Elena Roger

Elena Roger is in a chatty mood late one Friday afternoon, which comes as something of a happy surprise. On the one hand, one might assume she would prefer not to speak, since she has to conserve her vocal energies for the role that has made her an overnight West End star: Eva Peron in the Michael Grandage revival of Evita, the Andrew Lloyd Webber/Tim Rice musical that reopened on June 21, 28 years to the day after the original Hal Prince production made theatrical history. This latest incarnation makes its own kind of history, insofar as Roger, who will be 32 in October, is the first-ever Argentine performer to star in this definably English show. The actress' other reason for perhaps preferring silence on this particular day is to be able to watch the World Cup match between her home country and Germany—an important playoff that Germany ended up winning on penalties, thereby knocking Argentina out of any chance it had for the semi-finals. Instead, the petite belter (she stands just under five-feet tall and is appreciably slimmer than many previous stage Evas) keeps her mobile phone on, receiving texts as appropriate as and when a goal comes through. Wouldn't she like to give the sport her undivided attention? "I am not interested in football, really," Roger tells me, welcoming me into a dressing room that, she reports matter-of-factly, "they say is the biggest in the West End; someone told me." Boasting wood flooring instead of carpeting ("I don't like carpets; I'm allergic, so it's better not to have them"), the room is awash with flowers—opening night presents from the week before—and a framed picture of Eva Duarte Peron with the word Elena written across it: that one was a gift from her friend Lucilla. Friendship, indeed, played a crucial role in landing Roger so prestigious a gig: it was an Argentine friend, Ana Moll, now the London-based PA to the show's head of production, Patrick Murphy, who put Roger forward for a job for which she ended up auditioning three times. She finally got the role early this year and, following the press night six months later, left the critics grabbing at superlatives. The consensus: a show which famously sings of "star quality" had found an unknown leading lady who possesses that very gift. Roger discussed the biggest night of her professional life to date, not to mention the challenge involved in wrapping her Spanish-speaking tongue around Rice's English lyrics, in an interview in which even her sometimes charmingly fractured English left no doubt whatsoever as to what she was saying.

It must have been so astonishing to get this role.
It was amazing. Two years ago, I travelled here to do [the dance show] Tango por Dos , and I met Ana [Moll]. We had met in Argentina doing Nine and then she moved here and we lost contact. But we met up again and she had this job as secretary for one of the producers [Patrick Murphy] and we were friends and we talked frequently and she said, They are doing the auditions; I think you have to come. So I sent a video of my work and they said, OK, she's able to come, and so my first trip over was in September 2005, and then I returned in October and then again in January.

Did you have to prepare different things each time?
I didn't rehearse anything—well, only the lyrics, where I learned how English is not my language [laughs]. So I learned the phonetics and how I have to pronounce everything, since the first problem Michael Grandage told me was about my diction and that I had to improve my diction. Well, I did it, and I got the role.

That's really something. Did you grow up speaking English?
I learned a little in the school, my high school, and at a private institute until I was 23. Then I left that and thought, “Never more.” So I had to take the course again and really remember everything. I took conversation classes when I came here to audition, and it's now easier to improve because I'm always learning English. I've been learning the whole script and understanding how to do it but I know I have a long way to learn everything better and that sometimes I need vocabulary and how to do the sentences and the structure, and it's not easy.

You're sounding pretty fluent. Do you get to keep up your Spanish?
I speak Spanish with Ana, my friend, who's here, and with my boyfriend, Javier. He's a musician—a composer and arranger—and he's here because we don't want to separate.

Elena Roger in Evita

As far as Evita is concerned, it probably helped to be able to watch the production in previews with your alternate, Abbie Osmon (who does two of the eight performances every week).
Yes, I saw the show the second time she did it. I sat with the director, Michael, and it was very useful, because it was very difficult for me about the language, having to learn all the words and the meanings—my meanings and the others. Sometimes, I lost the meanings, and I was for a long time only interested in my lines and my parts. But when I watched everything, I thought, I know how the whole show is. And also [thinking aloud], “Ah, perhaps this is not working,” or, “I'm not working when I'm doing that: I can manage this part or that part better and improve things.”

You'd obviously been to London before with the tango show. Had you ever been to New York?
Once, just for holiday. We did Les Miserables in Buenos Aires, and a couple of friends and me, we travelled to New York. I saw Saturday Night Fever because I had to play Annette after that in a production in Buenos Aires, and Fosse. I had been here in London before that, so had seen Les Miserables, Phantom of the Opera, Jesus Christ Superstar then and some others. The thing is, it's very difficult for us to travel. When we first started to come to Europe and it was one dollar/one peso, it was so easy for us but then there was an economic crisis and now it's very difficult: there are six pesos to one pound. It's terrible.

Now that you're starring in the West End, does the theatrical climate in London feel very different from that back home?
What is different here in London is that the theatre is very important. I don't know how is the TV, but in Argentina what is most important is what happened on TV, more than what happened in the theatres. There's not too much money to go to theatre, so there is a little audience and they go to everything. In Argentina, I had done not much on TV so was recognised only by my theatre things and one show in particular, which was a show about Mina, the very famous Italian singer. That won five critics' awards and was my best job in Argentina: I was the only one on stage and sang for an hour-and-a-half in Italian; it's the most important show I've done back home.

But you also did a lot of Broadway and London shows in their Argentina premieres.
Nine was my first job from Broadway, directed by David Leveaux; I was 23 and played Maria, a very little role. My first show was Hunchback of Notre Dame in 1993, a version written by an Argentinian writer. We performed it in Luna Park, the same place where Peron and Eva met. After Nine came Beauty and the Beast, playing the silly little girl, the one who fell down and collapsed all the time. The first important role was Fantine in Les Miserables—directed by Ken Caswell, who directed Philip Quast [her Juan Peron in Evita] in the gala Les Miserables anniversary performance.

