"Evita" at San Diego Repertory Theatre

Marisa Matthews and Jason Maddy in "Evita."                                  Photo by Daren Scott

The San Diego Repertory Theatre has launched its 42nd season with a revival of the Tim Rice-Andrew Lloyd Webber docu-soaper Evita, a musical now old enough (it began, like their Jesus Christ Superstar, as a concept album, debuting in 1976) that some may be seeing it for the first time. This Rep production directed by Sam Woodhouse is lushly and reverently staged with solid albeit unspectacular performances by its three leads (Marisa Matthews as Eva Peron, Jason Maddy as Juan Peron and Jeffrey Ricca as the extremist narrator, Che). What brightens this Evita is the Rep’s partnership in the production with the San Diego School of Creative and Performing Arts. The SDSCA’s exuberant young performers bring freshness and vitality. Evita’s enduring calling card, of course, is that ballad you know all too well, sung in arguably theater’s second most famous (after Romeo and Juliet/West Side Story) balcony scene. (Review originally published in San Diego CityBeat on 8/16/17)