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- [00:00]
Rachel Zegler
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- [00:51]
Mickey Jo
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- [00:52]
Rachel Zegler
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Richard Karn
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Mickey Jo
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Diego Andres Rodriguez
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- [02:32]
Mickey Jo
Well oh what a circus. Oh what a show indeed. Oh my God. Hey, welcome back to my theatre themed YouTube channel. Or hello to you if you are listening to this review on podcast platforms. My name is Mickey Jo and I am obsessed with all things theatre. I'm a professional theatre critic here on social media and today we are going to be discussing possibly the single most anticipated, the most talked about, the buzziest of all West End musical theatre opening nights this Vita at the London Palladium in a new, bold, reimagined production from visionary, equally talked about director Jamie Lloyd. Produced by Lloyd Webber Harrison Musicals and starring the also highly talked about Hollywood actress Rachel Zegler, who recently appeared on Broadway in Romeo and Juliet and is now playing one of the most challenging, one of the most acclaimed roles for women in musical theatre, Eva Peron. Now, this production has already been making headlines during its preview performances for the very eye catching feature of the when Rachel Zegler performs one of the musical's most famous songs, Don't Cry for Me, Argentina. Of course, written by the show's writers, Lord Andrew Dwebber and Sir Tim Rice, on the balcony of the London Palladium, two passersby on Argyll Street. Though in reality it's not passers by, it is a very vast crowd that forms every night in anticipation of this nightly free performance. But even before that, all eyes were turned towards Evita because all of the success of and the conversation and intrigue around one of Jamie Lloyd's previous projects, Sunset Boulevard, which commenced as a West End revival before transferring to the St James Theatre on Broadway. It won multiple Olivier Awards as well as the Tony Award for Best revival of a musical. And this being another production in which he's working with largely the same creative team, once again on an Android Webber musical, once again with a starry female lead. It's only natural that people were already drawing comparisons. But in truth, this isn't the first time that Jamie Lloyd has tackled Evita, because what this production actually is is a largely updated and heavily reworked remounting of an earlier staging that he and choreographer Fabian Aloise well, as many of their collaborators previously put together for Regent's Park Open Air Theatre in the summer of 2019, then starring Broadway actress Samantha Pauley. I had the fortune to see that production and as of right now, I have seen this production 2.1 times. I say 2.1 because I have seen it twice from inside the London Palladium, including last night's very exciting opening night performance. And before any of that, I stood on Argyll street among the masses at one of the show's earliest previews in order to experience the open air, Don't Cry for Me, Argentina for myself, and after all, noise and all of the expectation, I am now perfectly positioned to let you know exactly what I thought of it. Is this like Sunset Boulevard, an ingenious theatrical masterpiece pushing theatre and its capabilities in bold, exciting new directions? Or is this, like a handful of other bold, reimagined productions, simply a case of the Emperor's New Clothes in which audiences who aren't familiar with the source material are left behind by a vague narrative? Today I'm going to answer that question. As always, make sure to participate in the comments section. Let us all know what you thought of Evita. With the reviews that have been published thus far by my peers in the London theatre industry has already proven divisive, so I am desperate to know what those of you who have already seen the production thought of your experience. And as always, if you enjoy listening to this review or watching it, make sure that you're subscribed right here on YouTube or following me on podcast platforms. But for now, let's not tango around it any longer. Let's talk about Evita now, as much as it surprised me to learn this, there are still many among us who are not familiar with the musical Evita and don't know what it's about. So let's spend just a short amount of time talking about this material. It was originally written in the 1970s, first debuting as a concept album. It's something of a rock opera from a then edgy and younger Sir Android Webber and Sir Tim Rice, very much in the vein of another of their musicals, Jesus Christ Superstar, in which the final few days of the life of Jesus are told from the perspective ingeniously of Judas Iscariot, of course, one of his disciples who would go on to portray him, and who at that point had become a very cynical critic of Jesus's public Persona and what he considered to be extraordinary hypocrisy. We see a similar idea explored through the narrative of Evita, in which our narrator character is one called Che, sometimes emblematic of the activist Che Guevara, occasionally more of an Argentinian everyman, but in any case in opposition to the concept of Peronism and to the Peron government that would form, that would be Juan Peron, leader of the country, and his wife Eva Peron. Now, she came from a humble background, one of the descomisados, the shirtless ones, and according to the musical, was instrumental in his rise and political success, with her own extraordinary rise having happened alongside that. This because she was viewed by the people as one of them who represented their interests and brought their humanity to the heart of the nation's leader, her husband, Juan Peron. There's a lyric in the show in which she effectively campaigns for him by belting out, he supports you, for he loves you, understands you, is one of you. If not, how could he love me? And it's a great political slogan. But as we learn, she's a little more than just a naive local girl who goes on to find great success by marrying well. According to our narrator, Che Guevara, she is also responsible for an extreme amount of political hypocrisy. According to our passionate narrator, she was also an extraordinarily ambitious young woman who ended up using a very carefully crafted public image in order to prop up an authoritarian regime. Lurking behind that carefully curated image was dishonesty and self interest. And so the musical, which begins with the national mourning that surrounded Ava's death, subsequently flashes back to the start of her rise, with her moving to Buenos Aires by manipulating the tango singer who has visited her town and convincing him to take her there. And being this ambitious young woman before eventually social climbing by forging a series of valuable relationships with well connected men, increasingly well connected men, before encountering the rising political leader, Colonel Juan Peron, during a time of significant political change, the greater nuances of which aren't necessarily explored too thoroughly in the show. But what we do get is a sense of how tense and incendiary the whole situation is, as well as Eva Peron's own political power, power that she is at the height of her command of. As we enter into the second act, before we take a little bit of a left turn into her downfall, her illness and her untimely early death, eventually ending with. What I need to convey to you is the strangest ending in perhaps all of musical theatre, because we end with a perfectly reasonable finish to the show before the strangest little couple lines of an epilogue in which Shay talks about the way her body was preserved and embalmed and money was raised for a monument which was never completed. And then this final line about how her body went missing for 17 years, a finite amount of time. I would have no problem with this if her body had gone missing in indefinitely and was never seen again, because that's like a ending of the story. But her body then went missing for 17 years. Blackout. That's the end that's like a story that you're not going to tell me. That means that there was an