April 2008
By Jennifer Pencek
Some Broadway musicals are entertaining but made of fluff. Others, such as EVITA, manage to both entertain and enliven real-world people and issues.
The touring Broadway production of EVITA, which comes to Eisenhower Auditorium for two performances at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 9, and Thursday, April 10, has not only enthralled theatregoers for three decades but has long been in the hearts of two men—Larry Fuller, the national tour’s director and original EVITA choreographer, and Philip Peterson, who became passionate about EVITA as a child and now portrays Juan Peron.
As the tour celebrates the thirtieth anniversary of EVITA, which opened on London’s West End in 1978, Fuller speaks about the show tenderly and protectively, much like one would talk about a longtime lover.
“To have one show like this in one’s career is amazing,” says Fuller, speaking by phone from Milford, Pennsylvania. “It’s creating dangerously when you do it in an unusual style or way. It either works or it doesn’t. It stands out.”
Winner of seven Tony Awards for the American production that debuted on Broadway in 1979 and ran for more than 1,500 performances, EVITA brings to life the dynamic, larger-than-life persona of Eva Peron. Blessed with charisma, the young wife of Argentine President Juan Peron captivated a nation by championing the working class.
The exuberant production, which includes the famous song “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina,” features Andrew Lloyd Webber’s compelling Latin, pop, and jazz-influenced score. Tim Rice, his renowned collaborator, provided the lyrics. The touring production also includes the acclaimed Hal Prince staging from the original production.
“If it works, why fix it?, Fuller says.
Part of what makes EVITA work, Fuller says, is its uniqueness in dealing with actual events and historical people. While the show is set in the middle of the twentieth century, Fuller says the core feelings still hold true.
“In 1990, when I was directing the show for the first time in Houston, when we were staging ‘A New Argentina,’ I went home and I was watching CNN. In Russia, throngs of workers were filling the streets of Moscow with signs. I came back the next day and asked, ‘Did you see the news last night?’ I thought it was the same thing, and it’s happening again in 1990. It’s happened since then in other countries. That’s what makes [EVITA] timeless, because it’s about the unfortunate human condition that proliferates around the world.”
Meanwhile, EVITA has resonated with Peterson since his childhood in New York City. From the time he decided he “wanted to come into the business,” says Peterson, speaking by phone from Roanoke, Virginia, “I’ve wanted to play this role and other roles in the show.”
His first professional experience with EVITA was portraying nightclub singer Agustin Magaldi in 1991, when he also was the understudy for the role of Che Guevara and a member of the ensemble. He eventually played Guevara in 2000.
The show also combines two of his loves—acting and research.
“I’m a research hound, and the sky was the limit with this one,” he says. “There’s just a world full of research and information that has been documented, and reading about their lives and what type of people they were really helps me to cast a light on the character itself. So to see what I could bring to the table prior to rehearsals and also being able to talk to somebody who has been around this show for many years such as our director Larry Fuller, you know, I was able to see a lot more, too.”
Portraying the former dictator of Argentina has brought challenges.
“You have to put into two and a half hours this man’s entire life—or this man’s entire career as an officer in Argentina—and there are many aspects of this man’s personality you have to try to fit into moments,” he says. “That certainly was the challenge right there.”
But in the end, Peterson says he hopes audiences appreciate the effort and dedication that go into the production.
“I hope they walk away from our production with the same passion and the same love for it as we have doing it every night,” he says. “This show never gets old for me.”
EVITA has enthralled many. Part of the reason could be the music. Cary Libkin, head of the bachelor of fine arts program in musical theatre at Penn State, says the names Lloyd Webber and Rice conjure visions of hit Broadway musicals—EVITA, Jesus Christ Superstar, and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
“Just listen to those titles,” Libkin says. “They’ve been able to create pieces that speak to the theatergoing and non-theatergoing masses.”
This touring production of EVITA is special for Libkin and Penn State’s School of Theatre because Lisa Schale, who earned a bachelor of fine arts in musical theatre at the University about five years ago, is part of the ensemble.
