"Evita' and "End of the Rainbow' on Broadway

Two iconic divas, returning from the past, are singing up a storm on Broadway this spring. One sparks a low flame of detached curiosity; the other burns the house down with passionate intensity.

The first is Eva Peron, Argentina's first lady from 1946 to 1952. Evita's story is a meteoric rise and fall— from humble origins in rural Argentina, to an acting career in Buenos Aires, to marriage with Colonel Peron, to ascension to power and popularity of dizzying heights. Eva Peron actually declared her candidacy for vice-president and would have run had not she succumbed to cancer at age 33.

The problem with the 1979 Webber and Rice blockbuster rock opera Evita— at least in its current Broadway production— is that it's as cold, calculating and hard driving as its heroine. At least that's how Elena Roger plays her. Roger skillfully but single-mindedly sings and dances her way to the top with such deadly determination that it's hard to understand why Argentinians worshipped her. Superstardom, yes— but sainthood?

"Don't cry for me, Argentina," goes the stirring pop song in the second act, and you choke up reflexively. After all, it's been on the top of the charts since the play opened 33 years ago, and I still can't get it out of my head. But Evita asks you to weep for a fallen figure without explaining why.

Why was Eva Peron so adored? How did she become Argentina's spiritual leader? When she declares, "I am Argentina," you recoil from her unabashed ambition.

Without the charisma, complexity and humanity of Patti LuPone (who originated the role on Broadway), Webber and Rice's synthetic Evita flirts dangerously with cold caricature. Even the flashy Ricky Martin as Che (the narrator) and the dashing Michael Cerveris as Juan Peron can't arouse any feeling in this tidal-wave musical that rushes over us and leaves us shivering and chilled.

Devastated by drugs

By contrast, Peter Quilter's End of the Rainbow provides a flesh and blood heroine— contradictory, messy and maddening. Judy Garland's rise and fall, unlike Eva Peron's, breaks your heart.

Where Webber and Rice tell you the whole story of Evita's rise and fall, Quilter gives you Judy on her way down, down, down. Depleted from four failed marriages, devastated by drugs, deep in debt, tortured by personal demons, Quilter's Judy at age 47 is holed up in a London hotel room in 1969, struggling through what would be her final concert series at the Talk of the Town cabaret. She's exhausted, and she wants to "bury Judy Garland."

But her current (fifth) husband and manager, a ruthless Mickey Deans, won't let her. "You can take whatever you want as long as you finish the show," he says, plying her with the Ritalin that her loyal accompanist Anthony has been hiding from her— indeed, supplying whatever it takes to get on that stage.

"The more down they are, the more the public loves it," laments Anthony (a character-composite of Judy's numerous accompanists, sensitively played by Michael Cumpstey), who watches helplessly as Judy falls deeper into drug dependency. Only Anthony offers her the unconditional love she needs, but at this point Judy is too far gone to see it.

So while Judy crawls back up on the stage, Anthony keeps playing. "They hate when you fall down but they love when you get back up," he consoles her. "That's what I do," she replies.

Back from the grave

What lifts this tightly written little play into celestial heights is the astonishing way Tracie Bennett inhabits Judy Garland. Bennett is a tiny, wiry British actress who has somehow transformed herself into Judy to the extent that you're absolutely sure that Garland has come back from the grave.

Quilter cleverly sets his play in Judy's hotel room with grand piano, so when the action segues from her suite to the nightclub, it's just a lighting cue change. While Judy dresses or rehearses, pacing the hotel room, she'll break into spontaneous song— and what song! Bennett has captured that immortal voice, that unforgettable delivery, that charismatic showmanship, to perfection.

Garland's immortal songs— from "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" to "You Made Me Love You" to "When You're Smiling" to "Come Rain or Come Shine"— come in snippets or in full numbers. Either way, the audience is literally on its feet with elation.

Whitney and Michael

Watching Judy's devastating and final fall, I couldn't help but think of Whitney Houston (who died at 48), Michael Jackson (who died at 51) and other American celebrities whose lives have been cut short so abruptly. Judy's is the tragedy of stardom— a story we know all too well.

But what makes Judy's story so powerful, so moving, and so transforming, is the human dimension— as well as the super-human one. Evita's audacity sent me back to the history books to look up her real story. But Judy— or Tracie Bennett's Judy— sent me to heaven with her singing.