answer. It's like, well, what happened? When was it found? Where was it found again? It's just such a weird little detail. It's a fascinating detail, but it's such a strange way to end this story. And it's also presented entirely without comment. Like, that notion is enough to generate an entire musical for the recent Broadway show Dead Outl. And in Evita, it's just tossed out there. It's like, by the way, her body went missing. And then I just imagine someone comes up to you, tells you the start of that story, and then simply walks away without finishing it. How bizarre is that? Anyway, I do think that this is among the best work of either Tim Rice or Andrew Lloyd Webber. Admittedly, like with a lot of Lloyd Webber shows, almost all of the melodies that we hear in the first act get reprised in some way or another in the second. I mean, the show's two most popular songs, oh Water Circus and Don't Cry for Me Argentina, are in fact the same melody. But there's also a symmetry in that, and there's this symmetry in many of the reprises. Sometimes it means something, sometimes it doesn't really feel like it does. Tim Rice's lyrics are impeccable here. Both the careful political wording of Ava's own speeches and the subtle amounts of humanity that are able to feel truthful with, you know, what this does mean to her and her own genuine affection for the people of the class which she came from, but also the harsh and passionate political commentary offered by Shea. Now, there is, it's worth mentioning, a little bit of controversy around the musical of. And the notion that, you know, this was a British written musical about Argentinian politics and about an ongoingly controversial Argentinian political figure. And even though it frames her in an undeniable amount of criticism, it can also feel a little bit, especially with all of these celebrated actresses in the leading role, in many ways like a glorification of her legacy. Enter Jamie Lloyd. Now, if there's one thing we know about Jamie Lloyd, and this has only become heightened over the last few years of his very long theatrical career, most of which isn't talked about when we talk about his recent work. Like, we don't talk often enough about the brilliant production of Assassins that he staged, or the European premieres of urinetown, or the 25th annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, or all of the plays that he's worked on, frankly, like, we only ever talk about Sunset, as if the man has only done one thing. But if there's one thing we know about his work at this point of his career, it's that we can expect something bold and reimagined and entirely different to any version of whichever show it is that we have seen before. And that is particularly true with Evita. And I would say that one of the great successes of this production is that it manages to entirely sidestep the controversy of Eva Peron as a political figure by just scarcely representing her. It feels as though we are taking the concept of Evita as a springboard here in order to tell an adjacent, not dissimilar, but different story. And that's because in true Jamie Lloyd fashion, she is very rarely depicted with the familiar aesthetic of Eva Peron. Not never, but rarely. For the majority of the show, you see Rachel Zegler wearing a little leather bralet and shorts and knee high trainer boots, often holding a handheld microphone, dancing across a series of bleacher steps which constitute the set as if she is a pop princess entertaining in a stadium concert. And when the show was first produced at Regent's Park Open air Theatre in 2019, it drew a lot of inspiration from Beyonce and Homecoming. And now with Rachel Zegler in the leading role and with the knowledge that Jamie Lloyd shapes many of his productions, in fact, all of his productions these days around the talent that he has in the rehearsal room, it feels a little more akin to like the. The huge concerts happening now, like the recent Taylor Swift eras tour, like the Olivia Rodrigo concerts. And that's very much the kind of pop star personality that Rachel Zegler feels familiar of and like he enjoys doing on stage. It also subverts a certain amount of her own Persona and her own fame in the process. But she doesn't necessarily feel like the traditional Eva Perron. She doesn't look like the traditional Eva Peron until the start of the second act, when suddenly she appears on a screen as filmed live with a camera in the dress. Circle bar, the royal Circle bar, I should say, of the London Palladium with the familiar blonde wig with the white Dior ball gown, before walking out to the balcony of the London Palladium and singing Don't Cry for Me Argentina, which we're going to talk about a little bit later on. All of this to say the production certainly benefits from this aesthetic and from reimagining Evita not as a damning political epic biography, but more as a Coachella vibe pop concert. It finds this really exciting, galvanizing quality that is present in the best of Jamie Lloyd's musical theatre work. Especially it has a lot that is familiar of some of the Sunset Boulevard ensemble numbers in that way where it is thrilling and it is vital and it is full of this exciting, youthful energy and this buzz that is there on the stage, it's there in the auditorium and it extends out into the theater community beyond the building. They deliver the kind of show stopping impact that plenty of two act musicals can only aspire to find perhaps once in two and a half hours. And Evita manages to explode off of the London Palladium stage and astound audiences with that kind of show stopping quality. Perhaps seven in the show. It is remarkable and it's huge and it's exciting and it is also unfortunately flawed. And it's in the ethos of the Thing and in the aesthetic shift of the Thing. I don't think it's too minimal or too sparse. I think anyone going to see this and saying that there's no set and there's no costumes simply aren't looking at the set on stage or the many different costumes. I know we're used to saying that about Jamie Lloyd productions, but this is not Sunset. They're wearing plenty of different costumes and they're using costumes very cleverly. It's just not the traditional, obvious community theater adjacent costuming of any bog standard production of Evita like the ones that we saw on the most recent UK tour. And frankly, that isn't what I would want from a major revival at the London Palladium. Like, if you just want to go and see the same thing every single time and see what you expect in terms of set and costuming, then stay home and watch the movie. But here are a couple of the problems that we find in making this Coachella Evita. And it has a lot to do with the nature of the narrative and storytelling. And I find with Jamie Lloyd product, I'm often inspired to talk about the labor of storytelling and the responsibility of a show to tell that particular story, even if it's a revival. And it makes me question, you know, what a revival of a musical needs to be. Do we need to articulate all over again for new audiences? And you better believe that there are going to be new audiences because of the young people's ticket schemes, because of the excitement of Sunset, because everyone's talking about this because of Rachel Zegler. Certainly there are going to be new audiences who don't know this show. Does the show have a responsibility to convey the story clearly to them, to deliver this narrative. And I tend to think the answer to that is yes, but because it's a very conceptualized production with an alternative aesthetic. Not a completely stripped back aesthetic, but an alternative one. Is the show just sort of openly neglecting its narrative responsibilities. And if you're someone who doesn't know Evita, who hasn't seen a previous production, who hasn't watched the movie, who doesn't know the history of the thing and Eva Perron and her story, are you going to be going to this? Really, you know, energized and impressed by the choreography and by all of the elements of this and by this explosive show, but equally confused by the lack of storytelling. Simply put, I'm concerned that people who don't know Evita are going to go to this show and have no clue what the hell is happening. And some people said the same thing about Sunset, and I don't necessarily think that. I agree with that criticism