Review: EVITA, starring Rachel Zegler, London Palladium

Ever wondered how a semi-staged musical on the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury would play? You need wonder no more…

Jamie Lloyd’s production strips back the Lord Lloyd-Webber - Sir Tim Rice warhorse, approaching its half-century lest we forget, and adds a little, but subtracts a lot. Out goes set design, out goes Argentina, out goes costuming and in comes lights (constellations of them), in comes Eurovisionish big, frenetic dance routines and in comes a Hollywood superstar. What emerges after all this reconceptualising is easier to define by saying what it isn’t rather than what it is - because it certainly isn’t musical theatre.

The vast Palladium stage is given over to a performance space and a set of steps leading up to a gigantic video screen (more of which later). There is nothing we can see to indicate a specific time or location and, when Rachel Zegler arrives as our eponymous heroine, she’s wearing Gaultier period Madonna underwear as outerwear. It was, at least I felt it was, a bold statement to remind us of the movie, one that still divides fans and critics. 

Gigantic blocks spelling out E V I T A stand for much of the time in front of the upstage screen. I thought of another 70s concept album about a false God that was turned into a movie, Tommy, but there was no Elton in his boots and no mean pinball. As it was to turn out, this EVITA borrowed much of Ken Russell’s bombast but none of his sly wit, nor Ann Margret’s dazzling acting. 

Zegler will dominate the headlines and she deserves the accolades and the tumultuous applause on opening night because she sings really well. She also emotes with a smoldering, crowdpleasing intensity. But the show’s concept does not allow her to act. We simply never really discover who EVITA is, what power she held over men, Perón in particular, and what price she paid psychologically, although we do get a Pucciniesque demise. All she has to work with are the songs and three costumes and she’s fighting music mixed far too loud far too often. She has no chance of ever developing a rounded, nuanced Eva.

Zegler’s other problem is the unfortunate fact that she is physically petite and often lost in the acreage of the playing area, surrounded by men who appear about a foot taller and usually, as The Poor’s nickname ‘descamisados’ suggests, shirtless. That said, I suspect the huddled masses of the barrios of Buenos Aires didn’t look like they spent four hours per day with a personal trainer. This lack of individual presence matters, because if Zegler cannot command a stage, how can we believe that Eva commanded her people? (For what it’s worth, I recall the similarly diminutive Cynthia Erivo in the ill-fated I Can’t Sing totally owning this same space).

She fares better than James Olivas as Perón, who gets no full fig military uniform and has to make do with an absurd short tie, like a rebellious Year 9 schoolboy, leaning into the fact that the General looks barely old enough to be handle a fire extinguisher, never mind seize power in a coup. What can Olivas do with that hand?

Diego Andres Rodriguez gets more to work with as the Puckish Che, but he commits the only sin Stephen Sondheim identifies in a show - inaudibility. That mixed-high orchestra, rocking out the score in a stadium rock style, drowns him with volume and pace and, because we’re left with no traditional means to access the narrative otherwise, we’re too often left waiting for the next song to work out what’s happening. It’s irritating that, though all furnished with body mics, the cast almost always sing into handheld microphones - and we still can’t hear the words!

Most egregious of all is the treatment of the beautiful lament, “Another Suitcase in Another Hall”. Bella Brown delivers a bravura performance of one of the show’s greatest numbers, but we hardly know that she was Perón’s mistress being ruthlessly shunted out of his life by Eva because there’s no backstory - and then we never see her again. 

The less said about the complete fudging of “Rainbow High”, the better, but the controversial beamed-in “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina” was a pleasant surprise - at least it half-worked. Zegler is, perhaps unsurprisingly, at her best on camera in close up, in shot silk and diamonds. There’s real power in that five minutes and there’s enough of a smirk at her lips and across her magnificent eyebrows to allow us a glimpse of the cynicism that Eva otherwise hid so successfully. It’s a helluva'n over-the-shoulder shot to catch the real masses crowded on the street below in awe of the actress’s power (that’s Rachel and Eva). Now if only the raised phones and selfie-sticks could be CGI’ed out in real time, we’d really have a genuine coup de théâtre.

I have no doubt that some will not just pay the high West End prices for this show once, but will come back as often as they can afford. There’s spectacle, star-power and emotion to complement some good songs, albeit too many done too loud and too fast. Others, maybe recalling past Evitas and looking at a world once more in thrall to charismatic demagogues or, maybe, just wanting some narrative or character to cling on to, will not. I am, as you have guessed long ago, in the second camp. 

EVITA is at the London Palladium until 6 September

Photo images: Marc Brenner

Buy Tickets to EVITA