EVITA TOO looks at forgotten female presidents, notably the first woman president in the world, populism, and legacy. With the pair’s signature collage of DIY documentary and original songs, this Fringe First Award winner proves that Sh!t Theatre can turn the most obscure historical footnotes into theatre.
Directed by Ursula Martinez with original music by Sh!t Theatre, this is what happens when research procrastination becomes an art form and history’s wrongs get righted through theatrical anarchy.
EVITA TOO opens at the Southbank Centre’s Purcell Room on 11 December, with previews from 9 December and runs until 31 December.
Read our Q&A with Rebecca Biscuit and Louise Mothersole
Q: EVITA TOO dives into the story of Isabel Perón – arguably one of history’s most overlooked leaders. What drew you to her, and what made you decide this was the story worth turning into a disco cabaret?
Isabel Peron is the first ever female president of a country in the history of the world and we discovered her existence by accident; we were looking into the story of Evita’s corpse. Evita was Isabel’s much more famous predecessor and after Evita died, her embalmed corpse went missing for about 15 years. When it eventually turned up, her husband, Juan Peron, and his new wife unpacked the corpse on their dining room table and Juan’s new wife personally brushed the corpse’s hair, cleaned the nails, before putting the body on display in their house.
We were fascinated with this woman who had taken it upon herself to live with the corpse of her husband’s dead wife. That woman turned out to be Isabel – Google told us she was the first ever female president and we were sure that couldn’t be correct. Surely we should have heard of her? Further investigation revealed that her life was even wilder than we could possibly have imagined, including the fact that her first job was dancing in a disco cabaret…
Q: Your work often turns research into something gloriously chaotic and creative. How does that process actually look – is it part procrastination, part revelation, or something else entirely?
We get quite obsessive – the research we mention above about Isabel has been ongoing for 4 years and included stints as Fellows at the Eccles Centre for American Studies at the British Library, a trip to Buenos Aires and getting caught up on a political demonstration, a brief moment in which we ran a Falklands War LARPing website and 2 trips to Madrid during which we staged a one-off art exhibition about Isabel Peron featuring paintings by us that we’d made by hand. We can’t paint. As we’ve been writing this over a long period of time, our own lives have inevitably affected the show; we’ve experienced different kinds of grief, joy and life changes which inflect the musical.
Q: You’re known for blending politics, music, and comedy in unexpected ways. What’s the secret to making serious political commentary land through humour and anarchy rather than earnestness?
That is a very nice thing to say and we work extremely hard to try and not tell people what to think. Our shows can look messy, but we agonise over every word and where it lands for months and months and so possibly the secret is time+pain.
Q: The DIY aesthetic is a big part of Sh!t Theatre’s identity. What does that do for your storytelling – and how do you keep it feeling authentic rather than just messy for the sake of it? What does that do for your storytelling – and how do you keep it feeling authentic rather than just messy for the sake of it?
As with many artists who come under the DIY theatre banner, it started as mostly an economic choice. It’s also about our own skills- nothing we present will be perfectly delivered, we’re not trained dancers or actors, or musicians. However, those imperfections – the cracks, the ‘sh!tness’ – are not contradictory to creating something interesting. We don’t think you need to be a virtuoso to have something to say; for this reason, we always try to include some task or skill in our shows that we don’t have e.g., we pick up a new instrument, or we hula hoop, or roller skate. Chaos and/or controlled chaos are also elements we think of as tools when making shows, as much as any other.
Q: Isabel Perón’s short presidency was seen as a disaster – but EVITA TOO seems to ask whether she’s also been unfairly forgotten. Do you see her more as a tragic figure, a farce, or something in between?
We have been thinking a lot about history and also historiography; what happened in the past, compared to how people write about it and who writes about it, and how that in turn relates to power. We have been taking the sparse resources and information that there is about Isabel, collating facts, forming our opinions, and then deciding what we’ll tell you about her; history is not objective; historiography is not objective, and the information the audience receives about Isabel from us is as much a reflection of us and our lives as it is fact. In relation to Isabel and also to Evita, we’ve been thinking about the difference between being remembered, misremembered (or Mr-remembered, geddit) and forgotten. As the musical Evita contributes to how people – in this country, especially – remember what sort of person Evita was, we are writing our musical Evita Too, knowing it will contribute even in a small way to how people remember Isabel. So in answer to your question: we don’t want to give too much away, but we think she’s a product of circumstance, the unpredictability of life and the result of what happens when you let a man who thinks he’s literally a wizard run your government. Like all of us are, really.
Q:. You’ve said your work thrives on ‘the ethics of populism’ and ‘artistic funding disasters’. How do those themes play out in the show, and do you see parallels with today’s cultural or political landscape? How do those themes play out in the show, and do you see parallels with today’s cultural or political landscape?
In its simplest expression, populism is the will of the people. It’s a dirty word at the moment, with Trump and Orban and Putin and (list goes on and on and on) – but is there really something so wrong with letting the people express what they want? And what if what they want is Phantom of the Opera? Nothing wrong with that!
Q: Sh!t Theatre has built a reputation for shows that feel like live, joyful acts of rebellion. What do you hope audiences take away from EVITA TOO – beyond the laughter and glitter?
Thank you very much, that is very kind. This is not a Christmas show, but it is a show at Christmas time, so there will be singing, crying and gratuitous nudity and, we hope, a universal expression of the human condition. Feliz Navidad!
Judith Dimant Productions and Sh!t Theatre present
EVITA TOO
Written and performed by: Rebecca Biscuit and Louise Mothersole
Director: Ursula Martinez; Design: Zoē Hurwitz; Lighting Design: Dan Carter-Brennan; Original Music: Sh!t Theatre; Composition & Music Production: John Biddle; Music Assistant & Track Producer: Jonathan Mitra; Stage Manager: Rose Hockaday
Supported by the Southbank Centre
9 December – 31 December
Press Night: 11 December
EVITA TOO
