There’s nothing wrong with the quality of singing or dancing in the Country Dinner Playhouse’s new production of “Evita.” They hire top-shelf talent. But what should be one of its crowning achievements barely scratches the emotional surface.
Joel Ferrell’s polite production is a mostly toothless and shallow facsimile of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s powerful rock opera about the ambitious second wife of Argentine dictator Juan Perón. This is not a show that goes wrong so much as goes nowhere.
CDP’s artistic fortunes have been on the upswing of late despite walking a financial tightrope that mostly manifests itself in skeletal orchestras. “Evita” has just three musicians, a gross inadequacy Ferrell attempts to mask by making the dominant instrument the flamenco guitar, played by local six-string hero Neil Haverstick. That turns a spine-tingling score into more sedate rhythmic folk.
The most confounding weakness is the utter lack of ethnicity in casting. With the exception of an imposing Thaddeus Valdez as Perón, this predominantly white, homogenous ensemble might more believably reside in River City than Argentina. This smiling, squeaky- clean crew injects a cheery, Vegasized vibrancy that’s wholly antithetical to the complex social revolution they must convey. It’s as if the Barn’s perky preshow never ended.
Even the dancing feels machinated. The Playhouse has gotten great mileage in recent years out of featured dancers Kitty Skillman Hilsabeck and Stephen Bertles in stagings like “Swing” and “Guys and Dolls,” but they have gone to the well one too many times.
The opening scene – an interrupted film to announce the death of the sinner/saint Eva Perón – is presented here as a nonspecific tango led by Hilsabeck and Bertles, characterless dancers who continually interject themselves into the most intimate of moments.
Chris Crouch is a fine singer but far out of his element attempting to embody the legendary Argentine rebel Che Guevara. Our fang-free narrator seems far more suited for that other Webber project, “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.” His Che (who in reality never even met Eva Perón), lacks spit and snarl.
It may just be that attempting any story of the scope and power of “Evita” on a round, dinner-theater stage is doomed, if only for the necessarily spartan set. “Evita” was conceived to mesmerize audiences with massive, multilayered scaffolding and sweeping cinematic effects. Here the intimate moments feel forced; big numbers like “Money Kept Rolling In” feel frugal.
All this artifice can’t help but affect Joanie Brosseau-Beyette’s performance as the ambitious first lady felled by cancer at 33. The Boulder’s Dinner Theatre regular starred in a powerhouse production there six years before and was in effect lent to CDP, marking the start of an unprecedented era of sharing between our two dominant dinner theaters.
But Beyette deserves better support from her hosts. She has the voice of an angel, but without all accompanying emotional context, orchestral support and production values, there’s only so much that can be expected of her. There’s no evident chemistry with either of her co-stars, so Eva’s simultaneous dance with death and race for immortality lack visceral power.
The actress’ immense likability compensates for much, but with so much at stake, she should be given full opportunity to match her earlier triumph.
You don’t feel Perón’s manipulative ruthlessness or Eva’s unchecked ambition; Che’s disgust never resonates. With all these heavy hitters missing the emotional mark, it’s the surprising Markus Warren as Magaldi who fares best. At least this mustachioed cuckold makes you feel something.
But different theatergoers attend dinner theater for different purposes, bringing widely varying expectations. The next day, I felt the need to pop in the Patti LuPone cast recording, just to cleanse the palate. But my 89-year-old guest, a fairly tough old critic himself, loved the voices and the dancing. He thought the whole thing was just great.
So what do you want?
Theater critic John Moore can be reached at 303-954-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com.
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| “Evita”
MUSICAL|Country Dinner Playhouse, 6875 S. Clinton St., Greenwood Village|Written by Tim Rice
(lyrics) and Andrew Lloyd Webber (music)|Directed by Joel Ferrell|Joanie Brosseau-Beyette, Chris Crouch and Thaddeus Valdez|THROUGH JULY 8|7:45 p.m. Wednesdays-Sundays; 1:45 p.m. Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays (dinner 90 minutes before)|2 hours, 25 minutes|$43-$49|303-799-1410 or countrydinnerplayhouse.com
