Tag Archives: Matthew Primm

Evita’s “New Argentina” Suddenly Reeks of MAGA USA

**Review: Evita at Duke Performance Hall**

By Perry Tannenbaum

As women and as films, Evita and Melania will never be viewed as two of a kind. Yet in recent years, as Ms. Trump’s husband becomes more ceremonial, militaristic, and authoritarian, a mild kinship and a certain sisterhood have emerged between the two first ladies. There are only a few moments when the current Davidson Community Players’ production of the revered Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, directed with surprising ferocity by Steve Kaliski, seems to reference that kinship.

But there are many more instances when Eva Perón’s “New Argentina” brings present-day USA to mind in all its vulgar MAGA glory. Those happen whenever fervent religious enthusiasm is misdirected. Or when working-class people are talked up so they can be more easily exploited.

By juxtaposing Evita’s glamor, pragmatism, and humble origins with the mixture of street-smart cynicism, working-class empathy, and grudging admiration for homegrown “star quality” that we hear from Che, our narrator, Tim Rice’s libretto has always radiated a reasoned objectivity.

So Kaliski and his principals, Melissa Lozada and Neifert Enrique, aren’t reversing the political lean of Evita. They’re giving the music, the recitative, and the main characters a firm shove in a more malevolent direction.

Enrique is particularly startling, easily the most dominant Che we’ve had in the QC. This is a rock tenor who can produce piercingly strong falsetto treble and, minutes later, invade the bass clef so deeply that you wonder where that voice is coming from – and Enrique never makes the mistake of yielding to Lloyd Webber’s singsong to the extent that it dulls Che’s subversive edge.

In sum, Enrique is often powerful enough to make us see the charismatic Evita through his eyes. If you wanted to see the icon as a calculating seductress, who may or may not have gotten religion through her good fortune or failing health, Whitney Drury was perfection in Queen City Theatre Company’s 2010 production, both in the sexual predation that catapulted Evita to celebrity and in her terminal suffering.

On the other hand, if you wanted to be fascinated by an enigmatic Evita, one gifted with so much natural charm and regality that she refuted the whole concept of aristocracy, Lucia Stetson was ideal at Central Piedmont in 2018 – with no shortage of Evita vanity.

At Duke Performance Hall, on the Davidson College campus, Lozada is simply the meanest and most malignant Eva Perón you’ll likely ever see. Even her “star quality” has a punkish edge as she never quite sheds her peasant roots. There’s a somewhat ghoulish tinge that lingers softly on her final prideful declaration that she has brought her people closer “to the heart of Perón,” her autocratic husband, the nation’s president.

In that moment especially, our clueless Melania pales next to her. We must revert to the golden-haired Trump for a parallel.

Of course, if you saw Lozada in the title role of Electricidad last August, you may already be altering your plans for the final weekend of Evita.Or, if you witnessed Enrique in his most recent title-role triumph down in Matthews as The Prince of Egypt, you may be astonished to hear that his Che is as potent as his Moses.

They aren’t the only reasons why word-of-mouth touting Evita is spreading like a Lake Norman wildfire. Kaliski’s design team has also risen to the challenge of creating a spectacle to match the dimensions of the Duke. Most notable of these are costume designer Sarah Deutsch, lighting designer Kaylin Gess, choreographer Tod A. Kubo, and – perched high in the stratosphere behind the stage’s second scrim – the 10-piece band directed by Matthew Primm.

Upstaging and outsizing them all are the projections designed by Caleb Sigmon, beginning with what may be an actual Eva Perón film! Rice and Lloyd Webber wanted to simulate us all being gathered at a movie theater at the start of their musical when the flick is suddenly interrupted by the announcement of the beloved Evita’s death.

For the first time, this opening scene with its operatic choral requiem seemed prophetic, previewing the wailing and grief that is sure to engulf our streets, churches, and national monuments when 45/47’s number is up. The Amazing Tangerine tries so hard to alienate and disillusion his cult following. In vain, it seems.

Victimized by the wayward Halton Theater sound system when he portrayed Che in 2018, Ron Turner Diaz ages gracefully in the role of the militantly urbane Perón. Effortlessly, he conjures up the personality of a chieftain who will either succumb to Evita’s charm and chutzpah or slay her instantly. There’s a nice tension to their “I’d Be Surprisingly Good for You,” spiced with a tango tang of violence.

Lastly – except for dozens of aristocrats, lovers, family, military, children, and the citizen ensemble – there’s Tristan Nogueira, rounding out an all-Latino cast of major characters, conclusively answering the question of whether we have enough Hispanic talent in Charlotte to deliver a truly authentic Evita. If you saw Nogueira as the surprisingly skeptical Aaron in The Prince of Egypt, you’ll be pleasantly surprised by his transformation from the future High Priest into lounge lizard Agustin Magaldi, Evita’s first discard.

Extra bonus: Lindsay Litka-Montes sings “Another Suitcase in Another Hall” with a quiet, simmering bitterness as Juan’ s discarded Mistress.

More significant extra bonus: due to popular demand, an extra performance of Evita has been added to its closing weekend. This coming Sunday at 7pm.

