Evita’s flame still burns brightly — despite her hubby’s awful wig
FORTY years on, Evita still provokes a tear or two. Cancerstricken Eva Peron, wife of the Argentine president, implores her country not to cry for her.
Tight, white spotlight, a few solitary notes, her voice is initially frail but soon soars and swoops as the musical director waves his baton as though mixing a fruit cake.
Once again the alchemy of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s melody and Tim Rice’s words and, in this case, the wren-like figure of Emma Hatton singing the lead, proves irresistible.
Bill Kenwright’s production, which is at the compact Phoenix for 12 weeks after touring, is not quite the full meat and two veg. The amplification at Tuesday’s last preview was overdone and the orchestration includes canned violins.
But thanks to Miss Hatton it is worthy of its West End run. She may be small, but she has a powerful voice and conveys the insistent personality of a woman who rose from nothing to be ‘Santa Evita’, the powerhouse political spouse of Argentina’s Forties president Juan Peron.
Without live violins, the nine-piece band’s guitars come to the fore. On stage, Gian Marco Schiaretti’s Che (the sceptical narrator) struts handsomely, flashing his biceps.
Kevin Stephen-Jones’s Peron labours heroically under a dreadful wig, ultra-neat and polished black like a Guardsman’s toecaps. It makes the poor fellow look like a nerd off Star Trek.
The young cast may not quite have mastered a Latin smoulder, but they dance tidily. However, the evening is all about Miss Hatton, who has plunged herself completely into the role. She is worth catching.