{"id":91651,"date":"2023-07-23T21:44:37","date_gmt":"2023-07-24T04:44:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/?p=91651"},"modified":"2023-07-23T21:44:37","modified_gmt":"2023-07-24T04:44:37","slug":"evita-revival-recap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/blog\/2023\/07\/23\/evita-revival-recap\/","title":{"rendered":"Evita Revival Recap"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <em>American Repertory Theater <\/em>(<em>ART<\/em>) in Cambridge has brought numerous shows to <em>Broadway <\/em>\u2013 including the <em>Tony<\/em>-winning <strong><em>Porgy and Bess<\/em><\/strong> and <strong><em>Pippin<\/em><\/strong>.&nbsp; Whether their current revival of <strong><em>Evita<\/em><\/strong> ends up on the <em>Great White Way <\/em>remains to be seen.&nbsp; I\u2019m always grateful to hear this score \u2013 despite the <em>Muzak<\/em>-esque orchestrations that have plagued most productions since the otherwise revelatory UK revival of 2009.&nbsp; While the physical production has merits (including a sumptuous opening to Act 2), a little neon goes a long way.&nbsp; The choreography is terrific and fills in some of the gaps of the story (including a lurid rape scene reminiscent of Aldonza in <strong><em>Man of La Mancha<\/em><\/strong>).&nbsp; Still, there is a cool detachment pervading the entire show.&nbsp; The best all-around performance came from <strong>Per\u00f3n<\/strong> himself, <strong>Caesar Samayoa<\/strong>.&nbsp; His mistress, <strong>Naomi Serrano<\/strong>, scored with her brief but heartfelt moment in the sun.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve criticized virtually every production of <em>Evita<\/em> I\u2019ve seen for casting someone with a little pipsqueak voice in the title role.&nbsp; <em>ART<\/em>\u2019s <strong>Shereen Pimentel <\/strong>has no such problem.&nbsp; On a scale of one to ten, her performance hovers around a 15.&nbsp; It\u2019s always 11 o\u2019clock for Shereen!&nbsp; And that\u2019s a problem.&nbsp; There is a sizeable lack of nuance and finesse in her portrayal.&nbsp; The 25-year-old has an impressive vocal instrument, but it\u2019s all very one-note \u2013 aside from the last 10 minutes, which shows she has range.&nbsp; While \u201cYou Must Love Me\u201d is a nice tune, it\u2019s always felt out of place in this score \u2013 and was clearly written for an Evita with no high notes.&nbsp; Having Che modeled less on <strong>Guevara <\/strong>himself and more as a follower of Per\u00f3n on his own journey is a fascinating idea, and one that <strong>Omar Lopez-Cepero <\/strong>(and his double) execute well.&nbsp; As a singer, he makes little presence and is a few notes shy on either end of the role\u2019s range.&nbsp; This is not without precedent.&nbsp; <strong>Ricky Martin <\/strong>had the same problem in the 2012 <em>Broadway <\/em>revival, but had enough charisma to compensate.&nbsp; All in all, this production has merit \u2013 but I\u2019m not sure if it has enough to merit a <em>Broadway <\/em>revival.&nbsp; It closes in Cambridge (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.AmericanRepertoryTheater.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong><u>AmericanRepertoryTheater.org<\/u><\/strong><\/a>) on July 30<sup>th<\/sup> and plays the <em>Shakespeare Theatre Company <\/em>in Washington D.C. (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ShakespeareTheatre.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong><u>ShakespeareTheatre.org<\/u><\/strong><\/a>) September 5<sup>th<\/sup> through October 8<sup>th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The American Repertory Theater (ART) in Cambridge has brought numerous shows to Broadway \u2013 including the Tony-winning Porgy and Bess and Pippin.&nbsp; Whether their current revival of Evita ends up on the Great White Way remains to be seen.&nbsp; I\u2019m always grateful to hear this score \u2013 despite the Muzak-esque orchestrations that have plagued most<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-91651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breaking"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91651"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91651\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91652,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91651\/revisions\/91652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}