Beginning at the Beginning at Cunningham Theatre Center

Before the news broke about the extra Evita performance, we returned to the Wildcats campus to usher in the summer – and celebrate Father’s Day – with Common Thread Theatre Company’s Beginning at the Beginning. Staged at the Cunningham Theatre Center, B @ the B was a miniature new play festival showcasing two works-in-progress with an intermission in between and a talkback with playwrights Brian Daye and David Scheonfeld afterwards.

This time, the trip up I-77 wasn’t quite as rewarding. Daye’s one-act, The Race, directed by Eric J. Little, was the better of the two pieces: more compelling action, fuller characterizations, and high-energy performances. Shawn Halliday portrayed the overtly racist Lavell Anderson, on death row as a convicted murderer awaiting execution, while Vanecia Boone was cast as his eleventh-hour appeals attorney, African American cub lawyer Cory Williams, understandably reluctant to take the case.

The two shrunken timeframes, the impending execution and the brevity of Daye’s script, short-circuited any racial animosities that may have clouded the budding attorney-client relationship between Cory and Lavell. He had undergone a religious transformation, and she, with even greater speed, is convinced of his innocence.

Worse, the case against Lavell, whether 19 years or three months old, is so laughably flimsy that it should never have been brought to court – unless the charge had been armed robbery. Lavell maintains that his accomplice, Vern McCluskey, was the trigger man and that he never fired his gun. Criminology or Forensics 101 are not prerequisites to knowing how Lavell’s assertion can be confirmed: anyone who has read a Perry Mason novel – the series began over 90 years ago – is aware of scientific tests that match a bullet with a gun and determine whether a person has recently used a firearm.

Open and shut. We also liked Isaac Hampton as the big, bigoted prison guard.

Scheonfeld’s Massage Group Therapy was even less fully developed and, consequently, less satisfying. Aside from a creep named John who bedevils at least half of the four masseuses, none of the playwright’s people were sufficiently fleshed out. It was a little awkward to see Justin Peoples as John upstaging the exploited women we’re intended to care about.

Even if Scheonfeld had made his massage parlor workers more distinctive, there would have been another tall obstacle to overcome for me. Switching roles from female lead to director, Boone did not insist that her players – or the dude reading stage directions – speak loudly enough to be heard.

B @ the B hits the road for its concluding weekend, resurfacing at North Carolina A&T University on June 27 and 28, up in Winston-Salem. For the time being, the more rewarding trip is to Davidson for the resumption of the Community Players’ Evita.

As for Winston, best to wait for the International Black Theatre Festival, July 27 through August 1. Charlotte’s own BNS Productions will be among the many fine Black companies there, presenting four performances of August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, afternoons and evenings on July 31 and August 1.

The Delphic Oracle Sings The Go-Go’s

**Review: Head Over Heels at Duke Family Performance Hall by Davidson Community Players**

By Perry Tannenbaum

Heaven, Elysium, Utopia, Paradise, and Arcadia are all perfect places in our minds, too placid and static to be considered as settings for comedy, thrilling action, or drama. If you were in search of a perfect backdrop for the music of The Go-Go’s, you would more likely pick a city on the California coast, Las Vegas, or even Indianapolis than opting for heaven or the Elysian Fields.

That’s not how Jeff Whitty saw it when he conceived Head Over Heels. You get the idea that, after birthing Avenue Q, Whitty almost had free rein from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival to do anything he pleased. Whether he was inspired by the Elizabethan aura of OSF’s outdoor and indoor stages in greeny Ashland, Oregon – or bound to play up to them – Whitty reached back to The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia by Sir Philip Sidney, first published by the Countess in 1593.

Whitty had absolutely no intention of bridging the two eras – or smoothing the discordance between Elizabethan and Go-Go’s English. Whitty does tone it down a bit when Philoclea, the younger daughter of Arcadia’s King Basilius, tells her ardent admirer Musidorus to “Speak English, not Eclogue” when the shepherd boy begins his wooings.

At about the time that Head Over Heels premiered at OSF in 2015, Something Rotten!, with Will Shakespeare as its rockstar, was premiering on Broadway. That might explain the lukewarm reception that greeted Whitty’s show when it had its NYC premiere in 2018, for its Broadway run fizzled out in less than six months.

You can judge for yourself at spacious Duke Family Performance Hall as Davidson Community Playhouse rather splendidly presents its summer musical in nearly all of its gender bending glory. For this Metrolina premiere, projection designer Caleb Sigmon, scenic designer Ryan Maloney, and costume designer Yvette Moten fill the Broadway-sized stage on the Davidson College campus with eye-popping color and Hellenic style.

With the disclaimer that I’d never heard a single bar of Go-Go’s music before Head Over Heels came to our region, I can say that I delved into The Go-Go’s greatest hits afterwards on Spotify and listened to the original Broadway cast album. From the opening “We Got the Beat” onwards, the two generations of singers up at Exit 30 on I-77 beat them both.

