Review: A command performance befitting 'Evita'
August 2, 2009
Sarah Friesen, The Oregonian
At the heart of the story of the late Argentine political heroine Eva Peron is a powerful woman who's easy to love and to follow. So it's fitting that the Broadway Rose Theatre Company production of "Evita," the popular Andrew Lloyd Webber/Tim Rice musical about Peron, stars just such a woman: Susannah Mars.
A mainstay around the Northwest in musicals, plays and cabaret performances, Mars bears a reasonable likeness to the real Evita, but her more important qualification for the role is her voice.
Strong and pliant, a bit brassy when it's called for, Mars' voice is well-suited for the many challenges of Webber's melodic extravaganza -- enunciating through the rapid-fire rhythms of "Buenos Aires," cooing both coy and confident in "I'd Be Surprisingly Good for You," scaling the melodramatic heights of the show's signature hit "Don't Cry for Me Argentina."
Without a compelling Evita, the show would just as well be called "Songs About Some South American Something or Other." Mars delivers as the central focus of what's for the most part a handsome and well-assembled production. There's admirably solid work all around, from the balconies and moving staircases of Sean O'Skea's tango-club set design to the soft magenta and cobalt hues of Jeff Forbes' simply effective lighting, the period floral dresses by costumer Mary Rochon and the way director/choreographer Abe Reybold keeps the flow of people and props gliding on and offstage smoothly.
The ensemble dancing is crisp (sometimes a little too much so -- they could stand to loosen up and look more like real people out having fun in a nightclub) and spiced with some appealing tango routines choreographed by Eric Zimmer, who doubles as one of the dancers. Fred Bishop makes a strong impression with his brief turn as Magaldi, a hip-swiveling singer who serves as Evita's first steppingstone toward fame, and Ron Harman is solid as the stolid Juan Peron, but the show is very much focused on its two lead roles, those of Evita and a sort of one-man Greek chorus called Che. Brian Lane Green (a 1989 Tony nominee) attacks the latter role with a rich voice and strong stage presence that he unfortunately oversells, undermining his considerable talents with lounge-like gestures and vocal flourishes.
Then again, this is an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, so perhaps the tastefulness of the rest of this production is what's actually out of step. For all the technical craft on display, for all the pleasure to be had watching Mars in command performance mode, there's no getting around the sketchy, schematic nature of the storytelling; or the wafer-thin treatment of its themes of ambition and celebrity, social justice and public manipulation; or, most of all, Webber's melodically facile but charmless middle-brow music, which combines the cheapest tendencies of Broadway glitz and mainstream pop, as if Elton John had endeavored to write a show for Ethel Merman.
It takes a powerful woman to overcome all of that.