New oresentation of "Evita"

[choitoy]

Posted: 5/29/15 at 7:52pm

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).

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 5/29/15 at 8:10pm

People who complained that Evita celebrated a facist dictator(which was a common complaint in the 1970s--less so now,) really wouldn't like this.

Maybe because it's a University production the rights owners won't care?  I can't believe a student director went through the expensive trouble of traveling to Buenos Aires though.

[VintageSnarker]

Posted: 5/29/15 at 8:18pm

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.

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 5/29/15 at 8:27pm

Is it narrow minded of me to find such arrogance in a student director making such a drastic change in the way the story is related to the audience? I'm all for taking risks but if this was an effective way to tell the story wouldn't Harold Prince have thought of it when he directed it? I sort of get that message sometimes with these kinds of directors. They make it seem like they know better.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 5/29/15 at 8:30pm

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...

[AEA AGMA SM]

Posted: 5/29/15 at 9:25pm

As a student is the perfect time to do things like this, push your own boundaries, test your limits, and discover your style (or at least begin to set a foundation for your style). You are given the chance to fail, and fail hard, that you'll never get out in the real world.

Now of course a production concept this far out could indeed potentially raise some legal issues regarding the rights, so hopefully they have some faculty advisors who have already helped them deal with that and make sure what they are doing does not violate their contract with R&H (who deal with licensing all Lloyd Webber shows in the US).

[The Distinctive Baritone]

Posted: 5/29/15 at 11:50pm

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.

[g.d.e.l.g.i.]

Posted: 5/30/15 at 7:23am

"I'm all for taking risks but if this was an effective way to tell the story wouldn't Harold Prince have thought of it when he directed it?"

Funny you say that, because one of Hal's initial concepts (eventually discarded, sadly) was to have three women play Eva at different phases in her life. I think this director may be sort of hearkening back to what Hal was trying to do, and to that extent I applaud the effort at trying, provided of course they obtained permission to do so.

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 5/30/15 at 8:08am

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

[Auggie27]

Posted: 5/30/15 at 9:07am

I think many gifted artists would like to approach this material without following the Hal Prince dictated premise (he famously said it's a story about the media and its manipulation, or something to that effect). The original production (with its almost b&w newsreel palette), dubbed "Brechtian" by everyone because it was so presentational, announcing every intention, was chilly, intellectually sharp-edged, but in many ways an anti-musical, since Che held absolute sway over the material to tell us where to look and why, and even what to feel (see Kerr, Walter).  The music alone, removed from that conceit works almost in opposition to it, ALW's lush emotionalism front and center.  I'd welcome a chance to get closer to Eva, and farther from Che (not helped last time out with a charismatic star in that narration position, and a vocally challenged leading lady). If splitting Evita makes her more complex, it could be fascinating.   

[Fan123]

Posted: 5/30/15 at 7:31pm

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.

[Auggie27]

Posted: 5/31/15 at 6:49am

^Remember all that stuff about Che's insecticide on the concept album? There was a weak attempt to give him a parallel trajectory, to make him more human, less device-like.  Prince eradicated all of that, and they removed "Lady's Got Potential" until the film. (It's one of ALW's most infectious melodies, but rocks the show in ways that aren't consistent with the rest, unless that's Che's "identity," i.e. a rocker-voiced rebel.)  

[chernjam]

Posted: 5/31/15 at 5:01pm

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