Earlier today, I told you about my friend Valerie Perri who I knew before she became an important star of musical comedy. We have here now a fuzzy but watchable clip of her starring in Evita in the original Chicago production of the show.
I saw her in it two and a half times at the Shubert in L.A., the half being a viewing of Act One from the wings. I was over in Century City for a meeting at ABC. When I left, people were going into the Shubert for a matinee and because I had some time to kill, I went over to the stage door and told the man there, "I'm a friend of Valerie Perri's." Usually they call and check but to my surprise, he just let me in. My whole time there, in fact, no one ever asked who I was or questioned my right to be on the backstage premises.
I didn't want to disturb Valerie when she was about to go on so I wandered over to an off-stage post and watched the whole first act standing there, dodging as set pieces and actors went on and off. At one point, the fellow playing Che Guevara (not Mandy Patinkin; his replacement) crashed into me and he apologized more profusely than I did, even though I was the one who wasn't supposed to be there.
I stood there for the entire first act waiting to either be thrown out or for Valerie to have an exit on that side of the stage and notice me. Neither happened. Having killed the time I had to kill, I left at Intermission and on the way out, Che Guevara spotted me and apologized three more times. The real Che wouldn't have apologized once.
I liked that visit better than the previous two times but I thought I liked that show. Then a few years later when I was dragged to a production of Evita that she was not in, I realized I didn't like Evita. What I liked was Valerie. You know how sometimes a favorite star can be in a really, really bad movie but you enjoy watching it anyway because of them?
So I don't like Evita. I know there are some folks who reflexively loathe everything Andrew Lloyd Webber has ever done but I don't feel that way. Matter of fact, just about the only thing I like about Evita if Valerie isn't in it is his music. I think most of the lyrics are silly, written by someone who wasn't sure if he was writing for people who lived in Argentina in 1952 or New York in the seventies. And the book is a story that is of no interest to me about people who are of no interest to me. There are some nice moments of musical dramatics and when the budget is sufficient, some great staging tricks…but they do not add up to a great musical.
Here's a nice moment with Valerie playing Eva Perón. A friend of mine who saw her in it also saw Patti LuPone, who first played the role on Broadway. He said to me, "I thought Valerie was the better singer but I really liked the fact that with Patti, you couldn't understand the words." With some shows, it almost helps…