Evita

A Spanish friend of mine went the other night and loved it, although he said he wasn't expecting the ending

 

God I like her but every single time she does that laugh a little part of me dies inside! The best thing is they pre record the show,so someone somewhere decided to leave this one in! Dear god it went on for about two minutes! Goes right through me even when its short but this one has to be the worst ever! Some people must find it amusing but what set her off wasn't even the least bit funny. She is a legend though.

I'm sorry you've interpreted it this way. The truth is I desperately wanted to love it, as I have done previously. I've seen every outing of this tour with every cast and seen it decline each time. Band of 20, cast of 30. Now a band of 8 and cast of 20 including 6 prop kids. The main kid of the evening has always mimed "Santa Evita" in this production, so I'm not going to knock that.

Scenes such as the funeral at the beginning used to be sung by off-stage cast in wing mics, this is now a very poorly done click track to allow for the fact they don't have a musician with a bell to dong in the pit. That plus the stage is too thin to spare anyone and the sound is too thin.

I was seeing this show again DESPITE the fact that I knew it would be smaller and cheaper. I was hoping the cast would blow me away - and they sadly didn't.

Honestly it they stripped this down anymore it would be a chamber piece.

One last point HOW could they have gone on so long mispelling Perón on all the signs in "A New Argentina" (and even the backdrop) I don't know. The downstage wash in "Perón's Latest Flame" isn't properly shuttered out either. Two ugly semi circles leaving 2-3ft of darkness downstage left and right instead of a neat line was surely not the Lighting Designer's intention.

So much for an EP exclusive then..this was discussed on here a few weeks ago

Yes, the news is actually a few weeks old now, isn't it? It's even mentioned earlier in this thread, I think - or was it on another messageboard? Original Hal Prince production of Evita next year in Australia starring Tina Arena.

Staging clumsy, set ugly, lighting tacky, costumes from a stock collection. But there's great energy, determination and amplification that makes it very exciting and rather enjoyable. The only interesting directorial choice is Eva's campaign to get Peron out of prison during A New Argentina. Rainbow High not too bad either. The lowering of Eva's keys during the finale was especially triggering and not. okay.

Abe Jay is an Elaine Paige clone and sounds especially like her during Goodnight and Thank You, but then turns her Elphaba button and sounds more contemporary. But, by the end of the second act, she hits all the emotional notes and I must say I was a bit chocked up at the end. Gian Marco Schiaretti as Che is boring, dull, charmless, vocally inapt and looks straight out of gay porn as an IDF soldier. The ensemble are uniformly young and generic, and look more like they're from Surrey than Buenos Aires.

Other observations:
-Why is the little girl who is clearly lip synching Santa Evita mic'ed?
-There was a heart attack in the front row during the Act 1 finale.

Abi Jaye?!!! Emma Hatton surely?!!

I love that a heart attack was under "other observations" so casually. 😅

Not sure if it's been mentioned elsewhere, Madalena Alberto will be playing Eva again when the tour restarts.

On the Kenright website

I think that's because they have some international dates booked in after Manchester. Dubai is one, there are some others, maybe Italy or something I think I heard! Then they carry on with the UK. I guess they wanted to come back to Manchester to took the dates they could and then started filling the rest up!