of Sunset Boulevard, and it has a lot to do with the nature of the material. To misquote one of Tim Rice's lyrics for Evita, it's not quite a Sunset. Because what Sunset has, first of all, is dialogue. Evita is a almost entirely sung through rock opera that doesn't contain dialogue. But also a lot of Joe's material in Sunset, as our narrator character feels a lot more objective and offers a lot of clarity. Sure, there might not be a turban and a staircase and a pool and a monkey, but he tells us about all of those things. And what Shay delivers instead, as the narrator of Evita is a subjective political interpretation filtered through his own perspective. And a conspicuous amount less in terms of narrative clarity. This was sort of discovered when a regional British theatre called the Leicester Curve, a couple of years ago, just after Sunset Boulevard was in the West End, actually produced a revival of Evita directed by their artistic director, Nikolaj Foster, that utilized a lot of techniques very similar to those utilized by Jamie Lloyd. And you had anachronistic contemporary costuming, and you had an extraordinary amount of lighting, but more minimal set. You also had on stage cameras and a vertical screen, reconceiving Eva Peron as this sort of an influencer figure. And here in Jamie's production, Ava is likened to a pop star. And I understand the symbolism of the whole thing. I understand asking the question, what does Eva Peron or a character like her mean to a contemporary audience? Because, you know, this is London. This is not Argentina. If the show transfers to New York, it's still not Argentina. There's not going to be the same kind of political resonance and relevance every year that goes on. She is perhaps less well remembered. And what does she mean to an audience? What can we latch onto? And so to frame her instead as a pop star, as a celebrity, makes a lot of sense, and you're telling a different story. The problem is in the traditional understanding of Evita. It's a story depicting her rise and then her fall. And we don't get the rise here, because at the beginning of the Thing, Rachel Zegler, even as we flashback to her youngest point in the show, is power posing as a pop princess in the same outfit. There is no sense of arc or trajectory for her character because we don't really see or experience or have conveyed to us the comparatively humble origins that she came from as one of the descomisados. She has one line where she screams about the middle classes, but that isn't enough. And so we lose a lot of her raison d' etre there and a sense of who she is and where she's coming from. And I think it kind of wounds her ability to give us a perfectly well crafted performance. In short, I think that that might be the thing that undercuts her this year at something like the Olivier Awards Awards. But there's a lot of the season to see yet. And there's also something to be said for the inherent dramaturgy of the thing, because for this to be her in concert, she's not reflecting on her own life. She doesn't have agency in the narrative here, because she's not the narrator. She's dead. At the start of it, Shay is the narrator. And so what his role is, in terms of the concert of it all, immediately feels a little confused. One thought that emerged when watching this production is that Evita is perhaps a production that has always relied on very strong direction. And when you strip Hal Prints away from any piece of theater, you see exactly what was there without his very brilliant overview. The 1996 film adaptation starring Madonna, I think, also benefited from really brilliant direction from Alan Parker. The one thing that that film lacked was a strong and compelling central performance. Now, this stage version has that for sure in Rachel Zegler, who, make no mistake, is fantastic in this role. It just doesn't have the sense of clarity. So neither version's perfect. I think what you ought to do is stay, watch the film, and then go and see it at the Palladium with that understanding. Speaking of the film, I do wish that they had found a way to get the song the Lady's Got Potential into this production of the show. Never has any version of Evita needed. The Lady's Got Potential like this one does. That is a song in the midst of the first act in which Shea sings more specifically about the rise of Juan Peron and the earthquake in San Juan that prompts the charity concert where Juan and Ava meet. But it talks in parallel about both of their ongoing successes and him moving up through the ranks of the political world as a military leader and her becoming a celebrated actress and radio star. And it's also a very catchy, rocky number that would be very at home in terms of the musical identity of this production. And I wish with that same energy with which Jamie got rid of the Ladies Paying from Sunset Boulevard, he could have brought about a return for the Ladies Got Potential. Finally, I'll offer one more piece of criticism before I go on to talk more specifically about the staging, the numbers and the performances and everything else that you might want to know about this production and of course, the Don't Cry for Me Argentina balcony moment. And my final thought is this. And this could even be a four star review if I thought that it just wasn't clear enough what's happening on stage and it was catering more to audience members who already knew the show. But my bigger issue is that even in spite of that, I still felt unmoved. I was bowled over and wowed and impressed, but it didn't evoke an emotional response in me in the same way. And spoiler alert, she dies at the end because she's dead at the beginning and she spends a long time dying. The woman dies for about 45 minutes, like dies tragically young in her life, but absolutely takes her time about it. And in that agonizing descent into death, I really do feel like we ought to feel something. And I'm not shedding a tear. And that's nothing to do with Rachel Zegler's very emotional, powerful performance. It's just because it's quite an unemotional production. I think that is also often a byproduct of this kind of slightly dispassionate but very energized and electrifying staging. I also think for what it's worth, when you separate her so much from the historical Eva Peron, you start to unearth questions about the nature of her character and certain qualities that feel a little less redeemable. We'll talk more about her before, but first let's talk more about the specific creative choices that have brought together this wildly exciting staging. Now, as I mentioned before, I'm of the opinion that this is visually stunning. And everyone who is saying that this is threadbare scaled back, whatever. I have no idea what any of you are talking about. This fills the Palladium stage in a way that few shows can fill the Palladium stage, including. Including last summer's revival of hello Dolly. For what it's worth, in terms of how this compares with the version that there was at Regent's Park Open Air Theater. The whole thing makes a lot more sense in this kind of a context. It just makes a lot more sense indoors. And sometimes, you know, that just happens. It's a rock concert kind of a vibe. So the impact, the power, the lighting, by it all being contained and blasting it to us in this echoing space rather than just, you know, sending it up into the atmosphere. Fear. I think it lands with significantly more impact. I remember being more unfazed by the whole thing at Regent's Park. I do miss the enormous plumes of like thick blue smoke that they were releasing into the sky as if they were trying to entice a helicopter to come and find us on a deserted island. Admittedly no way of doing those indoors without activating the smoke alarms. And far too many people in the London Palladium for that nonsense. Plus, where are we all going to go? Argyle street is already filled with people waiting to hear the woman sing Don't Cry for Me, Argentina. Can you on imagine? One of the most significant remnants from that production is the set design by Sutra Gilmour, who has also designed the costumes. The set being these large sort of cinder block steps that go back up towards the big letters showing Evita occasionally with a screen that comes down at the back of that part of the stage as well, and with the orchestra semi visible behind all