Sunday, September 19, 2010

*Evita* review

at Lake City Playhouse through Oct. 10
(long version; for print on Sept. 23 in The Inlander, this'll have to be cut in half)


They’re the moments when you hold your breath.
They’re the big solo dramatic songs in musical theater: “The Impossible Dream,” “Bring Him Home,” “Send in the Clowns,” “Rose’s Turn.” Everybody knows the tune, everybody’s hoping for good but fearing they’ll get less, and no one’s really expecting tonight’s performance to live up to any ideals.

Singing the title role in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Evita, Alyssa Day appears early on as the young, dark-haired social climber. Day briefly sings “Don’t cry for me,” but director Abbey Crawford had turned it into a trio with two other women, and it didn’t have the big build-up that the set-piece aria gets early in Act Two. (Everybody knows the big moment arrives soon after intermission.)
So the political-rally scene finally arrives, and Day comes out in her glittering white princess dress, and she holds hands with her husband, Juan Peron, and a dozen people in the crowd are clamoring for her, and she ascends her little rostrum, and she sings the opening two warm-up verses (“I had to let it happen, I had to change“), but those are just for building up the suspense, and then she hits the chorus (imploring the people not to cry for her, when you know that she wants them to cry for her), and she hit it solid, she really knocked it out of the park — she spread her arms wide and created moments of vocal beauty, and you could feel the relief and the happiness in the audience, that whatever shortcomings this production might have (and it has them, how could it not?), the ticket-buyers could go home feeling that “Well, they got that right, they got Evita’s big highlight-reel sequence right.”
It was a stirring, lyrical moment, full of Evita’s admirable/flawed character (her sincere desire to help the common people, her sincere desire to glorify herself), and Day sang it with full-throated expression, and it was simply lovely.

And then a remarkable thing happened.
The chorus had been chanting Evita’s name, but now they were humming along. Day, though, remained facing forward, facing the audience, as if we were the shirtless ones, Evita’s beloved descamisados. And several playgoers seated near me started humming along — even the husband who’d been dragged along by his wife, he was humming along too.
A fleeting moment of interactivity turned us into political reformers — and it made Day’s appeal as Evita all the more alluring.

But let’s not get carried away here. This is still a community-theater production of Evita. The big emotional crescendos sometimes sound tinny (and lacking in fullness) when performed by just two keyboards, guitar and drums. Dance steps were often predictable, hesitant, over-crowded. In the narrator role of Che Guevara, Todd Kehne lacks vocal power. Almost nobody onstage looks even vaguely Hispanic. Long stretches of Act Two lean too much on politics and not enough on melody. Both the stage direction and the musical direction opt for a deliberate pace. (An artistic choice, or just the performers’ tentativeness?)

On the positive side, Abbey Crawford directs inventively, with scenes sometimes divided in thirds and developing rapidly; with surprise entrances; and with boisterous crowd scenes (despite limited numbers).
As Evita’s first boyfriend-tool, Agustin Magaldi, Dan McKeever adds hip-shimmies and exaggerated modulations to “On This Night of a Thousand Stars,” making the character’s celebrity-appeal more persuasive (and amusing) than in most productions. When he needs to, McKeever can project impressively.
Kehne pulls off the cynicism of Che’s narrator role with a sarcastic, hands-in-pockets stroll and convincing anger in his shouted cries of revolutionary defiance, and he effectively leads a harmonizing male trio during the dismissal of Peron’s earlier mistress, “Another Suitcase, Another Hall.” The crowd energy for the first-act finale, “A New Argentina,” was strong.
Kent Kimball, full of stentorian solemnity as Juan Peron, knows how to enact a song’s nuances, as when he stands on the balcony of the Casa Rosada and pretends to be a general who’s pretending to have populist sentiments (“our great nation is awakening”).
Both Perons flirt politically (and otherwise, and well) in “Charity Concert” (“I’d be surprisingly good for you”).
In addition to her singing (which during Act One, truth be told, got screechy and indistinct in the higher register), Day’s acting is effective. When Evita rises to power, for example, Day is visibly more confident and flirtier. During Eva’s final decline, it wasn’t just a quick makeup job that made Day seem visibly ill and weakened.
Jamie Russell’s costumes — Evita’s gowns, the gaggle of high-society women all in black, Magaldi’s sequined vest — created illusions of grandeur on (what was presumably) a limited budget.

All in all, Lake City’s new regime change under Generalissimo George Green (its new executive artistic director) has taken on an ambitious production and largely succeeded with it. Day, in particular, excels in the title role. Not only does she sing beautifully, but she’s also convincing as a social climber and social reformer who wants to leave Argentina a better place.
Similarly, under Green’s leadership, Lake City has made strides. The place just feels different — new signs, new paint, new lots of things, and a new feeling throughout. If the playhouse can achieve this much positive change in just the few months since Green took over, then the rest of its 50th season is likely on an upward trajectory.
Maybe then even more folks will fill the seats — and when the big moments come, maybe they’ll hold their breath.

