We saw Evita at the Auditorium in Chicago on Friday night. In general, it was a good show and was the better of the two performances I’ve seen (the other was at the Marriott Lincolnshire three years ago).
My only real complaint was with the guy playing Che. This character is the narrator in the play, so it’s important that you catch his lines. The actor playing Che insisted on using an operatic voice which, while impressive, made it difficult to understand the lyrics. So unless you already knew the story and the songs you missed out on the details of what was going on. I feel I need to go easy on the guy, though, because midway through his opening number (“Oh, What A Circus”) he misjudged the depth of the stage and slid right off into the orchestra pit at full speed.
The other actors were good in their roles, and the staging was well done and not completely overblown. I’ll give it a thumbs-up.
This show also confirmed the opinion I formed after seeing Sunset Boulevard years ago: that Andrew Lloyd-Weber did two really good shows– Evita and Jesus Christ Superstar— and the rest of his stuff is just lousy. It seems the formula for his later shows is to come up with one or two musical hooks, repeat them over and over again, and hope the audience doesn’t notice because they’re too overwhelmed with flash pots, smoke machines, and flying whatevers. I don’t need to pay $150 a ticket for that.
Next up: maybe it’s time to see The Neofuturists again.