of it. And the steps are navigated very well. I've seen other productions. I saw a production of Spring Awakening that was. Was set on a giant staircase. And I think it has the capacity to be a very challenging stage layout. I would say that it offers advantages and disadvantages. The steps are on occasion used to signify political ascension and class difference. But more often than not they aren't, which is sort of puzzling. There is one really striking moment. In the absence of the song the Lady's Got Potential. They instead sing the incredibly boring song the Art of the Possible. And you have these various political peers, perhaps adversaries. Juan Pereira, on being a part of the lineup, all of them holding balloons where the members of the ensemble stood behind them posing like Ring girls in a boxing match, ready to pop the balloon at any moment, as indicated as adjudicated by one member of the ensemble who is giving it interpretive contemporary dance while dressed in a sort of Beyonce familiar sexy militaristic white outfit, wearing a military cap. And at the end of each line of music, one of them is selected. The balloon pops above their head and then they fall down as if dead. And then everyone carries on as if this is a perfectly normal thing. And it's very eerie and it's very unsettling and it's an indication of political ascension as conveyed through this sort of squid game style death match, which I happen to think is genius. They utilize the image of the balloon and that one ensemble member wearing military white a couple more times throughout the show. And it's meaningful imagery like that, which I always enjoy. There's a similar use of the steps when Shay is singing Good night and thank you to the various men in Ava's life. Shortly after she has come to to Buenos Aires and she is using them for her own personal and professional gain, much to their surprise as they sing, Argentine men are used to being in control and somebody's broken the rules. And she has this sort of queue of suitors gradually making their way down as she gradually climbs up the steps to reach new heights. Now, while we're talking about Sutra's work, I do also want to cover the costuming. I like the outfit that Rachel is wearing. I think it makes more sense for her and more sense for the sort of concert context than the white slip that Samantha Pauly, who led the Regent's park production, was then wearing. I think if they'd done a white slip here, it would also get called a ripoff of Sunset Boulevard, even though Evita at the park came first. I like that she changes into a white sort of bedazzled version in the second act. And there's much to be said for the moment when she appears in the iconic costume but then takes it off. But I like the going of the black version to the white version from the first act to the second second with her rise to prominence, my fiance Aaron shared a very interesting inference that perhaps the arc might feel even more satisfying if at the beginning she was wearing one of the sort of gray smock dresses that the ensemble were wearing, because Peron's mistress, when Ava replaces her after becoming acquainted with him, puts that back over the black bralet and shorts outfit that she was wearing. Sort of going from being in his company company to returning to being one of the descomisados. And so it would make more sense if Rachel had come from that aesthetic. The bra tops themselves feel like a little bit of a nod to Madonna. Feel like a very kind nod to Madonna. There's one moment of choreography at the end of Rainbow High that is also familiar of Madonna in Vogue and in general. I enjoy all of the costuming, but there is one particular costume I don't like, and this is the. The gold waistcoats and waistcoat dresses. Dresses worn by the ensemble when they are playing the Argentinian upper classes who are immediately dismissive of Ava and don't want anything to do with her. They have a very snooty sensibility. And at one point they sing. They wouldn't mind seeing her in Harrods, but behind the jewelry counter, not in front. And they continue to be indifferent, disdainful of her, even throughout her political career, even in the face of everything that she achieves. And. And they have these gold fans as well. I just think it's a very on the nose sort of an aesthetic for them to be wearing gold. It doesn't look high class. It looks like a party store interpretation. It's a little gaudy, I fear. I think we could have done something that still conveyed class, but in a slightly subtler way, even if we were just using the color of costuming. And I remember costuming being a really interesting facet of the Regent's park production. And the Mistress, during Another Suitcase in Another hall, did something very different there, where she spent the whole song, like removing a wig and makeup, perhaps even, and changing and putting everything into an actual suitcase and fully spending the entire song getting changed. Now, Bella, who plays the mistress in this production, just discards a blue wig and then has a dress put over the top of her. It doesn't feel quite as meaningful. I'm sure that there's more they did with costuming at Regent's park that I wish could have been retained a little more. What we do need to talk about is John Clarke's lighting design, because the lighting in this is absolutely exquisite. One of my favorite creative elements, elements from this production. There are so many distinct moments of extraordinary, breathtaking lighting design, which I'm going to try and convey to you from this list that I've written here. There's a moment of extinguishing overhead lights in Another suitcase in another hall, and we have these little circles on stage. It's as though she's walking beneath lamp posts and the night is slowly growing darker. Very eponine on My own. There's another moment where we have orange glowing head headlights behind the sort of cage like backs of the steps that make up the set, and they resemble glowing church candles. When Ava's death is invoked, there's an extraordinary bright blast when the Evita sign lowers back down after her Act 2 return to the stage and she's in Rainbow High singing I'm Their Savior. And on Savior, we get this extraordinary light blast as if they're trying to kill all the moths in the room. Or would that make the moths very happy? You know, I don't actually know enough about. About moths to be having this conversation, but it's just a huge, explosive, impactful moment. I don't care if it means anything. It's cool. Conversely, you have something very subtle when she is in Peron's arms and that moment is lit in this sort of a stunning, subtle kind of moonlight glow. We also have a shrinking spotlight around her as her health and her strength are fading. And finally, one easy to miss moment in which the ensemble actually appear underneath the stone stage and you see their faces glowing white through the stairs as they are scrutinizing her and watching on as the people of Argentina. Brilliant. Such brilliant lighting choices throughout. And a couple of great uses of color in the lighting as well. There's some red flashes during the riotous energy of a new Argentina before the auditorium is flooded with these multiple cannon fires of confetti. So much confetti and streamers and blue and white, and it's just epic and huge and intense and exciting. But before we specifically get on to talk about some of the show's best musical numbers, we have to talk about the greatest creative triumph of this production, which is Fabian Aloise's extraordinary, brilliant choreography. And it being pop concert, Evita dance and contemporary dance were always going to be an essential storytelling language for this production. And there is so much dance and there is. Okay, close your eyes.
- [32:32]
Rachel Zegler
Exhale, Feel your body relax, and let go of whatever you're carrying today. Well, I'm letting go of the worry that I wouldn't get my new contacts in time for this class. I got them delivered free for 1-800-contacts. You guys, they're so fast. Oh, sorry. Namaste.
- [32:51]
Mickey Jo
Hi there.
- [32:52]
Rachel Zegler
Did you find everything okay? Yes, I did, because I found the exact same contacts as my eye doctor prescribes. F1,800 contacts. Here, give me that. Attention shoppers. Did you know 1,800 contacts has 45 million contacts in stock?