Word of DCP’s excellence has extended its reach, and director Chris Patton and music director Matthew Primm have reaped the benefits. Belting the Go-Go’s “Beautiful” to her own mirror, Jassi Bynum is the vain elder sister, Pamela (a name apparently invented by Sir Philip). No less capable of letting loose, Kiearra Gary is the obedient “Good Girl” sister, Philoclea. And the well-established powerhouse, Nonye Obichere, is Mopsa, who seems for awhile to be a third sister until we learn that she is actually the daughter of the King’s steward, Dametas.

When Mopsa’s heart is broken, she will flee to Lesbos (wink, wink) and sing “Vacation.” Obichere slays at least as convincingly as the sisters.

It’s easy enough to get confused by the parents because they’re all white folk who fit nicely into Sidney’s Grecian mold but look nothing like their offspring. Yet Lisa Schacher, not seen hereabouts in a truly breakout musical role since the early days of QC Concerts, keeps her where-have-you-been-all-my-life belting capabilities under wraps until after intermission as Gynecia, the Arcadian queen. We’re not just talking Judy Garland belting, for Schacher crosses over the borderline to Whitney Houston territory along with Bynum, Gary, and Obichere.

Once whatever was clogging Tommy Foster’s larynx in the first moments of Saturday night’s performance as Dametas was expelled, the longtime veteran reminded us that he could also wail. Saddled with a more earthbound voice, Rob Addison brings a nicely grizzled dignity to King Basilius that is forceful enough for the lead vocal of “Get Up and Go” and his climactic king-and-queen duet with Schacher, “This Old Feeling.”

Kel Wright, whose pronouns are Kel and I in her coy bio, is the gender-fluid complication roiling the eternal placidity of Arcadia. She is the ardent shepherd boy Musidorus, Philoclea’s bestie since her tomboy days, who must disguise himself as an Amazon warrior, Cleophila, after he’s banished from Arcadia in order to regain access to his lady love.

Everybody seems to be attracted to Cleophila, though they come to all the possible conclusions about the Amazon’s true gender. It’s a mess – a hormonal thundershower that afflicts the King, the Queen, and their daughters. All of them scurry about in a mad passion that comes off with all the innocent merriment of a musical comedy. Adding to all of this hilarity is the disconnect between Wright’s tinniness and the Amazon’s virility, so feverishly irresistible to Pamela and her mom.

All of this mad pursuit, however, happens under the cloud of a prophesy that threatens Arcadia’s doom. A snake sent by Pythio, the Delphic Oracle, lets loose of a letter summoning King Basilius to the temple to hear the Oracle’s oracle. In Sidney’s original manuscript, not recovered until 1908, the prophecy is given concisely in verse at the end of the novel’s opening paragraph.

Thy elder care shall from thy careful face

By princely mean be stolen and yet not lost;

Thy younger shall with nature’s bliss embrace

An uncouth love, which nature hateth most.

Thou with thy wife adult’ry shalt commit,

And in thy throne a foreign state shall sit.

All this on thee this fatal year shall hit.

Whitty actually retains the adultery line – with its apostrophe! – but flips the plotlines of the elder and younger daughters. In Arcadia, Basilius is seeking to preserve his family and kingdom, but in Head Over Heels, he’s also battling to ward off the mass extinction of Arcadians. Forget about the “fatal year”: Each time one of the four prophecies is fulfilled, a flag will fall. If Basilius fails to confound the Delphic Oracle’s prophecy and the fourth flag falls… game over. If he succeeds in thwarting the prophecy even once, Arcadia is saved.

The roadblock to all this heroic questing and defying taking hold at Duke Family is the sensational Treyveon Purvis as the glittery Pythio, who describes themselves as a “non-binary plural.” No, that isn’t verbatim from Arcadia. We don’t need to understand every word of “Vision of Nowness” instantly as Pythio bodaciously belts it. If you don’t catch a phrase the first time or Purvis slurs it, you’ll get a second chance. Besides, the Go-Go’s lyrics are of little consequence once the song is done.

But the four prophecies and the fluttery flag drops are the whole damn evening, so when Purvis garbled every one of Pythio’s pronouncements – and the flag bit as well – much of what followed became equally incomprehensible. Why were those flags falling again? Was Foster wildly excited when he caught those falling flags, or was his Dametas frantically panicked?

Never could get a read on all these things until I sorted them out later at home. A few other gems had eluded me when I perused the script. For example, when Wright is lavishing her outsized voice on Musidorus’s “Mad About You,” the shepherd’s backup group are his sheep, altering the Go-Go’s deathless lyric to “Ma-ad about ewe.” Bleating as they sang? I don’t remember.

Nor did it quite register that Pythio’s backup were all snakes. So there was little chance for me to savor Purvis’s best line of the night: “Snakelettes, slither hither!” They are only named that one time, so catch it if you can.

Arguably, the main historic aspect of Head Over Heels was that it offered Peppermint, as Pythio, the opportunity to be the first openly trans actor taking on a major role on Broadway. There’s summery breeziness to this show and a cozy ending, not nearly as biting as Avenue Q. Maybe if the Broadway production had had the chance to run for a full summer, it might have found its legs instead of perishing in the dead of winter.

It’s the Go-Go’s, after all. Just don’t go in expecting the usual Jack-shall-have-Jill windup. Whitty remains a bit queer.