Welcome to the first edition of "Where They in Love?" This is a new series of editorials I'll be writing in which I analyze movies/books/TV shows that have great plot and characters, but an otherwise sucky or lame romantic lead. Sometimes it's intentional, sometimes the characters just have no chemistry.
The first "love" story that's on the chopping block is the musical Evita. The romance presented in this musical is like nothing else you'll ever see, so I thought it was worth writing about. That, and I've been obsessed with this 40-year-old musical for some reason, so this is my outlet.
Part One: The Crash Course on Evita
Evita is a musical first produced in 1978, written by his holiness Andrew Lloyd Webber and with lyrics by Tim Rice. For a great introduction to the legacy of the title character and a taste of the music, here's a great video to get you started:
A live performance of "And the Money Kept Rolling In" from the 2012 Tony Awards,
introduced by a hostess I don't recognize. Sorry.
While it's not a household name like some of Webber's other musicals (Phantom of the Oprah, Cats), Evita was still successful enough to tour over ten times since its premiere and even led to a film adaptation in 1996 staring Madonna. Yes...that Madonna.
Evita tells the story of Eva Perón, an important historical figure of South American pop culture and politics. For six years, she was married to Juan Perón, former president of Argentina. Perón was in office from 1946 from 1955, and despite both him and Eva being long dead, they remain extremely controversial figures in Argentina to this day.
Full disclosure: I'm not Argentinian. I did a bit of research for the writing of this article, but I am in no means an expert on the subject of Argentina and its history. Frankly, because these are long-dead real people who were deep in the politics of their own country, it's hard to find any resource on them that I'm sure is factually reliable. So take everything I say with a grain of salt.
Is this what Buenos Aires is really like??? Don't know, haven't been.
Supposedly, Webber and Rice only had access to one biography about Eva Perón, which happened to be written by one of the Peróns' opponents. There was a lot of outside bias that influenced the writing of Evita that Webber and Rice were themselves unaware of, so the musical itself is full of inaccuracies. The general life story of Eva is very sensational.
Searching for success as an actress, a teenage Eva Perón moved to Buenos Aires. She gained some notoriety as a radio performer. At a charity concert, she met and later married Colonel Juan Perón. She became essential to his political campaigns as a spokesperson and icon, being dubbed the "spiritual leader of Argentina."
A picture of the real Eva Duarte Perón.
The musical Evita follows the title character as she rises from squalor to glory, yet ultimately succumbs to illness. The story doesn't really go into the details about Peronism and its impact on the scene of Argentinian politics, which is understandable, because that would be far too complex for a general audiences. There's also evidence that President Juan Perón was a Nazi sympathizer, which isn't a good look for anyone.
Instead of all that ugliness that comes with being a near dictator, Evita the musical gives a vague overview on the Perons' complex actions and attitudes while in office. Sometimes, Eva's opportunism and Juan's willingness to oppress his opponents paint them as scheming villains. Yet, they are still endeared to the audience through moments of vulnerability. The character of Juan is shown to be weak without his wife, and Eva pushes herself too hard out of her own childhood trauma. The musical ends with the death of Eva, her last line being a haunting message to the children she never had, symbolically addressing all of Argentina: "Oh my daughter! / Oh my son! / Please understand what I have done."
As a musical, there is a lot to admire. There aren't any orchestral showstoppers like "Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again" or "Memory," instead leaning more into modern styles of pop and Latin music. "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" is still an incredible song because of how the context changes its meaning. When Eva first sings the song, it's her apologizing for her pursuing a life of fame when she always should have been helping the poor people of her country. The second time we hear her sing, it's a message from beyond the grave, as she serenades the thousands who mourn her. While the songs of Evita lack an earworm, they make up for in how much story and character they pack in. In terms of historical musicals, Evita walked so Hamilton could run. In fact, both stories are told to the audience from a narrators' perspective, with Aaron Burr telling Hamilton's story and the enigmatic Che telling Eva's story.
Part Two: Where Eva and Juan in Love?
In the musical, it's clear that Eva and Juan only married each other for the benefit of their own careers. They did not really fall in love. I even understood this as a thirteen-year-old watching Evita for the first time at a local theater.
