Gary Bolen takes a bow with the personal politics of the musical Evita.

Knowing Evita is Gary Bolen’s final show as chair of Monterey Peninsula College’s Theatre Co. before he retires had me rooting for a win. A big win.

Bolen has given much time and energy to the program for 17 years. (Check out a Q&A with him via the Weekly’s Arts & Culture blog, www.mcweekly.com/culture.) In 2013 he directedLes Miserables on the same stage, which was as triumphant as fireworks, and I wanted the same for his final number. Evita, created by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Weber, is as sweeping, complex and bombastic as Le Mis, fortified with super durable songs and iconic moments. So Bolen set himself up for success.

Then the lights go down and the show begins.

The story begins at the end, with a breaking announcement at a Buenos Aires movie screening that Eva Peron, the “spiritual leader of the nation,” has died.

The movie audience breaks out in the mourning of “Requiem,” accompanied by dissonant pre-recorded music. Che Guevara (Rob Devlin) enters the scene, begins his fiercely ironic commentary in “Oh, What a Circus,” and the music opens up into poppier tones.

Devlin starts off unassertive for a fiery revolutionary, his movements a bit stiff, his singing low on wind as he stalks the stage in his clean and pressed military fatigues and watches the able chorus sing their elegiac reply. Five Argentine women stand together wearing black veils. One of them is Eva (Lara Fern Devlin), singing at her own funeral.

Fern Devlin’s voice is strong and clear, her delivery a throwback to the emotive singing of Ethel Merman. She even throws up some jazz hands. Her dancing is more careful than carefree; she’s outshined by her backup dancers. But it’s her voice and acting that distinguish her.

Her cat-and-mouse duet with tango singer Augustine Magaldi (a suave and humorous Michael Blackburn) displays flirtatiousness and conniving. When Fern Devlin seems to be overacting, it’s like she’s reminding the audience that Eva (affectionately nicknamed Evita by her working class supporters) was an actress before ascending to be the nation’s first lady. And Eva is often performing.

Bolen seems to favor symmetry in directing ensembles on the stage, and the set/backdrop of a palace reinforces that. It gives the proceedings a balanced feel. He’s streamlined the show by editing out some of the songs. But the way he moves the choruses of upper-class snobs and military leaders around, each marching in lockstep, is brilliant and funny. They are all literally confined in their social and political networks.

The number about military juntas and the cowardly rise to power on “The Art of the Possible” harkens to the recently foiled military coup in Turkey, because good works with universal truths remain relevant. It’s a good introduction to the power hungry military officer Juan Peron (John Daniel, playing him like Ted Cruz might) destined to meet and marry Eva and rise to power on the strength of her charm, ambition and will.

Fern Devlin lifts up everyone. She commands backup choruses and dancers, showing ease at being the star. She confronts the audience with her audacity, and inspires Devlin to wake up his Che in their duets. She turns Blackburn’s Magaldi into a jilted punchline, overpowers Daniel’s Juan Peron when she has to, and lets vulnerability steer her when all the trappings of power are failing.

Her performance seemed broad at the start. And her big “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” number failed to trigger applause. But she gained more gravity and nuance as the plot got murkier – like when she glances at the audience when she counters her husband’s yearning for a quiet life with “I often get those nightmares too.” And her speech about thedescamisados workers is rousing.

The costuming is on point. The pre-recorded music was a solid and unobtrusive foundation for the rigorous live singing. A few times, timid singing resulted in lackluster or even no applause, but as vocal chords got warmed up, performers got the audience in synch. Some mics cut out parts of “A New Argentina,” but otherwise the lights and sound system of the rebuilt theater functioned like a gleaming new machine.

Side note: There wasn’t enough bathrooms at the break for the demand. And a slip-up at intermission caused a couple dozen people in the lobby to miss the cue that the second half was about to begin, and they shuffled in while the show was underway. But that didn’t hamper the momentum.

Evita is the story of a woman coming up fast and furious in a man’s world, knowing others’ motives but knowing her own better. It’s about the aspirations of human beings crashing into or dancing around the realities of the real world. It’s about power, ambition and corruption. And it’s about a woman who navigated all of this with the entirety of her being.

It’s an awesome musical, a mix of sweet and bitter, pizzaz and pathos, a political animal that may ping back to this election season. Bolen has chosen a supremely entertaining and relevant piece for his swan song.

EVITA runs 7:30pm Thu-Sat and 2pm Sun, through July 31, at Monterey Peninsula College Morgan Stock Stage, 980 Fremont St., Monterey. $10-$15. 646-4213, www.mpctheatreco.com