- [33:07]
Diego Andres Rodriguez
Okay, we checked the brakes. Everything looks good.
- [33:10]
Rachel Zegler
You know, speaking of checking. Did you know? 1, 800 contacts triple checks every order? Yeah. They make sure you get exactly what you need when you need it.
- [33:18]
Richard Karn
1-800-Contacts so, so good, so fast, so accurate. You'll want to tell everyone too. Download the app or visit 1-800-contacts.com today and save on your first order.
- [33:28]
Rachel Zegler
1-800-Contacts.
- [33:30]
Diego Andres Rodriguez
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- [34:12]
Bella Brown
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- [34:32]
Mickey Jo
Profound, exciting, dynamic energy to the dance. And Diego as Shay is participatory in the dance and Rachel is Ava is dancing up a storm as well. I do wonder if she in a couple of early moments is a little bit over choreographed when she is singing I want to be a part of Be a Buenos Aires Big Apple, which is the closest thing she gets to a real kind of that. I want confession. She's doing these stylized moves. Every time she sings the lyric. She does the same moves as if it's like a TikTok trend and I think it a little bit gets in the way of that moment of her emotional performance. It sort of reminded me, and this is a niche gay reference of the lip sync in season four of RuPaul's Drag Race in which Latrice Royale and Kenya Michaels are both performing to the Aretha Franklin version of you Make Me Feel like a Natural Woman and Kenya is just inarguably doing too much and giving it like contemporary balletic dance. And it's not what the song and what the lyric are asking for. And that moment feels conspicuously similar to that idea. On the other hand, you then get Rainbow High, where the ensemble is singing eyes, hair, mouth, figure, which I think is crying out for that kind of super stylized and specific, like different move on each word of the song. TikTok esque choreography, but they don't really do it then. And there are moments of the choreo throughout that feel a little bit tick tocky. I don't know if this is a conscious choice that we're doing like Gen Z relevant Evita, or if it's just that we have performers in formation because it also feels a little bit Beyonce. It also feels more than a little bit like Janet Jackson Rhythm Nation, especially during Rainbow Tour. And they're giving it this and oh, it's just so good. There's so many great tango moments. I'm going to talk far more about the choreography as we talk talk about specific different numbers in the show, but it is a triumph, make no mistake. So I think the first real showstopper that we get is Buenos Aires. This becomes a really explosive dance break. It got an opening night standing ovation, but opening night performances, it's worth saying, occasionally offer slightly different conditions for standing ovations and excitement and enthusiasm because there is a kind of a buzz in the room on that night that can't necessarily be replicated. It is undeniably, though, an extraordinary production number. So is the money kept rolling in in the second act. And they are high energy. I mean, the songs musically lend themselves to that kind of energy. But the ensemble, every single person in this ensemble are killing themselves on that stage, dancing the hell out of Fabian's choreography. It is relentless and it is intense and it is just. Energy is the word that keeps coming back to me. It's explosive when with it. Never more so than in a new Argentina, which becomes this phenomenal riot on stage. It's exactly the energy that this number demands. Rachel is singing the absolute hell out of it, just sounding phenomenally great. You have all of the confetti shooting out. It's huge, it's loud, it's audacious, it's perfect. And what feels very Jamie Lloyd is that simultaneously you have a juxtaposition of big ideas and subtle ideas because you have the scale tale of this ocean of confetti soaking us in a monsoon of Argentinian flag colors. At the same time, you have Shay on stage being beaten up, crawling down the steps with fake blood smeared over his face, nursing his wounds in pain as Eva and Juan are celebrating in front of him. And because of that, some blood gets smeared onto an Argentinian flag that Juan Peron subsequently wields. And that is a very clever visual. Now, those are the big numbers that you might expect to be show stopping. When have I ever seen Evita before? And left the performance saying, wow, Rainbow Tour was a highlight. I hate the song Rainbow Tour. It's normally abysmal. Let's hear it for the Rainbow Tour. It's been an incredible success. And it's very important to the narrative because it's a song in which they talk about the goodwill PR Tour that Ava does after the election, after singing Don't Cry for Me, Argentina and doing Rainbow High and becoming the political gift diva that she was always meant to be. She tours around Europe and visits Spain and Italy and France and plans to go to London. It doesn't go well. And that's what the song is about. And this is when we get to peak, like Janet Jackson Rhythm Nation choreography, and it turns into a parade. And it's so well staged, it's so excitingly staged that it manages to be kind of like the peak number of the show. But it's worth saying as well that songs like Rainbow High and Rainbow two Tour, I think, lend themselves the best to the aesthetic and the concept of the whole thing with Evita as a pop superstar, because Rainbow High is her with an entourage being like, you have to make me a star. And then Rainbow Tour is her actually doing it and touring around the world. Those numbers really land this concept. Where it gets a little bit more unstuck is when we then get into the already conceptual song Waltz for Ava and Shay. Now, in the traditional stagings of the show, everything has been more naturalistic. And this is the moment where Ava, sort of, for the first time, I think, in the musical, responds to Shay, her critic, and the two of them, as the title suggests, waltz around together and sing a song of this ideological back and forth in which he levels criticisms at her shortly before her death. And she responds with counterpoints as he's saying, like, why did you not seek to resolve all of this? Why did you participate in a broken system? And she says, what would you have had me do? Etc. Etc. Now, this normally sort of floats up out of the realism of the whole thing and takes place in this sort of otherworldly plane between the two of them, because, you know, he's not really there. He's not quite a literally understood character in this version because it's also conceptual and it's also aesthetically Divorced. It's not clear to us what Waltz for Ava and Shay is or in which world it's meant to be taking place. And I'm not sure that there is a clear answer in the production either. I feel like you do something more abstract and then you get to a song like this that has always been abstract and separate from the rest of it, and then you don't really know where to take it. So the two of them have this sexual tension that turns into actual combat. And she's punching him and she's grabbing him in private places and kicking him down sets of steps, and they're fighting over the microphone, which is a detail throughout the show that I do enjoy, actually, when she snatches the microphone. Microphone from him. And this whole. And. And it's this whole representation of, like, who has the power, who gets to speak. But I think the rest of the show wounds any chance that that number has of being impactful. And it's at the end of that number that she calls on her political staff to pour blood and blue and white paint over Diego as Shea, who has, for reasons unclear to us, stripped of his own volition during the song. He does so in a slightly sassy way, but at the point that he's removed, removing his microphone, belt and pack and all of that stuff, it becomes clear that he's just doing it in anticipation of having all these liquids poured over his head. And this is another moment that I vaguely remember being more impactful at Regent's park, because at the time it spoke to a sort of a tar and feathering political punishment. And I remember there being feathers or something that they actually poured over him afterwards. I'm sure that there was some sort of debris. I remember the blue and the white paint. I don't necessarily remember the blood