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'Tis the season of Evita's triumphant return to Broadway with young blood and new production, but the original Tony-winning Eva and Che are holding up just fine — in fact, having a real nice clambake for themselves at the Barrymore in something called An Evening with Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin.

They pitched their tent there Nov. 21 (after five days of previews) for a limited run through Jan. 13, and you'll still not hear a better "Oh, What a Circus" and "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina."

Save for that huge Lloyd Webber wallop in the second act, they focus on the great American songbook, stitching different generations of it together into a cohesive, satisfying whole. Each act has a nice hunk of Rodgers and Hammerstein (South Pacific and Carousel), replete with some strong, mood-setting patches of lead-in dialogue, lest you forget what effective actors they always were.

LuPone has said she couldn't act Evita until she learned how to sing it. And, in that context, Patinkin recalled some dark days during the Los Angeles tryout when he went to her dressing room and two terrified newcomers held each other tightly, vowing friendship forever.

Thirty-three years later, the affection and trust are still there, judging from the warmth and rapport they show on stage. As Nellie Forbush falling in love with Emile de Becque, it's fun to watch LuPone the actress do that Jessica Tandy thing of wilting into a young flower — then, once the marriage question is popped, she shifts gears into the wedding-day hysterics of Company's "Getting Married Today," which he attempts to alleviate with Passion's "Loving You [Is Not a Choice — It's Who I Am]."

As you can see, Sondheim embroiders quite well with R&H. For musical combat, there's Frank Loesser ("Baby, It's Cold Outside" from "Neptune's Daughter") and Irving Berlin ("You're Just in Love" from Call Me Madam). There is, here and there along the way, musical punctuation by Jerome Kern and Kander & Ebb.

Act One ends with Murray Grand's grand novelty number from New Faces of 1956, "April in Fairbanks," with some very funny swivel-chair choreography from "dance consultant" Ann Reinking. Capping the whole caffeinated night was "Coffee in a Cardboard Cup" from Kander & Ebb's 70, Girls, 70.

Sharing the stage with them was a supporting cast of two — Paul Ford at the piano and John Beal on bass. Littered about was an assortment of ghost lights, which went from the usual dull metal to Technicolor in festive moments.

View the Entire Photo Gallery Patti LuPone Photo by Joseph Marzullo/WENN

At one point, Patinkin saluted the man in the audience responsible for putting him together with LuPone, Jeff Hunter, his agent who talked him into leaving a rehearsal at The Public of Des McAnuff's Leave It to Beaver Is Dead early and audition for Evita. The rest is history — and an unthought-of musical career.

At the curtain call were a couple of sentimental surprises. Patinkin and LuPone presented their bouquet of flowers to their lead producer, Staci Levine, who has run their tour (and his life) and who suggested a Broadway stop. Then, LuPone called to the stage her son, Josh Johnston, and had the audience sing him a happy 21st birthday. It made an adorable mother-son moment for all.

After the show, the merriment moved directly across the street to the Glass House Tavern, where upstairs the birthday cake was cut and distributed while mom and Mandy met the press downstairs.

LuPone agreed, with italics, that the show was an easier delivery than she had 21 years ago. "Josh had no idea," she hooted happily. "We brought him backstage. Staci brought him back and said, 'You gotta get out of these clothes.' He said, 'Get out of these clothes? Why?' He had no idea we were bringing him up on the stage."

Her next professional mountain hasn't a note in it, she was pleased to say — The Anarchist in the fall, a two-character play written and directed by David Mamet. She's to play a longtime prison inmate with ties to a violent political organization who pleads for parole from the warden (Laurie Metcalf).

"It's a very difficult play, and it's a very powerful piece — and I am thrilled to death that David and I are back together again. This makes the seventh production I've been in. I go back to The Woods. I go back to All Men Are Whores in 1975. I was hoping my relationship with David wouldn't end with The Old Neighborhood, and it's not. He has written two very powerful women in a powerful piece. I wanted it. I think I willed it."

Patinkin is heading down a musical path — two musical paths: "Let Go is a new piece I've created that I'm going to give birth to in February. It's a 112-minute song cycle — sort of a generic family album, both a generic family and the family of country. We have a week-long booking in Florida, I can't remember where.

"Then I have a new show that I'm putting together with Taylor Mac, called The Last Two People on Earth. We're both in it, and we're both creating it along with Paul Ford. It's all music. I have one-third left to learn of it in terms of the basic skeleton, and once I get a break, then I'll start drilling that material into my head, then we'll start roughing it out, trying it out — and it will tell us what it needs."