ACT ONE
It is July 26, 1952. A young Argentine student, Che, is among the
audience in a Buenos Aires cinema when the film is stopped by an
announcement that Eva Peron, “the spiritual leader of the nation,
has entered immortality.”
Eva’s funeral is majestic, a combination of the magnificent excesses
of the Vatican and of Hollywood with huge crowds, much
pageantry, wailing and lamentation. Che is the only
non-participant.
Che is at times a narrator, at times an observer, at times simply a
device that enables the authors to place Eva in a situation where
she is confronted with direct personal criticism. There is no
evidence whatsoever that Che Guevara ever met Eva Peron or
became in any way involved with her, but the character Che is
based upon this legendary revolutionary. He was, however, an
Argentine born in 1928 and would therefore have been 17 when
the Perons came to power and 24 when Eva died. He became
strongly opposed to the Peronist regime during Eva’s lifetime and it
is not unreasonable to suppose that his later activity in Cuba and
elsewhere was in part a reaction against the government he had
known in his youth.
Flashback to 1934. A night club in Junin, Eva’s hometown. Eva
Duarte is just 15. She asks the singer appearing in the club,
Augustin Magaldi, with whom she has had a brief affair, to take
her to the big city – Buenos Aires. He is reluctant but she gets her
way.
Once in Buenos Aires, Eva quickly disposes of Magaldi and
works her way through a string of men, each of whom helps her
one rung more up the ladder of fame and fortune. She becomes a
successful model, broadcaster and film actress.
1943. Colonel Juan Peron is one of several military leaders close
to the presidency of Argentina, which in recent years has proved a
far from secure job for its tenant.
At a charity concert held to raise money for the victims of an
Argentine earthquake, Eva and Peron meet. They both realize that
each has something the other wants. From now on Eva hitches her
ambitions to political stars. She evict Peron’s mistress from his flat
and moves into Peron’s life to such an extent that she excites the
extreme wrath of two factions who were to remain her enemies
until her death – the Army and the aristocracy.
As the political situation becomes even more uncertain, it is Eva
rather than Peron who is more determined that he should try for
the highest prize in Argentina – the presidency, supported by the
workers whose backing she and Peron have long cultivated.
ACT TWO
Eva’s ambition is fulfilled and from the balcony of the Casa Rosada
on the day of Peron’s inauguration as president (June 4, 1946), the
vast crowd gives Evita, now Peron’s wife, an even greater
reception than that accorded to Peron – thanks to her emotional
and brilliant speech ad to her striking appearance. Che notes and
experiences some of the violence that was never far away from
Peron.
Che asks Eva about herself and her success but does not meet
with a great response. Eva’s main concern is her forthcoming tour
of Europe which begins in a blaze of glory in Spain but meets with
later setbacks in Italy and France. She never gets to England.
On her return home, Eva resolves to concentrate solely on
Argentine affairs, undeterred by continual criticism from the society
of Buenos Aires. Che points out that the regime has to date done
little or nothing to improve the lot of those Eva claims to represent
– the working class.
Eva launches the Eva Peron Foundation, a huge concern of
shambolic accountancy and of little practical benefit to the nation’s
economy although it helps to elevate her to near goddess status in
the eyes of some of those who benefited from the Fund – including
children. Che’s disenchantment with Eva is now total. He sneers at
those who adore her and for the last time tries to question her
about her motivation and the darker side of the Peron
administration. Eva’s response is that of the pragmatist. “There is
evil ever around, fundamental.” She has now realized that she is ill.
Anti-Eva feeling among the military reaches new heights, and Che
lists several of the major failures and abuses of the Peron
administration. Peron attempts to justify her domination of
Argentine life. He draws attention to her illness.
Peron and Eva discuss the worsening situation – he is losing his
grip on the government, she is losing her strength. Eva refuses to
give in to her illness and resolves to become vice-president.
But the opposition to her from the army is too great; more
importantly her body lets her down. She knows that she is dying
and makes a broadcast to the nation, rejecting the post of
vice-president, a position she knows she could never have won.
In her last hours, images, people and events of her life flow through
Eva’s mind, while the nation’s grief knows no bounds – to the mass
of people she has become a saint, nothing less. As her life draws
to a close she wonders whether she would have been happier as
an obscure ordinary person. Maybe then her life would have been
longer…
But even in death she is denied obscurity. The moment she dies the
embalmers move in to preserve her fragile body to be “displayed
forever,” although this never happened. The story of the escapades
of the corpse of Eva Peron during the quarter-century after her
death is almost as bizarre as the story of her life.
Note:
I received the following from Roman by email – just some food for thought!
“In Evita the character called “Che” may not be
actually Ernesto “Che” Guevara. In Argentina the word
“Che”, according to the Spanish Royal Academy
dictionary, a familiar form of treatment used to call
someone or ask for attention.
So perhaps the character known as “Che” is not a
particular person but a personification of the
people’s feelings (or what Lloyd Weber thinks are the
feelings of the people).
I think so because Guevara wasn’t like the character
of the performance. Ernesto Guevara was, before he
went to Cuba, an university student and a member of an
aristocratic family (the “Guevara Lynch”). He wasn’t a
common man, a member of the middle class.”