Quotes from Gerald Nachman

The show got mixed review, but LuPone was beloved by the critics, though she revealed in a 2007 interview in the New York Times, "'Evita' was the worst experience of my life. I was screaming my way through the part. And I had no support from the producers, who wanted a star performance onstage, but treated me as an unknown backstage. It was like Beirut, and I fought like a banshee.

Evita was loved by the lower classes for her rise from poverty as an illegitimate child and possibly legit prostitute to radio star and actress. Yet she was despised by the wealthy, who considered her crass, crude, Machiavellian white-trash tyrant, a Hispanic Lady Macbeth-not to mention a Nazi sympathizer.