“It’s so exciting and fills you with pride,” Libkin says. “We share a lot of self-pride, along with pride in our students.”
Artistic Viewpoints, an informal moderated discussion featuring a visiting artist or local expert, is offered in Eisenhower Auditorium one hour before each performance and is free for ticket holders. Artistic Viewpoints regularly fills to capacity. Seating is available on a first-arrival basis.
April 10
Adult $48, $42
University Park Student $38, $32
18 and Younger $43, $37
It is July 26, 1952. A young Argentine student, Che Guevara, is among the audience in a Buenos
Aires cinema when the film is stopped by an announcement that Eva Peron, “the spiritual leader of the nation, has entered immortality.”
Eva’s funeral is majestic. Huge crowds, pageantry, wailing, and lamentation prevail. Che Guevara is the only non-participant. Che in EVITA serves as narrator, as well as observer, and at times is simply a device that enables the authors to place Eva in a situation in which she is confronted with direct personal criticism. There is no evidence that Guevara ever met Eva or became in any way involved with her. He was born in 1928, though, and would have been 17 when the Perons came to power and 24 when Eva died. He became strongly opposed to the Peron regime during Eva’s lifetime.
Flashback to 1934. A nightclub in Junin, Eva’s hometown. Eva Duarte is just 15. She asks the singer appearing at the club, Agustin Magaldi, with whom she has had an affair, to take her to Buenos Aires. Once in Buenos Aires, Eva quickly disposes of Magaldi and works her way through a string of men, each one getting her another rung up the ladder of fame and fortune. She becomes a successful model, broadcaster, and film actress.
In 1943, Colonel Juan Peron is one of several military leaders close to the presidency of Argentina, which in recent years has been an insecure position for its tenant. At a charity concert for the victims of an Argentine earthquake, Eva and Peron meet. They realize each has something the other wants. Eva switches her ambitions to political stars. She evicts Peron’s mistress from his apartment, moves into Peron’s life, and garners the wrath of two factions who remain her enemies till her death.
As the political situation becomes even more uncertain, it is Eva, rather than Peron, who is more
determined that he should try for the highest prize in Argentina, the presidency, supported by the
workers whose backing she and Peron have long cultivated. Eva’s dream is realized, and on June 4, 1946, Peron becomes president in front of a tremendous crowd chanting “Evita, Evita, Evita.”
Guevara’s questions to Eva about herself and her success meet with a falsely self-effacing response. Eva’s main concern is her forthcoming trip to Europe, which begins in a blaze of glory in Spain, but meets with later setbacks in Italy and France. She never gets to England, the one place she yearns to visit.
On her return home, Eva resolves to concentrate solely on Argentine affairs, where she is met with continual criticism from the society of Buenos Aires. Guevara points out that the regime has done nothing to improve the plight of those Eva claims to represent—the working class.
Eva launches the Eva Peron Foundation, a huge organization of sham accounting and little practical benefit to the nation’s economy. It does help elevate her to near goddess status in the eyes of some of those, including children, who benefit from the fund. Guevara’s disenchantment with Eva is now total. He sneers at those who adore her, and for the last time he tries to question her about her motivation and the darker side of the Peron administration. Eva’s response is that of a pragmatist: “There is evil ever around, fundamental.”
Anti-Eva feeling among the military reaches new heights, and Guevara lists several of the major failures and abuses of the Peron administration. Peron attempts to justify Eva’s domination of Argentine life. He draws attention to her illness. Peron and Eva discuss the worsening situation. He is losing his grip on the government; she is losing her battle to live. Eva refuses to give in to her illness and resolves to become vice president. The opposition to Eva from the army, however, is too great, and her body is failing her.
In her last hours, images, people, and events of her life flow through Eva’s mind, while the nation’s grief knows no bounds. To the masses, she has become nothing less than a saint. As her life draws to a close, she wonders whether she would have been happier as an obscure person. Maybe then her life would have been longer. But, even in death, she is denied obscurity. The moment she dies the embalmers move to preserve her fragile body to be “displayed forever.”