From Stage To Stream: A Faithful ‘Evita’ That Has Little Bite

Movie musicals are a unique genre in that they are often adaptations of another medium: the stage musical. It’s a tricky transition from stage to film, which is why movie musicals are often unwieldy ventures — often subject to an audience that’s ambivalent toward the genre as well as a rabid Broadway fan base who want to see their beloved stage productions get a faithful treatment on film. Writer and performer Ben Rimalower takes a look at how these musicals fare on film, beginning with the 1996 adaptation of Evita.

As a theater queen and Broadway star Patti LuPone’s number-one fan, I have very mixed feelings about Alan Parker’s 1996 movie version of Evita, starring Madonna.

Evita began life in 1976 as a concept album by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, something of a continuation of the sung-through narrative style the duo had pioneered on the “rock opera” Jesus Christ Superstar, but the two works differ in musical style. The score to Evita can be best described as pop opera, but it’s not actually either of those things. The world later saw several major works following in Evita’s footsteps, including Les Miserables and Lloyd Webber’s own The Phantom Of The Opera, and, although the genre has fallen out of favor, many new shows can trace a lineage to Evita.

Critics claimed the big ballad “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina” was derivative of The Beatles’ “Yesterday,” but the single was an international hit and Lloyd Webber and Rice, eager to see their work on stage, secured influential Broadway visionary Harold Prince to direct. As the show triumphed worldwide, producer Robert Stigwood (who had produced the hit film Grease) naturally sought to transfer the success of Evita to the screen.

Various divas (Meryl Streep, Michelle Pfeiffer, Barbra Streisand, Liza Minnelli, even Charo) and directors (Streisand, Ken Russell, Oliver Stone) were floated as possibilities — but decades rolled by with no film being made. Movie musicals were scant and none were significant box-office successes (The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Little Shop of Horrors, A Chorus Line, and Annie were all commercial disappointments). Still, a generation grew up watching those movie musicals on home video, and then, in the early 1990s, Disney had major success with the animated musicals The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Lion King (the latter two of which featured lyrics by Tim Rice).

Madonna expressed interested in Evita and gossip resumed, on and off until 1995 when production actually began, under the helm of director Alan Parker, who had shown unique versatility on dramatic fare (Mississippi Burning, Midnight Express) as well as quasi-musicals (Pink Floyd: The Wall, Fame, and The Commitments).

In many ways, Parker’s film (based on Stone’s screenplay) accomplishes the impossible. With all the uncertainty over whether Evita would get made, the biggest challenge remained how it would get made — how to translate this intrinsically presentational, theatrical work to the screen.

Harold Prince had made magic opening up the concept album for the stage, but he had the luxury of a long theatrical tradition of breaking the fourth wall, as it’s called when a character addresses the audience directly. This “meta” style of storytelling, in which the audience is a visceral participant and must hold up its own crucial (if nonverbal) end of the conversation, was revitalized in the twentieth century by Bertolt Brecht, but it dates back to the Greeks with their choruses. Movies are inherently much less suited to this style and very few have successfully utilized it.

Evita employs this storytelling device in every scene, often cutting narrative corners by having the character of Che fill in blanks in the plot. On the whole in fact, the very presence of Che is a Brechtian element of Evita, as he only ever communicates with the audience, commenting on the action, save for a select few surreal interactions with Eva. How could this work on screen? The decision was made to strip Che of his original identity as Che Guevara, rendering him an Argentine everyman — a more relatable conduit for the viewers. Particularly as played by the ingratiating Antonio Banderas, this is a key reason for the film’s success.

