There’s a hoo-ha afoot in the normally jazz-hands world of musical theatre. This summer’s big new production of the Andrew Lloyd Webber classic Evita, which is currently previewing at the London Palladium prior to an opening night at the start of July, has incensed some audience members who have been attending preview performances. The reason? The show’s stand-out number, that echoingly popular ballad “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina”, is performed by lead actress Rachel Zegler not inside the auditorium itself, but rather on a balcony outside the theatre, to the obvious surprise and delight of unsuspecting passers-by.
Her performance is recorded and beamed back inside to spectators, but there has been some disgruntled huffing from those who have stumped up a couple of hundred quid for tickets, who not unreasonably expected to see and hear this showstopper actually performed in front of them.
I have a little residual sympathy for such folk – but not all that much. Award-winning director Jamie Lloyd is renowned both here and on Broadway for his love of making his actors take a walk and get some fresh air during shows: in his much-lauded Nicole Scherzinger-starring production of Sunset Boulevard, there was an extensive live filmed segment of actor Tom Francis walking up The Strand. For better or for worse (Lloyd’s take on Romeo and Juliet last year with Spiderman actor Tom Holland was a disappointing damp squib) such technological trickery is Lloyd’s schtick and Zeigler’s alfresco solo is simply the latest – and most logical – iteration of this.
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Evita is, after all, all about a woman supreme at manipulating both the media and the masses, so what could be more apt than Zeigler betaking herself to a spot overlooking one of London’s most populous thoroughfares and broadcasting from there?
If those initial punters walking along Argyll Street around 9pm on Saturday were surprised, that will certainly not be the case going forward. No, Zeigler’s nightly burst of free song will become an event to be witnessed, a cultural hot ticket that has the incomparable added bonus of being free (I don’t envy the Palladium’s security staff and the inevitable crowd control issues that this will generate).
It will draw people in from all over and give rise to discussion, thus turning theatre into a (largely) positive news item, which is never a bad thing in these increasingly straitened times for the arts. And who knows, maybe a handful of those who glimpse this number outside will be tempted to buy tickets to watch the rest of the show inside the Palladium at a later date? Or perhaps they will simply be reminded of the incomparable thrill of live theatre and will seek out another spectacle at another venue. Either way, the only winner will be theatre – and I am always all for that result.
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