Evita / YMMV - TV Tropes

Adaptation Displacement:
- Evita began as a 1976 concept album. It's now mostly recognized as a stage musical, to the point that the album itself was marketed as the West End cast recording despite none of the main players being in the original West End production.
- The song "The Lady's Got Potential" was cut from the original stage version. It reappeared, with very different lyrics, in the movie, so many people think of it as a later addition rather than originally being intended for the play.
Alternative Character Interpretation: Despite the show's reputation for being unrelentingly negative towards Eva Peron, considering the entire musical is (arguably) Che's interpretation of events, this actually comes into play for a lot of characters. Particularly Eva and Che themselves. Even the majority of the original creative team were divided about the character interpretations the show offered.
Americans Hate Tingle: The "Evita" musical usually finds a lot of rejection in Argentina, where the history of the real Eva Perón and Juan Perón is well known, the Peronist party still exists, and the historical inaccuracies are more easily noticed by the public. This comment gives more details.
Award Snub: When someone wins a Golden Globe for their performance, said performance is considered worthy of an Academy Award nomination almost by default. Madonna is one of only a few actors in the "Won the Golden Globe but wasn't even nominated for the Oscar" club, with others including Robin Williams for Mrs. Doubtfire, Jim Carrey for The Truman Show and Man on the Moon, Michael Caine for Little Voice and Nicole Kidman for To Die For. (That's pretty august company for Madonna, suggesting that, despite everything, She Really Can Act.)
Awesome Music:
- "And the Money Kept Rolling In (and Out)" is a big and showy number about how luxurious Eva's charity is and the fact that the money is being loosely handled in Peron's corrupt government.
- "Don't Cry For Me Argentina" is perhaps the musical's most famous song, Eva's big solo, and includes Ominous Spanish Chanting.
- "The Lady's Got Potential" in the movie.
Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: "Another Suitcase In Another Hall"
- It's a Perspective Flip sung by Juan Peron's just-ejected mistress, showing the effects of Evita's triumphant progress for whom it resulted in defeat rather than triumph. Plot-wise, it serves no purpose in the play as the mistress, her existence, or this victory are not brought up again. From a technical perspective, though, it does serve a purpose by allowing the actress playing Eva to rest before one of the show's most demanding numbers, "A New Argentina."
- This is averted in the movie where it's sung by Eva.
Broken Base: It's relatively minor but there's often some arguments over whether the alteration of Che's character (from explicitly being Che Guevara to an anonymous Everyman) in the movie was a good move or a bad one. Made slightly bigger by the fact that before the movie, all productions had Che as the historical revolutionary, while nowadays there seems to be more productions branching out into making him an Everyman. It doesn't help much that both the musical itself and its creators seem to have wildly varying opinions on which interpretation is "correct"...
Ensemble Dark Horse: That girl that sings "Another Suitcase in Another Hall," by virtue of being The Woobie and having a beautiful song in her one scene.
Genius Bonus: The Latin chant section of the song "Oh What a Circus," takes its text from the real-life Roman Catholic prayer, the Salve Regina. The original prayer contains a reference to the Biblical Eve, known in Latin as Eva.
Germans Love David Hasselhoff: The stage show is very popular in Germany, of all places, and has been staged and revived there numerous times. There are at least three different German cast albums.
Jerkass Woobie: Eva, especially when her health is failing.
Memetic Mutation: Any time the Argentina national football team has a painful defeat, it's a given someone will homage the occasion with "Don't Cry for Me Argentina".
- Even just the image of someone standing on a balcony (particularly anyone with political standing) will be guaranteed to draw at least one comment about the possibility of them bursting into song.
Narm Charm: "I want to be a part of B.A. Buenos Aires — Big Apple!"
- In the movie, the ending of "Goodbye and Thank You" reeks of this, especially Che's final pose on the last beat of the song. It's so ridiculously cheesy that it's almost kind of adorable.
Retroactive Recognition:
- The concept album had the role of Che performed by "C.T. Wilkinson"...better known as Colm Wilkinson, best known for playing Valjean in Les Misérables and the Phantom in The Phantom of the Opera.
- In the movie adaptation one of the girls asking Peron for his autograph at the charity fundrasier is an uncredited Billie Piper.
- Peron's mistress in the movie is played by Andrea Corr who would go on to form The Corrs with her siblings.
She Really Can Act: Film critics savaged Madonna's acting performances for years until her turn as Eva Perón; she eventually won a Golden Globe for her performance.
The Woobie: The mistress that sings "Another Suitcase in Another Hall." *sniff* Poor girl...
- Doubly so for Andrea Corr, who plays her in the movie and gets only one line of the song to herself.

YMMV / Evita

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