Ah, so you had a prior connection to Philip! You and he make an arresting couple—he looks so huge standing next to you.
[Laughs.] When we first met and were looking in a mirror, we laughed a lot. But now I see the pictures and say, it's not so bad. It's good; we're a good couple.

Elena Roger and Philip Quast in Evita

You're a terrific dancer, you know.
I started to learn dance first of all at the age of eight. But you know those little girls who can put their legs here and there when they're five years old? That was not my case. It was very hard to do dance and it was my first thing and then I went to sing and now I love everything.

Let's talk about the show itself. You're in a unique position, I suppose, to say how accurate it is—or not. Do you find its treatment of the Perons to be true?
It's a true story, but it's a point of view because you never know, for example, about how the votes were counted for Peron. Some people say that was dirty but there were a lot of people who voted for him; there really were. And how about Eva? A lot of people say she was a whore and then there are other people who say she was a saint. I think Tim Rice has a point of view about Eva where there are some things that are perhaps indulged. But with Eva, the hate was so big, and the love was so big, too.

What do people in Argentina think of her nowadays?
When I get the role, a lot of people told me, “Oh, Eva Peron is lovely.” And there were a lot of people I know who were very proud for me to come here to play the role, and then there were some people who saw the show 20 years ago, and they said, “Oh, it's very bad because they're wrong about Eva.” Then other people say, “Oh very good,” and then some say, “Oh yes, this bitch.” So you get everything. There are some people who have the flag with her face on it, but her face from when she used to have brown hair when she was very young and was an actress. It's so strange, politics, you know.

Still, you are in a position to bring at least something of the real Argentina to a show about that country—about your country.
What I have is, I know how Argentina was. I know how are the people there. I've all my life seen documentaries about Eva's life or Peron's life, so I think I can get the soul of this. My parents were children when Peron was in power, but the father of my father lived in the south of the country and he was very thankful to Peron because he was able to buy his house in those times: Peron had come up with a very, very easy way to pay. My mother was a Socialist, so they don't like much Peron because they think he's like the Italian guy, Mussolini, because Peron looked a little like that—but he was not the same.

The original production was very abstract, as you probably know, whereas this one is much more realistic.
It's lovely to see the colours of my country on the stage, and all the costumes. It's a very beautiful thing. I cried when I saw Eva's dresses; I used to wear this sort of dress when I was young and thought, “Oh my goodness.” I think Christopher [Oram, the designer], he did very good work.

Elena Roger in Evita

Have you ever stood on the balcony of the Casa Rosada, where Eva sings "Don't Cry For Me, Argentina"?
[Laughs.] In the real life, she never was seen with this dress; there is a very big building in the middle of the main avenue, and Eva used to do speeches from there. Peron, on the other hand, yes: On October 17, a famous date, all the people were on the street to help Peron because he was in jail, and he had to quiet all the people, so he goes to the Casa Rosada to tell them to go home, everything is OK. But this is theatre, you know? I think this show helped Argentina to be close to all the people around the world who never knew our country and now they can know something about Argentina, and I think that is nice. But this is a show; it's not a political thing. And it's not a documentary.

What did you and Michael Grandage discuss about the part?
[Roger reaches down and gets out a huge picture book about Eva that she keeps under her dressing room coffee table.] We talked a lot about how was Eva, how was my feeling, about how I want to do the role and how he wants to see the role; he was very open. He helps me a lot; he was very nice. And Philip [Quast], he as my husband was very interested in all the things I told him about Eva and Peron and everything. [Leafs through book.] Look how very thin was Eva when she was young. She didn't have money to eat when she came from her hometown, Junin, because she was an actress and was very poor. She was in a bar and a journalist saw her, and he said, “Do you want to take a cappuccino with me,” and she said, “Yes, can it be with a sandwich?”

Do you—or did you—have to do much physically to become Eva?
I dyed my hair. The natural colour is blonde with a little dark; this now is reddish—a little darker. It's nice for my eyes [a piercing blue].

Now that the show is open, you can finally begin to enjoy London.
[Laughs.] Yes, we had rehearsals, then to record the CD, and the performances. And now I'm enjoying it. I can take all the afternoon, relax in the morning and then come in at night and do the show. I'm living on the South Bank, so I love that I can walk, and there are very nice views. I like to be at home and when the weather is nice, I like to walk. I don't like shopping—when I need something but otherwise, no. I like to walk with my boyfriend or read or answer mails or speak with my family. I'm doing everything to arrange their flight so my parents can come see me here in a few months; my brother and sister were here for the opening night.

Are the press making a fuss of you in Argentina?
Every newspaper, everybody's talking about me now in Argentina; everybody's so proud. I know that it's a love/hate but all people in Argentina admire a lot English people and European people. We are always watching European things. And we are not nationalists—this is not nice because we have to fight more for our country to improve everything and to do that so that the people don't steal and to be better as people.

And next stop, perhaps, Broadway?
I love to learn other languages, see other people and other cultures, and what I take as the richness from this experience is the change of life and all that happens. I love Buenos Aires, so I know that I come back some day, but I don't know when because if this goes well, perhaps we go to New York or not, or perhaps I'm here, or perhaps I go to Italy; I don't know. The most important for me doing this job is that it's not a job; it is my life. I want step by step, day by day, to live.

That sounds sensible to me.
Yes, I'm very glad about it. I am watching everything and taking everything and learning, trying to be comfortable and open, to see and to learn: it's nice.