It’s Friday morning and Molli Malou is finally off to school (we let her sleep in til nine), joyfully bicycling off at ten o’clock for a normal day among her friends and teachers.
What a premiere! The audience was almost as interesting as the show: there were at least two former Prime Ministers attending (Poul Schouler and Lars Løkke Rasmussen), at least one former Foreign Minister (who is now a television news analyst), the current heads of at least two political parties, and many other politicians and celebrities.
The theatre itself is very old school European: has that feel of a bygone era. I think you can see that in the panorama picture I posted… here it is again with some digital improvement:
It was a full house: the picture was taken well before everyone was seated. Also, just so you know, there’s even one more balcony above the second balcony you see in the picture.
Here’s the view of the stage from our seats:
And here is our little section:
Obviously we couldn’t take pictures during the show, so I’ve swiped some publicity photos off the website. You’re looking for a 9-year-old girl with copper-colored hair in braids, and she is very visible in all four of these shots (especially the last, where you can even see her face):
(“And the Money Kept Rolling In (And Out)”
“Requiem”
“Santa Evita”
(“A New Argentina”)
It was a strong production overall, and I was relieved to find myself enjoying it much more than I enjoyed the movie (I didn’t enjoy the movie, so that’s setting the bar down to about ankle level). The staging and sets were staggering — I am pretty sure if you added up the design budgets for every show I ever produced, or had anything to do with, really — you might have been able to afford one of the fifteen or twenty distinct sets from the show. I’m not a music critic so I can’t say anything about the orchestra other than, you know, they played the music and it worked.
We had been warned that Evita and Peron were vocally not quite what they needed to be, and although Peron lived up that anti-hype, the actress playing Evita actually did very well, so maybe she just had a lousy preview the night before. The rest of the cast was fantastic. In particular, one little songstress in copper-colored braids just riveted my attention whenever she appeared on stage. I couldn’t take my eyes off her!
She was on stage very, very often — not enough for my tastes, obviously, (had she been in the title role I still would have felt that way) but still surprisingly frequently. In her very first scene I was thunderstruck to see her genuflecting over Evita’s coffin. It looked so heartfelt and natural to see this little girl go through those familiar Catholic motions, except that I had never seen Molli Malou genuflect before (you all realize I’m talking about her, right?) and it was simply startling how natural it looked. Did she even know what it meant? I forgot to ask her.
I was also blown away by how well she moved. The children’s choreography wasn’t overly complicated, but they did have to do a lot of dance moves and Molli Malou certainly executed them well. Better then well. But surely that’s just paternal pride: Molli will be the first one to tell you she’s not a dancer.
I wish I could have taken a picture of the curtain call, because Molli Malou stood in the middle of the line of children, which was behind the three stars (Peron, Evita, Che), and Molli Malou, so that Molli Malou was directly between Evita and Che. (Or Evita and Peron, I don’t remember, I was too busy staring at Molli Malou.)
Immediately after the show we waited at the backstage door like a bunch of groupies and showered her with flowers. I tried to get a good shot, but all the joy emanating out of her distorted every image. (And yes, to answer Aunt Deb’s question from Facebook, the thing on her forehead is her mic.)
We were invited into the after-party on stage and Molli Malou begged us
to go up, so we followed her up there: amid all the cast and crew and
their friends and families swilling champagne in high spirits, Molli
Malou just hunted down two of her friends: the three of them hugged and
giggled and decided to get out of their costumes and go home. (But not before I got a couple of pictures of her still on the stage.)
She was drunk on the natural high of the experience, so we let her stay up a little late once we got home (at 11). I had to run out to see a friend who’d had a bad day (and that’s a story for another day!), so before I left I gave Molli Malou a big hug and told her again how proud I was of her, and so on, and said that although I would have liked to have a little champagne with her to celebrate, it would be better for all of us if we waited until Friday night and could have champagne with dinner.
“Yeah,” she said, “good idea. Because I really want home to be just like, you know, normal life and family and stuff, it can’t always be like the big movie star life or anything.”
And that made me proudest of all.
I just reread this and was inspired to ask Molli Malou what the sign of the cross / genuflection meant. She said, "It means someone's dead."
So proud of Molli! What an exciting experience for her! I so wish we could see. Please tell her we are so, so proud! Also, give Maddie a hug from us and tell her we are proud of her too!
I am totally grinning from ear to ear after reading this, like an idiot. Or a proud uncle. Well done Molli!