Performing Arts

THEATER REVIEW: Lyric Stage revives Lloyd Webber classic with stunning soprano

11:10 AM CST on Friday, February 24, 2006

By LAWSON TAITTE / The Dallas Morning News

IRVING – "A little touch of star quality," Eva Perón sings in Evita. When Catherine Carpenter Cox barrels through that line, she's doing herself an injustice. The lady has a whole lot of star quality.

Ms. Cox headlines the revival of the Andrew Lloyd Webber favorite in a Lyric Stage production that's exciting from top to bottom. Usually the Irving theater company specializes in rare or new material. Tackling this standby more often seen in tired touring versions, it demonstrates it can produce standard fare with the best of them.

The title role in Evita, of course, is a star-maker. The original Broadway venture made Patti LuPone a household name. It will do the same, within the smaller Dallas theater community, for Ms. Cox. Though a high soprano, she digs into the treacherous songs she has to belt in a deep, throaty voice with an assurance that doesn't leave you worried she's going to damage the instrument.

Ms. Cox also creates a character – which is more than Madonna did in the pretty but static movie version. Librettist Tim Rice paints Eva – the real-life Argentine dictator's wife who died not long after her rise to power – in broad, unsubtle strokes, perhaps. She's cunning, and she's frank about using her glamour to get ahead. Ms. Cox's Eva thus frequently looks like a feral creature, she's so hungry to rule. But the performer never sacrifices our sympathy, even our grudging admiration. She's downright human, and moving, when Eva begins her downward spiral.

Fortunately, Evita remains musically the strongest of all the Lloyd Webber shows. Maybe he can't come up with a hit these days, but at one time he could really write a tune (though he was always too ready to repeat and repeat a good one). Dramatically, the show can be confusing. Using a character named after Che Guevara as the narrator gives the show a political spin, but really – what the heck is he doing there?

The great thing about doing Evita in a space as intimate as the Irving Arts Center's Dupree Theater is that, for once, you can understand every word. At least we know what Che is saying this time. Brian Gonzales declaims all those ironic lines with passion. And he sings the songs terrifically, too.

In spite of a technical glitch that delayed the second-act curtain of Thursday's performance by nearly a half hour, the audience stayed with this Evita all the way. Director Len Pfluger basically reproduces the original on a smaller scale, but he and his splendid cast give the old musical new life.

E-mail ltaitte@dallasnews.com

Through March 4 at the Irving Arts Center's Dupree Theater, 3333 N. MacArthur Blvd., Irving. Runs 120 mins. $15 to $29. 972- 594-1904; www.lyricstage.org.