Last year, at the World Cup soccer matches in Buenos Aires, the huge crowd roared, "We want the thieves back! We want the thieves!" Why do the people of a relatively advanced, sophisticated country yearn for the neo-Fascist paternalism and fake messianism of an Eva Perón? That is the true horror of her story, and "Evita" doesn't confront it. Why isn't there at least one song given to the descamisados, in which we learn about their attitude toward their idol? Even Che Guevara could have been used to better effect. Late in his career he made initiatives toward the exiled Perón (as did Fidel Castro himself); there's an opportunity for a number in which the "true revolutionary" expresses his own ambivalence toward the ambiguous figure of Eva. But "Evita" only sentimentalizes her. (p. 153)

Jack Kroll, "'Evita' in Soft Focus," in Newsweek (copyright 1979, by Newsweek, Inc.; all...