.

I wouldn't mind seeing this done just to see how it would turn out. But without having seen it, I'm a bit doubtful. It seems to me that the original concept deliberately kept Eva a bit unknowable, to recreate in the audience Che's fascination and frustration with her. Eva already has a voice in the show, although it's 'unreliable' as she (to my memory) always speaks strategically for the benefit of other character/s within the show, rather than speaking directly to us. But I think the show already makes it clear that Che isn't exactly a dispassionate, objective observer either, even if he does speak directly to us. And the male voices in the show display the potential for gender bias colouring their judgement pretty clearly in numbers like 'Dangerous Jade' and 'High Flying, Adored'. (Dare I say it's a bit like that Marilyn Monroe musical concept in Smash in which the men's perspective would have deliberately been the only side heard?)

Giving Eva more of a voice might turn out like trying to give Bruce more of a chance to tell his side of the story in Fun Home, when (to my understanding) part of the point is that Alison/we will never get a full understanding of why he did the things he did, and we have to live with that.

But hey, maybe this concept turned out great. I don't mind people trying these things out, with permission.

Thanks for sharing the link with the info about this... I'd be fascinated to see a different take on this legendary score.

Evita obviously did well in the Original Hal Prince production - but when you go to revivals staged following his original direction it seems very dated. The recent broadway (and London) revival with Ricky Martin and Elaina Rogers - while visually it was beautiful, great cast, loved the new orchestrations - because the two leads really weren't up for it, it did diminish the show for me... and Martin's "Che" didn't seem to make sense to me - (fortunately I saw the show with his understudy Max Von Essen who seemed to play Che with a bit more of an edge)

I know that Rogers talked about trying to bring some of the pro-Evita aspects into her portrayal to humanize her a bit more, and I don't have a problem with that. If anything, it might make Evita a more emotional show if you didn't exactly despise the woman (so not really care that she died so young) at the end