The bigger problem looming, though, was how to make a contemporary film audience buy into a story told entirely through song. Recent successful movie musicals tended to feature characters who were actually singing within the context of the story, such as Cabaret, wherein the songs are performed at the nightclub, or Grease, in which the less serious tone allows for the possibility that characters spontaneously serenade each other at school, on the street, and at the drive-in. In both examples, the music offers enhancement rather than bearing actual narrative responsibilities. In Evita, the songs are the thing.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4KgJTAAiGk]

Impressively, and surprisingly, the Evita movie managed to navigate this issue very well. One major coup was the securing of a large budget to vividly and elaborately capture historical sequences that were merely alluded to or suggested without literal representation on stage. The power of seeing all these things in full realistic sweep carries a lot of weight in Parker’s film. These are, after all, historical events.

Perhaps even more ingenious is Parker’s use of MTV-style quick cutting and contrasting audio and visuals. If the new generation was unaccustomed to watching movie musicals, they were very used to watching music videos; Parker took many cues from the genre to render Evita for an audience potentially alienated by an old-school MGM approach. At times, these visuals are set to a voice-over of the score, cutting back to the singer’s face in some specific location enough to maintain connection with the disembodied voice, or sometimes simply showing the character continuing to sing the song within whatever shot the camera is on, although many months and miles may have passed since the previous verse. This affords the added benefit of backstory to give context to the scenes. Eva and Juan Peron come across as real people in the movie more than on stage because we see their actual lives represented rather than tap dancing.

Unfortunately, and in spite of these achievements, the Evita movie fails in some crucial ways it really could and should have succeeded.

On stage, Evita was unfairly criticized for glorifying fascism. While Eva Peron is to some degree exalted by Evita’s glamorous rag-to-riches approach, the show does not shy away from the Perons’ despotic transgressions, and also focuses on the salacious ways Eva made it to the top.

In this important area, the movie, however, does not hit its mark. Much of the film was shot on location in Argentina, including the actual Casa Rosada, where the President lives (and where Eva delivers Evita’s most recognizable number, “Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina”). While this undoubtedly lends a cool verisimilitude to the proceedings, I suspect it came at too high a cost. In 1995, Argentina was ruled by a Peronist administration. I doubt so much access being granted came without some concession by the production to soften its portrayal. In any case, the movie is diminished by its lack of the show’s edgier sequences. Part of the thrill of the show is the villainess you love to hate, and a toothless Evita has no bite.

Of course, the main casualty of this is Madonna’s performance. It’s unfortunate that such a dynamic artist turns in such a lukewarm Evita. That’s not to say Madonna fails completely; her portrayal has several things going for it.

For one, Madonna’s mere presence is singularly iconic. When you see her face emblazoned on the Peronist posters and banners, you feel something akin to what Argentines felt seeing the real Eva’s face, far more than had any other actress been cast, no matter how talented. And watered down characterization aside, Madonna does a pretty good job acting the part. Say what you will about her other movies (and I think she’s quite good in Desperately Seeking Susan and A League Of Their Own), Madonna is convincing as Eva — moving even. All the more pity that she wasn’t given the chance to bring her notorious flair.

Musically, she’s fine. She sounds pretty, and while she lacks the fireworks of Broadway’s Patti LuPone, her more intimate sound often works well enough for the cinematic experience. Unfortunately, Madonna’s vocal limitations necessitated some changing of keys, so the score is not sung in the exciting range originally chosen to convey the power and harangue of Eva’s famously impassioned rhetoric. The net result is a flicker where they should be inferno.

People unfamiliar with the stage Evita may enjoy the movie on its own terms, but they are unlikely to count it as a favorite anything — even Madonna fanatics would probably prefer to watch Truth or Dare or The Girlie Show. For theater lovers, whatever the let-downs of Evita, there is the comfort that the greatest obstacles to the film’s success were met head-on, which is tremendously encouraging for the future of movie musicals, whatever quibbles one may have. Indeed, the last 18 years or so since the movie opened have seen many more movie musicals produced, some to great success.

Ben Rimalower is a writer and performer, best known for his one-man shows Patti Issues and Bad With Money.

 

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Photos: Buena Vista; Courtesy Everett Collection