of it all, but it felt in many ways more brutal, but also more specific. And this just feels like pouring liquid over a man in black boxer shorts. And I don't want to be part of the crowd that just says, like, Jamie Lloyd reusing the same ideas over and over again. Because there are plenty of directors who reuse similar ideas. And in truth, the people saying that haven't seen the vast majority of Jamie Lloyd's work. But I don't think this works as well as the version that I remember from the previous production I mentioned. Goodnight and thank you, the song in which Shay is wittily bidding goodbye to all of the different men in Ava's life as she is moving from one to the next. They've done something with the harmonies in the chorus here, where she's singing his line and he's singing hers, but they're both up the octave. I just don't like the way it sounds. It's better when she reprises it subsequently with Peron after. I'd be surprisingly good for you. I really hate it the first time around. I'm so sorry. I love every other music musical choice in this production. It sounds stunning. Alan Williams has done, once again, an exemplary job. I don't like that harmony choice, and that's not for dramaturgical reasons. I just don't think it sounds good to have them both up there being like. In fact, they rely on. In fact, they rely on. It just. It hurts me. Now I mentioned the song. I'd be surprisingly good for you. This once again uses dance in a compellingly exciting way because Ava and Juan are kind of sniffing around each other and both trying to. Trying to assert their own power over the budding relationship that is blooming. And there's a fantastic representation of this when rather than simply falling into each other's arms and dancing, they walk slowly and purposefully towards each other from opposite sides of the stage, while two members of the ensemble dance a deeply passionate Argentine tango a few steps above them, in between them, in gorgeous lighting. Love that moment. It's phenomenal. Now, I said that Rainbow Tour was a surprise to me, but Peron's latest flame in the first place act has always been a banger. It may be my favorite song in the show, which sounds like a ridiculous thing to say, but it's true. Peron is a fool breaking every taboo. It has some great green and orange lighting. I'm telling you, John Clarke's lighting throughout this show, so excellent. And we get a great juxtaposition of the upper classes resentment of her and the men in the military and their resentment of her, which are coming from very different places, but form this cohesive chorus of opposition. What I particularly love about this and what almost feels metatheatrical, but they don't really acknowledge it, is that you have. Have this army, literally, of blokes encircling her and calling her a slut and a. And she's like, doing this and she's, like, toying with them. And it feels like it's nodding to the very real backlash that Rachel Zegler has experienced, often from the misogynistic far right incels, often from those kind of circles. And so it works for me on multiple, multiple levels. But of course, if we are talking about specific Numbers within the show. We have to talk about Don't Cry For Me, Argentina and the balcony of it all and the public performance of it all and the screen of it all. Are people being shortchanged? Are they walking angrily out of the theater? Well, no, they're not and no, they aren't. But let me tell you why. Now, I shared some thoughts about this prior to. To getting to see it either in person, outside or inside the theater. Having done both, I now I'm of the suspicion, this is my thesis, that this is not a moment for the audience outside. I know when it began happening and people were seeing it on socials or in person, they were saying, oh, this is fantastic. Because, you know, she's not singing for the bourgeoisie inside. This moment doesn't belong to them. She's going outside and she's singing to the people. People just like Eva was during this song. That's what Don't Cry For Me, Argentina is. She is addressing directly the descomisados, who she was among upon the political victory of her husband, Juan Peron, upon his election. And she's saying, I never left you I am still one of you. That's what the song is about. As for fortune, as for fame, I never invited them in Though it seemed to the world they were all I desired. She is assuring the people that she will remain one of them in her heart and in her soul. I kept my promise don't keep your distance. And yet, both in the context of the material and in the context of this production, it's not really for them. The audience outside representing the des camisados, the shirtless ones, the ones who are outside of the theatre, who didn't pay for tickets, even though tickets are not wildly expensive and start at £25, it's worth pointing out they are actually just a prop, both for Eva Peron in that moment, for her political image and for the production. Because we see her on the screen, we see her walking out in the balcony. It's breathtaking because we finally see her in the wig and the dress. But when we follow her out onto the balcony and we pan around and you see this extraordinary crowd of people on Argyle street who have once again turned up live that night to hear her sing this song, it is shocking. And it gets a gasp of response in the auditorium just to see that. And it gets applause. That's the moment where they start to really clap when they see the crowd. And so the crowd are being invoked here, I think, as a prop for the performance. And she Delivers the whole thing to camera. At the end of it, she turns to the camera and sings. Have I said too much? There's nothing more I can think of to say to you. And if the whole thing was being performed to the descomisados on the street, she'd be looking at them. She's looking at us because. Because it is for us. Even though she's not in the room, even though she's performing it to a camera via screen, it is for us. They're just using the balcony as a balcony and they're using the people on the street as props, basically, which is kind of ingenious. And they represent a great plot point here, which is the love that the people had for Ava and the political power that she obtained from that. Now, all of that being said, this is no longer camera work as designed and crafted. Crafted by the stage debut award winning video designers of Sunset Boulevard, Nathan Amzi and Joe Ransom. I believe that they have subsequently parted ways, at least for now, with the Jamie Lloyd Company. They're working on a handful of other shows. And this is the same video design team who I think were working on Romeo and Juliet. And you can tell because the quality is similar. It's great video design and the clarity and still the way that they're doing it and the way that she is synchronized with the orchestra and the sound, it is perfect. It's almost too perfect. There's a quality that this has and that Romeo and Juliet had that Sunset didn't. Sunset always felt like it was live. And this somehow doesn't because it's perhaps a little too produced because the screen it's projected onto is this ultra wide screen that feels sort of beyond cinematic. It doesn't feel like we're seeing real life. It's almost too polished. If it weren't for different collections of audience members on the street every night, then we're. You could get suspicious because she also performs it so perfectly. But between that and all of the crossfades that they edit in, it just lacks a little bit of immediate authenticity. It doesn't feel like we're seeing something live. And there was a theatrical quality to all of the filming and all of the camera work in Sunset Boulevard that I really valued. Perhaps it's almost just a little too steady here as well. There's just something about it that's too perfect and too polished. I think there are some great shots and some great moments when darker colors in the frame allow it to become translucent because it's projected onto this semi translucent backdrop. And you can see the orchestra behind, and that gives it a very organic quality because we hear her and we see the orchestra, so we're seeing and experiencing something real, even though she's singing the song outdoors. I think the whole thing has been a tempest in a teapot, basically. And once again, it's far more interesting to me to do something original and