The first Evita, Patti LuPone, was a force of nature. The latest Evita is a pretty cipher.
That assessment is not a slam on Solea Pfeiffer’s sly incarnation of Eva Perรณn. She wears the role with high-fashion hauteur in the new, insightful revival of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Evita,” which opened Thursday at the New York City Center and continues through November 24.
Pfeiffer never lets us see her sweat. Her transformation from an abused Argentinian waif (Maia Reficco plays the younger Eva) to the country’s first lady, from 1946 to her death in 1952, is predestined. She’s just going through the motions, the men, the couture.