Evita has scheduled the revolution for Thursdays-Saturdays at 7:30 pm and Sundays at 2 pm through Oct. 10 at Lake City Playhouse, 1320 E. Garden Ave., Coeur d’Alene. Tickets: $19; $17, veterans and students; $15, seniors; $10, student rush; $9, children. Visit lakecityplayhouse.org or call (208) 667-1323.

[ photo by Young Kwak for The Pacific Northwest Inlander: Alyssa Day as Eva Peron and Kent Kimball as Juan Peron in Evita, directed by Abbey Crawford at Lake City Playhouse in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, Sept.-Oct. 2010]

10 comments:

  1. Having attended the same performance, I cannot help but think some of your critique results from what you think of the venue, rather than the production. No, it isn't perfect, but it does not deserve the condescending remarks about being a "community theater production". There were some performances in this production, in particular, Kehnes', that warranted better remarks. That said, it's good to see you reviewing at Lake City. This little theater is growing in leaps and bounds!

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  2. Speaking as a person who prefers straight plays to musicals, I really appreciated that the role of Che was well-acted. I thought the singing was very good for an actor I understand to be a non-singer. And in a choice between this Che or stronger vocal power but weaker acting, I far prefer the better acting.

    And thank you for reviewing at the Playhouse. It's so important for the theater to have that feedback in order to continue improving.

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  3. Marianne McLaughlinSeptember 23, 2010 8:41 AM

    As a director I would cast a strong actor with a good voice over a weak actor with a great voice in a heartbeat .Todd held the stage and gave a powerful performance .Michael your obsession with constantly making classifications is tedious give this cast credit for strength of this their performance and obvious hard work for such a large cast moving so gracefully in such a small space .I also appreciate that you reviewed this show and it does sound like you enjoyed it but please leave the condescension behind.

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  4. Marianne McLaughlinSeptember 23, 2010 8:44 AM

    As a director I would cast a strong actor with a good voice over a weak actor with a great voice in a heartbeat .Todd held the stage and gave a powerful performance .Michael your obsession with constantly making classifications is tedious give this cast credit for strength of this their performance and obvious hard work for such a large cast moving so gracefully in such a small space .I also appreciate that you reviewed this show and it does sound like you enjoyed it but please leave the condescension behind.

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  5. David, Rebecca, Marianne -- thanks for your comments. Sorry to be slow in responding; work has piled up.
    1. The "community theater" line _was_ condescending. I apologize. (For what it's worth, I changed it for radio to something like, "... with some of the less-than-accomplished aspects sometimes associated with community theater.")
    I can see why this would be a touchy subject, because by virtually every possible measure, a community theater — the Civic — is the alpha dog of the Spokane Theater scene.
    I do not assume that "professional" and "amateur" theater are in two entirely separate categories.
    I'd compare it to the snobbery that supposes that brilliant people only go to big-name schools. I've personally known brilliant people who dropped out of college and/or went to average colleges. And I've known undeserving idiots who went to big-name schools.
    Especially here and now, it'd be just silly to assume that all community-theater productions necessarily are of lower quality than professional productions. Because it just ain't so.

    2. Todd, acting, singing: I'm on record as admiring Todd Kehne's acting ability: Three months ago, he won a Spokie. Throughout *Evita* at Lake City, he has wonderful posture and presence (as I said in the review's longer version): sullen, sulking, sauntering over into people's faces to deliver stinging barbs. And in a couple of sequences at least, when Che raised his voice in protest, Kehne had impressive vocal power. But he doesn't project well with his voice when he sings. And Che is a mostly sung role. In fact, it was the contrast between his impressive acting and weaker singing that generated the comments I made.
    As always, just one guy's opinion.

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  6. . Back to critical comments re: community theater. I said my piece above, but ... are any of us above criticism? I'm not. I regularly publish comments on this blog, critical of Bobo, that piss me off. (I am not referring here to what DavidG or Marianne said; what they said was quite reasonable.)
    Possibly related anecdote: I recently had an animated conversation, 10 mins. at least, with a woman I'd just met; we had a common interest.
    And where do you work? she asked, just making small talk.
    I told her. Her face froze: "My opinion of you just went from [hand held high] to [hand held very low]."
    Why? "My husband is a cop."
    We had published a cover story critical of police oversight. (I had virtually nothing to do with that story; I was only a third reader on it.)
    I'm grateful to cops, I said, truly. But are cops above criticism?
    No.
    Are we all getting too touchy?
    I go to bat for a show that I truly enjoyed, and ... kinda funny how some of the criticisms I made of *Evita* have gone, at least here, unchallenged.
    My loyalty is to the art form: We all want to see good theater. All our standards are high, and should be.
    I'm just glad that I can work in a town where people like DavidG and Marianne and Rebecca and many, many others are intelligent, creative people who care enough about theater to get angry about those #$%@#!?&^ critics.

