Anne Brummel (top center) portrays Eva Peron in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Tony Award-winning blockbuster, Evita, being presented at Theatre By The Sea through Aug. 3.

Mark Turek

The stage is kind of cramped and the sets are nothing special, but that hasn’t kept Theatre by the Sea from doing a bang-up job with Evita, one of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s classiest collaborations.

Evita is as much operetta as it is Broadway musical, the kind of show that requires solid actors and sterling voices. And Matunuck has come through on that account — for the most part.

I wouldn’t say that Anne Brummel is the most engaging Evita around. Her voice is somewhat limited, tending toward an unattractive tightness in the upper registers. And she was not the most commanding presence in the opening act, as the small-time singer who sleeps her way to the top.

But she came through in the second act, doing a nice job with her signature “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina,” as she serenaded her followers from a balcony that could be wheeled into the crowd.

She rose to the dramatic demands of that last act, as she became the champion of the downtrodden, and later succumbed to illness.

There were other singers who were marvelous, though. Martin Sola, the evening’s Che, could do no wrong. Sola, who serves as the narrator for the show and at times Evita’s conscience, made a dashing figure with a glorious voice. His credits list productions with New York City Opera, and it showed.

This production of Evita is not big on spectacle, but does contain one of Webber’s most sophisticated scores and it looks at the life and times of one very fascinating lady. It’s a smart show that’s big on character development and content.

Evita opens with patrons in a Buenos Aires movie theater learning of the death of Evita, whose flower-bedecked coffin is then paraded about the stage.

The action then flashes back to the 1930s when a young Eva Duarte asks tango singer Augustin Magaldi to take her to Buenos Aires. There she dumps Magaldi and takes up with other men.

When she meets Peron, she goes home with him and kicks his mistress (Perri Lauren) out of bed.

Kenneth Linsley’s spineless Peron, who is not president of Argentina at the time but a top military official, wonders why he and Evita can’t quit while they are ahead and lead a comfortable life of leisure. But the ambitious Evita will hear none of it.

Linsley, who sang well, made the ideal counterpart to Brummel’s cut-throat Evita, sort of there in the background as she went about her megalomaniacal climb to the top, when she tours the capitals of Europe.

Providence’s Timothy Reid doesn’t have a big part as Magaldi, but he did get a chance to show off his ringing tenor.

Matunuck’s producing artistic director Amiee Turner, who directed the just-closed George M!, provided the sure-fire direction for this show. But her choreography is a little flat. The tango number in the first act was not much to write home about.

Aaron McAllister led a small but able pit band.

Evita runs through Aug. 3 at Theatre by the Sea, 364 Card’s Pond Rd., Matunuck. Tickets are $39-$49. Call (401) 782-8587.

cgray@projo.com