Last week, I was asked my opinion of President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address by co-workers, friends and family. While I found the speech to be populist fluff, I couldn’t articulate why I felt this way until I read this quote by Tony-award winning director Harold Prince on politics and theater, “I find Evita herself to be absolutely relevant to contemporary politics, where glamour can mask bad deeds. I wanted the audience to examine what they worship.” In those 25 words I found my rebuttal to what I am calling Obama’s Evita moment.
While Prince’s comments were used to defend Evita’s subject matter, my comments are geared towards the substance of the speech. I’m not attacking Obama for his policies, rather his lack thereof. Mandated by Article II, Section III of the US Constitution, the State of the Union is significant, because it is the one night where civics, and not cynicism, has the ability to rally the country.
This year’s speech was seen by more than 37 million viewers. What they saw was a president, who just four 
short years ago advocated a different politics, using the pageantry of the moment to provide a false confidence on our economic “recovery.” Additionally, they saw a president whose rhetoric championed his electoral base, more than the American citizen.
If you think I’m taking cheap shots, I’ll remind you that 3 days after the speech America’s GDP rate was announced at 2.8% for the 4th quarter of 2011. This is a pathetically weak number, which shows the economy, stumbling, not strutting to recovery. Couple that with a 8.5% unemployment rate and a $15 trillion national debt, and I doubt most Americans could fully declare, “Morning in America a
gain,” as one Democratic friend did following the speech.
Before Obama’s supporters rebut my opinion, I ask that they go back and re-read the president’s 2008 victory speech from Grant Park, and his first inaugural. Was this the “change” he championed, and that you hoped for? Is populism, rather than policy, the correct track for America in the 21st century? And this brings us back to Evita!
The iconic scene in the show is the Act II megahit, “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina.” While Evita’s supporters are chanting to hear her dreams for Argentina, she instead uses the moment to defend controversial actions and ask for their continued support. Sound familiar? All of this is going on while Argentina, once a model for success in Latin America, heads towards bankruptcy and domestic strife.
In writing the show and defining it as cautionary tale, Evita’s lyricist Tim Rice said, “No country today can claim with confidence that ‘it can’t happen here.’” All I ask of my Democratic friends is to read the speech text, and look for specifics. Then seriously ask yourself, “Have we chosen glamour over substance in the qualities we demand from a leader?” As the character of Che says in Evita’s opening number, “Oh what a circus, oh what a show!”
For more information on Evita, or to buy tickets for the upcoming Broadway Revival, please visit: http://evitaonbroadway.com/
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