A TASTE OF RICE
ON NOVEMBER 10, 1944 a legend was born – a Scorpio who would display all the typical traits, incredible willpower, bouts of crippling shyness but perhaps foremost, undeniable artistic talent.
A legend who would marry two seemingly opposing worlds, of wealth and privilege, musical theatre and rock ’n’ roll.
Born Timothy Miles Bindon Rice, he would go on to become an Academy Award, Golden Globe, Grammy and Tony Award-winning lyricist.
His collaboration with Andrew Lloyd Webber would bring about one of the most successful, critically and commercially acclaimed artistic unions of our time.
Rice was responsible for writing the lyrics to some of the world’s greatest musicals. With shows such as Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus Christ Superstar, Aladdin, The Lion King and Evita in his body of work, one would be forgiven for thinking that this Brit was never in doubt of his craft.
Ergo with Pieter Toerien and David Ian’s full-scale, true-to-theoriginal production of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Evita currently in rehearsals, ahead of an international highly anticipated revival tour, perhaps one should not call Sir Timothy Rice a legend.
First, the impact of his work is clearly not over yet; and second, he would no doubt disarm the notion with his famously charming self-deprecation.
The origin story of Evita the musical begins around dusk one evening in 1973.
Rice was on his way to a dinner party when by chance he caught the last few minutes of a radio programme about the contentious first lady of Argentina, Eva Perón.
Rice was instantly reminded of the almost fantastical, near lore, tale of a girl who rose from the lowest social origins to take position as the most powerful, glamorous woman of her country.
Her politician husband’s political regime would later promote her across the globe, converting her splendour into political and social support. Eva was, in the political history of her native Argentina, a powerful political weapon – the first lady’s power to control unfavourable press commentary was considerable.
The Cinderella story of Eva captivated Rice. He began wondering if the story of this people’s heroine could just be the follow-up to the highly controversial Jesus Christ Superstar that he was looking for.
With partner Lloyd Webber busy with a musical version of Jeeves and Wooster with British writer/director Alan Ayckbourn, Rice decided to embark on a private, almost covert operation of learning everything there was to know about Eva Perón – who she was, where she was from and what drove her towards greatness.
Rice would live with the ghost of Eva Perón for two years before pressuring his creative partner into creating the eventual hit that would take initial shape as the 1976 concept album. The album was recorded at the Olympic Studios in the summer of 1976 and produced just less than 103 minutes of delicious rock narration.
The Evita album showcased the most mature music Webber was to ever create, coupled with Rice’s astute, provocative and poetic lyrics.
The musical continued to chase up the charts, but Suitcase did not turn out to be the hit Rice and Webber were hoping for as Don’t Cry For Me Argentina began to jump up the radio hit charts. In 1977 the show’s theme song made it’s way to the number two position on the hit parade.
Elaine Paige was an unknown actress before Evita. So unknown that when the audition panel asked her if she could act and which show she had she had last done last, it is said she simply replied that she had just spent a year doing a show called Jesus Christ Superstar.
Backed by producer Robert Stigwood and Bob Swash, the reigns to the show were now firmly in Hal Prince’s hands. Prince would assemble the ultimate creative team to drive the show – Anthony Bowles, Larry Fuller, Hershy Kay and Ray Holder – ahead of the first company meeting on April 28, 1978.
Rice maintains that Evita was never meant to be “a deep analysis” of either the national history of Argentina during Eva’s time, but merely “a Cinderella story of a remarkable woman’s determined climb”.
Eva is depicted as a fighter, a champion of the working class who would not only start a foundation to help poor and sick Argentines, but also help Argentinian woman win the right to vote at a time when Argentina and Latin America was a male-dominated society.
After their highly successful collaboration on Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita, the lyricist and composer went their separate ways.
Webber would stay with staged musicals, while Rice moved into movies.
It would take another 34 years for Rice and Lloyd Webber to reunite again on the 2010 revival of The Wizard Of Oz.
Evita, with the original Hal Prince staging, stars West End star Emma Kingston, who was personally selected to play Eva by Webber, Jonathan Roxmouth as Ché and Robert Finlayson as Perón as well as a full ensemble.
The show runs at Artscape from December 1 – January 7. Tickets range in price from R150 to R500 and are available from www.computicket.com and on Netflix Lee quite literally expands Nola’s world into full colour.
As in the film, the series explores the inherent complications of Nola’s unconventional sex life – and the way society reacts to a woman who dares to enjoy sex.
In that regard, not a lot has changed in the past three decades.
But over 10 episodes (all helmed by Lee), we get to know Nola in new ways.
There’s more emphasis on her art – we see her creative process and the hustling she has to do to support it.
And we get more intimate portraits of the other people in her life: her close friends Clorinda (Margot Bingham) and Shemekka (Chyna Layne), whose own story unfolds with an air of tragicomedy similar to Bamboozled, Lee’s 2000 send-up of the entertainment industry.
The series marks a feminist triumph for Lee, whose most recent feature film, Chiraq, faced criticism for (among other things) a premise that seemed to put unfair pressure on black women.
Nola is as confident as she was in 1986, but she’s also vulnerable in a way that’s refreshing.