CRY FOR EVITA WITH SRO PRODUCTIONS

A first lady seeks national office on a centrist platform after already spending years in the public eye, but her position is threatened by a socialist who advocates revolution, calls her corrupt, and criticizes her willingness to work within the existing system. That’s the story of Evita, the Andrew Lloyd Weber and Tim Rice musical about the life of Argentina’s Eva Peron that is being staged by SRO Productions and will be presented at Johnson City’s Schorr Family Firehouse Stage the 3rd-4th, and 10th-12th of June.

Evita follows the life of its title character, who married Argentina’s president Juan Peron, became a much-admired advocate for his “third-way” political philosophy of Peronism (which claims to reject both Capitalism and Communism, and is the stated ideology of the Judicialist Party, still the largest in Argentina’s congress), founded the world’s first women’s political party, attempted to be nominated Vice President against the opposition of the military, and was given the official title of Spiritual Leader of the Nation before her death from cancer at the young age of 33.

Eva Peron still claims a devoted following, as does Che Guevara, the globetrotting (but Argentine-native) socialist revolutionary who serves as the musical’s ironic narrator. But for the SRO production’s director (and SRO board member) Scott Fisher, the political implications and echoes of the piece were something to be discovered later in the process of rehearsal.

“We chose this show at least nine months ago,” he says “It was quite a bit before the primaries came so much to the forefront of the news. We wanted to do something that would need a larger cast and involves more of our community, and something that had string name recognition – something people were familiar with but that hadn’t been done in the area.”

But as the rehearsal process went on, Fisher found that hearing echoes of current events was inevitable – and that it could be helpful artistically as well, without creating a need to make the production itself an overt political statement.

“We decided that Che seems a little Bernie Sanders and she seems a little Hilary Clinton,” Fisher explained. “It’s not a perfect parallel, but it did prove useful. And I think that was enlightening to the actors too. I think they came in and assumed that author skewed it one or another – but I don’t think that’s true. We have influence over what we put out there. The characters have differing points of view, but we found they have common ground. We wanted to present the show in a way that didn’t necessarily tip to one point of view or another but let people make their own decisions.”

The political and historical nature of the work does influence how it has to be prepared, he found, explaining, “Right from the start I want the actors to have a point of view, and to be very certain they understand what it is. I’m finding that more so with this show than with others we’ve done, because there is that political aspect to it.”

But politics did not present the only challenges or areas of artistic exploration that Fisher was to explore. Evita first came to life as a rock concept album in 1978, and has since been reinvented as a major Broadway production and later revival, as well as a well-known 1996 film starring Madonna, Antonio Banderas, and Jonathan Pryce. As a result, Fisher and his cast had to deal with highly charged lyrics, as well as significant artistic decisions about how to present the work.

“It turned out to be way harder than I thought,” he told us. “I struggled for a while to find a balance between a representative, realistic presentation versus a more stylistic one. I researched and looked at what they did with the original production, and then I looked at the revival. I liked aspects of both, and I decided it would be best served if we melded the two. The structure of the show requires a bit of stylizing, but I wanted it to remain relatable. You always think about how you’re going to communicate things to the audience, and whether they will get it. You don’t want to hand it to them on a platter, and you also don’t want to make it so obtuse that they can’t get their minds around what’s happening. It requires balance to do things with a real theatrical twist but avoid alienating the audience.”

That task of making the events relatable while at the same time offering something new to theatregoers became a theme of the production. As Fisher points out, “There must be something about her that Eva Peron still elicits such strong reactions – over the top devotion and also contempt.” Peron was a populist, and like all successful populists could be said to have achieved the love of her people at the expense of ideological complexity or purity. Criticizing that role is where “the structure allows Che to interact when he wants, but then be above it and make his commentary on the action as well. It really does require a bit of theatricality.”

But in addition to the artistic challenges of bringing the piece to life, Fisher also had to deal with some more practical questions in his role as director. “There are so many costumes!” he told us. “That woman must have changed three times a day! There’s that iconic balcony scene that we actually had a dress custom made for the production – and it’s kind of awesome. It’s like four fee wide. Our costume designer is working overtime – especially when one character alone has ten or twelve costume changes throughout the show!”

SRO’s production of Evita stars Caitlin McNichol in the title role, Gene Czebiniak as Juan Peron, Andrew Simek as Che Guevara, Hannah Truman as Peron’s mistress, and Eric Bill as Augustin Magaldi, as well as many others as the people of Argentina. The hard-working costume designer was Jan McMahon and the specially commissioned dress was designed by Wilfred McDaniels.

Performances will be the 3rd, 4th, 10th, and 11th of June at 8pm, and June 12th at 2pm at the Schorr Family Firehouse Stage at 46-48 Willow Street in Johnson City. Tickets are $20 for adults and $18 for students and seniors, and can be purchased at sroproductionsonline.com or by calling (607) 722-2404.