    ReplyDelete
  7. 4. Back to critical comments re: community theater. I said my piece above, but ... are any of us above criticism? I'm not. I regularly publish comments on this blog, critical of Bobo, that piss me off. (I am not referring here to what DavidG or Marianne said; what they said was quite reasonable.)
    Possibly related anecdote: I recently had an animated conversation, 10 mins. at least, with a woman I'd just met; we had a common interest.
    And where do you work? she asked, just making small talk.
    I told her. Her face froze: "My opinion of you just went from [hand held high] to [hand held very low]."
    Why? "My husband is a cop."
    We had published a cover story critical of police oversight. (I had virtually nothing to do with that story; I was only a third reader on it.)
    I'm grateful to cops, I said, truly. But are cops above criticism?
    No.
    Are we all getting too touchy?
    I go to bat for a show that I truly enjoyed, and ... kinda funny how some of the criticisms I made of *Evita* have gone, at least here, unchallenged.
    My loyalty is to the art form: We all want to see good theater. All our standards are high, and should be.
    I'm just glad that I can work in a town where people like DavidG and Marianne and Rebecca and many, many others are intelligent, creative people who care enough about theater to get angry about those #$%@#!?&^ critics.

    ReplyDelete
  8. 3. Reviewing at Lake City: Back in 2002-04 (I'm estimating here), I reviewed nearly all their shows; as a new critic, I wanted to review as much as I could. Also a way to separate our coverage from the Spokesman's. And there was, in general, less going on in the area.
    Then the quality of the shows at LCP, in general, suffered. My boss, Ted McGregor, took me aside on at least two occasions and basically said, Let's try to help them; your reviews have been consistently negative; maybe we should preview 'em, or else not at all.
    Work piled up; other duties; soon it dwindled to pretty much not at all.
    I made it to Amadeus last spring; first show there in awhile for me.
    Lots more in the way of cultural events now; Luke B. is A&C editor now, not me. Coverage is his call. I have to make a case for, argue the merits of, nearly every theatrical pre- or re-view that I do now. Much more pressure from other kinds of cultural events (and cultural trends, not event-driven stuff).
    ON THE OTHER HAND, there's this thing called the Internet. Which, theoretically, makes length irrelevant. And I can pre- and re-view every single show. Which doubles my workload
    And I'm on the classical and books beats, too; plus editing and other stuff.
    I told George that we'd support his shows with pre- or re-views for this year.
    But it's not as if I've never reviewed there before.
    I'm surrounded by non-theatrical Muggles here at work. Ted and Jer go to some of Best of Broadway; Chris Bovey used to act around here; there are polite inquiries, but no one else really loves it at the paper, not really.
    And I put up with a fair amount of "OMG, another production of South Pacific?! Do we really need to cover that?"
    So it's a battle. Nice to see shows; it takes hours; I'm only human.

    ReplyDelete
  9. . Reviewing at Lake City: Back in 2002-04 (I'm estimating here), I reviewed nearly all their shows; as a new critic, I wanted to review as much as I could. Also a way to separate our coverage from the Spokesman's. And there was, in general, less going on in the area.
    Then the quality of the shows at LCP, in general, suffered. My boss, Ted McGregor, took me aside on at least two occasions and basically said, Let's try to help them; your reviews have been consistently negative; maybe we should preview 'em, or else not at all.
    Work piled up; other duties; soon it dwindled to pretty much not at all.
    I made it to Amadeus last spring; first show there in awhile for me.
    Lots more in the way of cultural events now; Luke B. is A&C editor now, not me. Coverage is his call. I have to make a case for, argue the merits of, nearly every theatrical pre- or re-view that I do now. Much more pressure from other kinds of cultural events (and cultural trends, not event-driven stuff).

    ReplyDelete
  10. ON THE OTHER HAND, there's this thing called the Internet. Which, theoretically, makes length irrelevant. And I can pre- and re-view every single show. Which doubles my workload
    And I'm on the classical and books beats, too; plus editing and other stuff.
    I told George that we'd support his shows with pre- or re-views for this year.
    But it's not as if I've never reviewed there before.
    I'm surrounded by non-theatrical Muggles here at work. Ted and Jer go to some of Best of Broadway; Chris Bovey used to act around here; there are polite inquiries, but no one else really loves it at the paper, not really.
    And I put up with a fair amount of "OMG, another production of South Pacific?! Do we really need to cover that?"
    So it's a battle. Nice to see shows; it takes hours; I'm only human.

    ReplyDelete