First impressions of Nikolai Foster’s Evita at Leicester’s Curve are impressive. Evita’s coffin rests on a dais raised above the heads of a phalanx of black-clad mourners who intone a requiem. At its foot, a single figure – Evita’s husband, the president of Argentina, Juan Perón (Gary Milner). The entrance of Tyrone Huntley’s narrator figure, Che, rising from a seat in the auditorium, singing Oh What a Circus, makes a strong human contrast to the rigid formality. Here we have, in microcosm, the conflicts at the core of this 1978 musical, based on the life of Eva Perón and created by Tim Rice (lyrics) and Andrew Lloyd Webber (music): between woman and icon, people and leaders, poverty and riches.
The problem with Foster’s production overall, though, is that it goes on to flatten these contrasts. Its visual presentation, while striking, feels too distancing. Starkness is the keynote, in Michael Taylor’s tubular scaffolding set, and Joshie Harriette’s chiaroscuro lighting. Edd Lindley’s costumes keep the chorus covered in black: when they dance, their bodies indistinct against the dark background, the lines of Adam Murray’s energetic choreography become muted.
