Despite such lost opportunities, Evita tends to maintain compelling momentum because it’s written like an opera, with recitative lines that are sung, connecting songs that develop and advance the story. Using both the songs and these interludes to maximum effect is Martin Sola as Che. It was clever and effective to have the Argentina-born Marxist revolutionary as a sort of one-man Cuban chorus narrating her life. He joins in protest mobs and frequently gets hauled off by the police, but mostly he makes sardonic commentary. She claimed to have a lifelong loyalty and affection for the poor, as did he, so who better to confront her? Eva Peron established a charity for her precious “shirtless ones,” but she didn’t neglect to also set up a numbered bank account.
While “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina” is the most familiar of the rousing songs here, others have impact, especially the Act I closer, “A New Argentina,” sung by the company. Peron and his glamorous wife started with a country that had high beef production and healthy gold reserves and brought about beef rationing and bankruptcy. Perhaps better than a political history, Evita conveys the social and emotional dynamics of how this could come about.
Related:
Grail time, Crusaders, Crimes and misdemeanors, More 
- Grail time
Monty Python’s Spamalot bills itself as “lovingly ripped off” from the low-budget 1975 film Monty Python and the Holy Grail .
- Crusaders
Broadway is strewn with the banana peel of Arthurian legend.
- Crimes and misdemeanors
There are more echoes in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels than rattle around the Grand Canyon.
- Trinity gets catty
“Uh-oh,” the fear goes for those prone to such anxieties. “This isn’t paving the way for, uh, ‘Memories,’ is it?”
- Playful summer
Bloody, edgy, original, iambic — this summer’s theater line-up fits some fine descriptors. Here are some of my picks.
- Light lifting
Come summertime, when you’re sunning on the sand all day and evening rolls around, sometimes the theater equivalent of light beach reading is just what you need.
- Crossword: ''No theme for you!''
But some pretty sweet wordage anyway
- Out of this world
If comedienne and singer Sandra Bernhard hadn’t invented herself, a hovering mothership beaming her down might have been acceptable.
- Girls to Women
A good college production of a weak musical like Little Women is certainly a better deal than a weak production of a Broadway favorite.
- Spring boards
As the winter wind makes fast tracks, it leaves a burgeoning crop of ancient masterpieces, world premieres, farces, and musicals to blossom come April.
- Staging Strider
Frodo sings! And for that matter, so do Aragorn, Arwen Evenstar, the pitiful Gollem, and some 55 inhabitants of Middle-earth in the world premiere of the musical The Lord of the Rings .
- Less
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Theater
, Politics, U.S. Politics, Entertainment, More
, Politics, U.S. Politics, Entertainment, Culture and Lifestyle, Movies, History, Movie Reviews, Performing Arts, World Politics, Musicals, Less
