(seen at the afternoon preview performance on 26th June 2025)
The original London production was one of the first musicals the monkey ever saw. Revolutionary (no pun intended) in its time, it has no doubts that were director extraordinaire Hal Prince alive to see this production, he would be standing there at the end, screaming at the stage, “that’s it! that’s it!”
Never has a title character been interpreted so literally as Jamie Lloyd expands on the stunningly original Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre production with all the extra potential the Palladium’s enchanted stage offers.
Rachel Zegler’s Evita is a child-like figure of calculating brain, who puts her stunning physical looks to use manipulating men who can take her from poverty to megastar status. There is no emotional growth-arc, only driving ambition – until her final moments... and it works.
Zegler is so unique in the role that it is impossible to imagine anyone else in this version of the show. Her personal energy, physicality, triple-threat (singer / dancer / actor) skills are the only focus of the entire production, very much echoing Madonna in the 1996 film version.
Jamie Lloyd’s deliberate choice to focus solely on Evita, relegating everything else to functions of her will is the show’s strength and weakness. Zegler hardly leaves the stage, and when she is on, nobody watches anything else. The ultimate distraction allowing a dictatorship to evolve in a relentless overwhelming sensational rock concert.
You see what the monkey did there, distracting its reader by drawing attention to what the actress wants you to hear? The truth is, what goes on behind Evita is gut-wrenchingly sickening – a razor-sharp contrast to our leading lady’s Chuckie-the-doll act – and it is immediately visible at the slightest glance away from where she wants you to look.
Choreographer Fabian Aloise uses Soutra Gilmour’s simple steps to chart the movements of the ruling and underclasses' social progress. They can move up a step, down one, or slide along; maybe even dramatically roll over several.
The entire cast fall into line behind a leader, shy away or are drawn to the newest powerplay. Chilling murders at the prick of a balloon, brutal beatings contrast with a less than innocent child (Ffion Rosalie Williams – outstandingly wicked, scene-stealer at this performance) in mini-me outfit.
The rock concert styles never cease, an ensemble always at risk of splitting into factions, being united or divided for a cause, representing the bourgeoisie or military, peasants, students, politicians. Each takes many characters in the show, special talents who are unforgettable on this precarious stairway of life.
With Evita always in control of them as acolytes and enemies, aided later by henchmen of the political regime, those who do her bidding - or not - have opportunities to be noticed, for at least a while, as they play their parts.
Diago Andres Rodriguez as Che is no longer the dispassionate commentator. His attacks and the responses to them are personal, leaving him literally naked and bloodied physically and politically.
Rodriguez deals with it all powerfully, Jon Clark’s lighting never better than when picking him out for some stunning moments. “High Flying Adored” is never more ironic, “Goodnight and Thank You” never more cynical in his hands.
James Olivas as Peron is also permitted to be (outstandingly well) the cold politician other interpretations of the show mostly reject. It is clear from the very first meeting with Eva that theirs is a transactional relationship.
“You Must Love Me” she sings to him as she fades in his arms. He kisses her, but it is an instruction, a demonstration and acknowledgement of what he owes her for his power, little more. And they both know it.
Aaron Lee Lambert and Bella Brown as Magaldi and The Mistress get their moments too.
Lambert’s hilariously well-pitched over-the-top corny “Night of a Thousand Stars” is rightly rebuffed by those less ambitious than a teenager knowing he is her exit ticket. A final meeting later is neatly played.
Brown evokes the monkey’s tears. Clad in an identical outfit to her successor, her delivery of “Another Suitcase In Another Hall” is even more brutal in this stark environment. Evita’s callous disposal of her final traces suggestive of what really happened to the waif we meet only briefly, but will not forget.
And as for the now infamous outdoor appearance. Yes, it’s lovely that so many can see, free-of-charge a high-flying adored star. If, as a paying member of the audience indoors you feel short-changed... the monkey says you are missing the point.
All those outdoors see is a girl they know, dressed to the nines. Indoors, the appearance is so phenomenally clever – with a brilliant pre-show and a live re-appearance that will blow your socks, indeed anything below the waist, off – that you almost cannot think of the scenes being staged any other way.
Same goes for the whole production, really. The real story is about a regime as evil as Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and any other global dictatorship. As told here, that evil is made to glitter. A tramp, a treat, that will shine to the death.
In a lifetime of success, this event will never be repeated. See it if you can.
Standing ovation given.