Eva and Juan meet midway through act one, through the musical number "I'd Be Surprisingly Good for You." In this scene, Eva immediately proposes they become a couple. The arguments she presents immediately win him over as they both realize how their relationship could be mutually beneficial. She gets exposure through him, and he gets a First Lady to help promote his political campaigns. To hammer in the point of how fake it all is (at least in the stage performances), Eva and Juan break into a refrain of the song "Goodnight and Thank You," proclaiming "There is no one, no one at all / never has been, and never will be a lover, male or female / who hasn't an eye on, in fact they rely on / tricks they can try on their partner."
But the music, man. The atmosphere. The saxophone in this song is so jazzy and sensual. The chemistry between the two is so thick, you could cut it with a knife. There is no real "romance" in the story, as it focuses on Eva and Juan's political climb, but the performance of the actors always makes it feel romantic. Each actor plays it different, from Patti LuPone's determination and assertiveness (from the Original Broadway Cast recording of 1979), to Madonna's sultry seductive tone. The end result is always the same. A marriage of convenience, at the very least.
Another important thing I realized while listening to Evita recently is that out of all of Eva's arguments that she makes, this is the one that is the most effective. In her acting career and her political career, Eva struggles to gain an audience that wholly believes in her. Juan Perón is portrayed as the one person who was completely compelled by her, hanging onto every word.
Beyond their initial chemistry, Eva and Juan are united in many things. They are united in how they let down people in their life ("Another Suitcase in Another Hall" from the point of view of the lover Juan abandoned, "Santa Evita" from the point of view of the public that Eva does not actually go out of her way to help). They are united in how involvement in politics drastically ruined the quality of their lives. They are probably the only people they could understand. It's very likely that through the course of the story, their feelings might have grown to become genuine.
Evidence for this is few and far between. Evidence for this includes the song "Dice Are Rolling." On stage, Juan is trying to convince Eva to slow down her pace and think of her health. When she collapses, he rushes to her side. In the musical score, we hear a refrain of "I'd Be Surprisingly Good For You," the song of their courtship. Except now, it's slower, sounding broken, reflecting the state of Eva and Juan's willpower as she crumbles. This highlights just how important their meeting and their partnership was to both of their success, but when one fails, they both fail.
Another strong piece of evidence comes in the form of the song "You Must Love Me." This Oscar-bait song was written exclusively to promote the '96 film adaptation. While its exigence may be cynical, the result is an emotional moment between Eva and Juan as they come to terms with her eminent death. In the song, Eva sings to Juan, implying that she has developed deep feelings that she can't speak aloud, and insisting to him, "You must love me." This is a double-entendre, as Eva is pleading Juan to comfort her in her dying moments, and also her asserting he must have developed feelings for her too after all they've been through. Ignoring the song's sappy lyrics, way that this scene is staged is sublime. Juan's devotion for his wife is evidence as he takes care of her, despite the legion of servants who are supposed to do the job for him. This song was so well-received that it became incorporated into later stage productions of Evita.
While Eva is the protagonist and her goal is fame and political influence, her relationship to Juan is also integral to the story. The plot is not inherently romantic, where the success of her journey rides or dies on her falling in love. Whether or not Eva even "achieves" her goal in this story is up do debate, as she dies of a young age with half of her beloved country hating her. Yes, she became one of the most famous women in all of Latin America, but at what cost? Regardless, she wasn't alone. Whether they loved each other or not, Eva had Juan, and Juan had Evita. Neither of them could have gotten where they were without the other.
My ruling is: Eva and Juan have a "Stealth Romance."
It wasn't their plan to fall in love. Their political ambitions always took priority over their personal lives. But given all they did together, they had to love each other at least a little bit.
Of course, this is not a statement about the real people Eva Perón and Juan Perón. We have no idea what they were getting up to in real life. It probably wasn't good, as two out of three of Juan's wives (including Eva herself) died of cervical cancer, which women often get from having HPV. Juan probably reduced Eva's lifespan. There's also evidence that Eva was forced to have a lobotomy, a common surgery performed on "hysterical women" back in the 40s and 50s. Juan was also twice Eva's age when they met, so that makes things a little creepy.
But Evita the musical is separated enough from Eva the person that I think we can talk about one without referring to the other. I'll continue to enjoy listening to the many adaptations of Evita in the future, and continue to appreciate one of the most unique stories of partnership ever told.
Eva and Juan, underwhelmingly tragic. Or, perhaps, tragically underwhelming.