interesting, innovative than having her stand on a stage and sing the same song beautifully in a white dress. Once again, they've been doing that for decades. I also think, given that it does have a cinematic feel, it's puzzling that they don't use the screen until the start of the second act. And they use it both for this number and for the subsequent High Flying Adored. This is the first time that Diego starts to puzzlingly unro because he takes his ship shirt off. And then we have this glowy orange lighting and we see Rachel backstage at a mirror, taking the blonde wig off and having a little bit of a cry to herself. He looks like he's Jesus seeing Gethsemane. She looks like she's Fanny Brice in Funny Girl, singing the music that makes me dance. And I'm deeply confused because neither of these things feel like High Flying Adored. But her eventual return to the stage is triumphant. What I was going to say is that it's weird that we don't use the cinema screen outside of these two moments, particularly at the beginning of the show, which takes place in a cinema, and it would give it a little bit more continuity. It'll be less of a surprise when we then see the screen at the start of the second act. I think maybe there's a moment to use it at the very beginning, and then it goes away and then it comes back. Perhaps now to begin moving towards the end of what I suspect has been my longest theatrical review ever. Let's talk about the performances, beginning, of course, with leading lady and so star Rachel Zegler, who is phenomenal in this and who first and foremost is singing this score so beautifully, so powerfully. Any naysayers that she wasn't vocally appropriate for this role have been well and truly squashed by the vocal performance that she is giving nightly. I've seen two performances as well as the Balcony Experience, and she's such a compellingly consistent vocalist, but it's also such a healthy vocal because it's not an Alphabet. So scream. It's like a healthy head, voice, chest mix, but with moments of undeniable power and grit. When she's belting out a new Argentina but in Don't Cry For Me and you Must Love Me, it's a really healthy sop inclusive placement and I love the idea that she is popularizing for young musical theatre performers a very healthy and classically inclusive way of singing. It's a clean vocal, but it's passionate, it's emotive, it sounds just gorgeous. It is, I think, the best a new Argentine Argentina I've ever heard, which is forever my favorite moment of the score for any Ava. Way more interesting than Don't Cry for Me Argentina. Like, that song's fine, but a new Argentina, that's. That's where we can really get into the meat of the characterization vocally. And speaking of characterization, it's fascinating to me that she so instantly discards the notion of likability. She is not trying to endear herself to an audience here. She is arriving with authority and like I said, pop star power, parents poses and just a shred of indignance and attitude. And it's a very warts and all depiction of Ava's ruthlessness and ambition, really. From the offset, even when she is basking in the love of the people, she is sort of winking and eyebrow raising to Diego as Shay, as if to say, see, look how loved I am. And it has a lot to do also perhaps with the way that she reads on stage. This is another early criticism from people who hadn't yet seen her in the role. And I do think before saying anything about her performance, you have to see this production because the version of Eva Peron that she's playing is not one that you will necessarily recognize. Because she does read so youthfully on stage and because she does seem just like such an ingenue, undeniably to look at her, she doesn't have to go about playing the youth and the naivety that all comes across naturally. So she gets to be ambitious and calculating from the beginning and the rest will take care of itself. She can discard that likability and she can play the guile and the cunning and the manipulative quality even as she's doing Don't Cry For Me Argentina, which I think is perfectly done and we see it in, you know, blown up HD quality. It is perfectly sung, but it is also perfectly acted where there is this shred of humanity and truth emerging. But it's also carefully crafted and carefully.
- [54:01]
Richard Karn
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- [54:31]
Diego Andres Rodriguez
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- [55:12]
Bella Brown
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- [55:33]
Mickey Jo
Put together and it's, you know, a deliberate political speech of a song. There are moments towards the end of that where in the corner of her smile, in the slight raise of an eyebrow, and it is very subtle work that she's doing sometimes facially as a brilliant screen actress as well as a stage age, one that really lands the characterization at play. There's just this slightest hint of sinister edge, which I find so delicious. Also, as far as the conversation goes around the perception of her age and whether she's too young for the role, they have cast young leads as Shay and Peron alongside her, possibly deliberately around her because, you know, she's the big star name here. And yet they don't seem to be enduring any of the same kind of criticism that she is that Nicole she Gerzinger got in Sunset Boulevard. Once again, it seems like we're scrutinizing only the woman in the cast for her age, which is obviously incredibly surprising and not something I think has ever happened before in media. There's so much that she's doing here as Ava, I think she has the most challenging version of this show that any actress has perhaps ever had before, because of all of the dance that she's doing, because of all of the time that she is spending still on stage, because she gets no breaks even between songs, even in the pause that she would normally get in High Flying Adored, she is running around backstage between different parts of the London Palladium, and she's singing the hardest part of High Flying Adored when it suddenly moves up into the higher register while she's walking up a set of stairs making direct eye contact with a camera. Now, I mentioned that I don't think that she is offered a particularly satisfying arc from the beginning. I think she gets more nuance that she is allowed to. To play in the second act because she's been this very ambitious young woman and because she reads younger, it's a frustrating surprise to her that her body is deteriorating and she is clearly impatient about it, and she clearly resents it and doesn't want to acknowledge the reality of her condition. That being said, I think we also have sizable storytelling problems within the production in the second act, and her actual succumbing to the illness is not portrayed with a great deal of subtlety. That's a direction thing as well as a performance thing because, and I'm not a medical expert, but she's going from fronting these huge choreographed production numbers to basically being unable to walk instantly. Now let's talk about her co star, the remarkable Diego Andres Rodriguez, alongside her, making an impeccable West End debut. He was still graduating, I believe, when he was cast in Sunset Boulevard on Broadway, Broadway as Artie and as an understudy for Joe Gillis. I actually got to see him play Joe Gillis the first time that I saw Sunset on Broadway, and he was brilliant, and he can clearly deliver the Jamie Lloyd of it all very well. There are some similarities between the Shay and Ava dynamic, as there are with the Jo and Norma one, not in their relationship, necessarily, but in terms of him being a little more emotionally withdrawn in the face and her getting to be more excited, expressive. And he can deliver that particular Jamie Lloyd stylistic choice very well. I do think that with a character like Shay, it's a little bit inhibiting, specifically of his ability to convey a lyric. And Shay's lyrics are fundamental. They are so important. He's offering this incisive political commentary on her and the whole situation and the country. So we really need a sense of connection to that lyric and what it means. But everything that he's singing in the show, the dancing he's doing doing in the show, the physicality of his entire performance and the characterization of his performance with this angry young man quality, but with a charm and a passion alongside it, is so good. I think he is an incredibly exciting talent and he's wonderful. He shines in every single moment that he's on stage. They both do. He has some roof raising moments of vocal as well, particularly in high flying. Adored in the Money Kept Rolling In. Oh, my God. The high notes he added. Are you kidding me? He is wholeheartedly committed to every split second of this production and this kind of rock star Persona beyond that. It's a little difficult to glimpse who exactly Shay is meant to be in this production, but I think that is paired with a little bit of a confusion around exactly who Ava is. The most impressive element perhaps is just that he squares up to her as thoroughly as he does and as confidently as he does because she, she has such presence and such power and such personality for such a tiny little performer. And he offers the most confident and powerful rebuttal to that. I do have mixed feelings about. This is a spoiler alert for the end of the show. The post death growl that he does. That's sort of Beetlejuicey after he's been splattered in paint. Whatever we take from that moment. And he's lying on the ground and he's holding a handheld microphone. Microphone. And he's giving it what's new Buenos Aires. Like he's in a horror movie. And I was just a little bit like, oh, what are we doing? And it grew on me a little more the second time I was seeing the show. And it makes us sit up and pay attention to a very important section of dialogue as he's talking about the deterioration of Argentina's finances and the rationing and all of the other problems that have arisen in the bankruptcy, bankruptcy under Peronism and the intimidation and suppression of the press. And it is chillingly delivered. I think it just took me a moment to get used to it. And finally completing this leading trio of American performers imported into the West End is James Olivas, the young man who is playing Colonel Juan Peronc, significantly younger than many of the other actors who have portrayed this role in the past. He works very well with Rachel. He still feels like an older presence for her, but there's not an ick factor which is great. And it allows him, through that to find different qualities in Peron than we have perhaps seen before. And he can Be a very cut and dry character. But he feels a little more romantic here with James's performance. He has quite a romantic quality to his baritone singing voice, as well as that lovely little bit of resonance in his lower range. But it means that once he is elected as president, he feels like a sort of foolish optimist who has achieved this political power. He doesn't necessarily know what to do with the two of them as they are observing problems, huge problems happening within the country under their leadership. Feel like ambitious kids out of their depth, which is a nice different quality to find in the production and their relationship, I think, even if it's not necessarily representative of the real history. And he has this unflinching focus and this really imperious sense of presence from his very first entrance. What's really great is we then get to see a vulnerability and a sadness as he is holding Rachel as Ava when she's singing you Must Love Me, which ends with a really brutal directing choice because he walks away from her as she is singing the title lyric over and over again. And he pulls down a young member of the ensemble and kisses the them in his grief. Which reminded me immediately of that statistic about how many men divorce their wives during or immediately after they receive cancer treatment. Now, speaking of his other women, we absolutely have to talk about Bella Brown, who is playing the Mistress, which is a great single song showcase for a rising star. She is also the alternate Eva Peron for Rachel. I am so intrigued about what her performance is going to be like in this really demanding, spectacular role, because they are very different performers. Performers. Her vocal rendition of Another Suitcase in Another Hall, a very iconic song in its own right, is sensational. And I've said this about a previous production, but I enjoyed it once again. The hardest part of the phrase and the highest part of the phrase was delivered with such confidence, and I've heard it so many times, just eased off of a little bit. But she really leans into the what happens now. It's so good. I'm not sure that we get as strong a sense of what the song necessarily means here. I like the little blue wig that they've given her. It reminded me of Natalie Portman in the film. Is it close Closer when she's playing a sex worker. That was the vibe I kind of got from this characterization. But I liked the kind of stoic sadness that Bella brought to the entire vocal performance. And alongside all of this seriousness and the depth, we also get some moments of comedy, principally delivered to us by Aaron Lee Lambert as Agustin Magaldi. He is very funny at the beginning, singing fantastically as well. This is a great role for him. And one really winning moment with a young child performing performer who is costumed in the likeness of Eva Peron, who walks out as if at a political rally or a concert, a celebration of her of some sort, and sings a song of love to Ava before getting to the front of the stage after slowly walking down these steps, singing sweetly and childishly and beautifully, and then demands her payment from one of the political gentlemen nearby to Avon, then turns and says something to Rachel, who was like, not yet, not yet. It's such a great moment. Landed really well by, I think, the two different child performers who I've seen do it in the show. But that, if you can believe it, brings me to the end of the notes that I made several pages of notes about this production. There has been so much to say, there has been so much conversation generated by it before it even began performances. I think people are going to continue talking about it. There is a little bit of division in the way that it that it's been received critically, and I feel personally as though I'm between two very opinionated groups because I respect and I understand and I appreciate the power of this production and the energy of it and the excitement of it and the buzz of it. And I really drank all of that in and it really impressed me in many ways. At the same time, I don't think it's obnoxious, pretentious art, but I do think that it's neglects somewhat the value of clarity in storytelling and left me a little too unmoved to give it a higher star rating. I think that's where I ended up. Both of these things can be true. Functionally, it's a brilliant and fascinating and compelling piece of event theater that behaves as a great companion piece to an existing understanding of the musical of Vita. So my advice remains to familiarize yourself with the plot, whether that means listening to a cast album, just reading the synopsis on Wikipedia before you go, or watching the movie, and then go and check it out for yourselves at the London Palladium, because in spite of all of its shortcomings and all of its successes, it is regardless, event theatre, which is not to be missed. Everyone is going to be talking about this all summer and you need to make sure that you go and see it. In the meantime, thank you for listening to my review. If you have already seen Evita at the London podcast Palladium, please weigh in in the comments section down below. Did you love it? Did you hate it? Were you somewhat torn like myself and Natalie Imbruglia? Let us know whatever you thought. I hope that you enjoyed listening to my review. Make sure that you're subscribed right here on YouTube. Stay tuned for more theatrical reviews and other theatre themed coverage coming very soon on here as well as on podcast platforms. And I hope that everyone is staying safe and that you have a stagey day. For 10 more seconds, I'm Minky Jo Theatre. Oh my God. Hey, thanks for watching. Have a stagey day. Subscribe.
- [66:57]
Rachel Zegler
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Mickey Jo
It's a hot take.
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Rachel Zegler
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Mickey Jo
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Rachel Zegler
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- [67:27]
Richard Karn
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