"A Little Night Music"

Hello, blog! I am just back from New York City and I am full of culture! Over the course of < 30 hours, I saw three groups perform at Lincoln Center and two Tony award winning Broadway musicals! It was delightfully decadent. And at the same time, I visited my third city (Chicago, Boston, New York) in seven days! I am very lucky.

Today I'll talk about the Saturday matinee. This was my second time seeing "A Little Night Music" and my companion's first. It's a romantic comedy from Stephen Sondheim (my personal god of musical theatre) set among the love affairs of actors, lawyers and Counts in turn of the (20th) century Sweden. At least I think it's a comedy, it is full of comedic moments, but also many tears and much sadness.

We got really quite good seats through the TKTS booth in Times Square, which sells significantly discounted tickets to shows the day of the performance. Sadly, Angela Lansbury is no longer in the production, but it now stars Bernadette Peters, who I'd take over Catherine Zeta-Jones any day. She was just *wonderful*. Sixty two, and she's still completely gorgeous and lively and wonderful.

This production felt much more comedic than the other production I saw, I think in large part thanks to Ms. Peters. Her mannerisms and tone of voice and energy gave real humor to scenes that felt flat in the college production I saw previously. She was an utter delight, and I was honored to be mere feet away from her.

As I told my companion on the way to the show, I was never clear why, of all of Sondheim's wonderful music, "Send in the Clowns" had gotten the most popular attention, when it wasn't even in my top 20 favorite Sondheim songs. When Bernadette Peters sang it on that stage, heartbroken, crying, vulnerable and pained... I didn't sob, but I had chills, and people near me cried.

The rest of the cast was fine, I was just overwhelmed with love for Bernadette Peters. The actress who played Anne in the previous production... her voice was incredibly unpleasant. It was interesting to see that with an Anne where I am not distracted by the actress, I still think of the character in approximately the same way. (At least this time I didn't slip up and say "God she's so *dumb*" outloud in the front row during Act II.)

Elaine Stritch played Madame Armfeldt, and while she was certainly a fine actor, I did keep thinking about how much I wished I could see Angela Lansbury in the role. I don't know if she's a trained singer. Her one song, "Liasons", was not so muc sung as... complained? In the previous production, she was mostly wistful in this song, where as Ms. Stritch seemed to be close to, well, freaking out about it. As I told my companion, she has such special problems.

"The Miller's Son" is a favorite of mine, and I had high hopes for the actor playing Petra, and she did not disappoint. It's a joyful ode to youthful promiscuity, and I think it will now be stuck in my head again thanks to writing this post. :-)

I always forget just how much better professional productions are than physicists at MIT. (Especially the dancing, I do so love dancing.) I don't have a good enough ear to really notice the difference in singing skill most of the time, but with dancing, I am just delighted by professional work. And this is a show with hardly any dancing at all!

Overall, it was a lovely production and I recommend it. I left the theatre in excellent spirits, full of happiness and love for the world, a perhaps strange reaction to a Sondheim play, I know. Of course, by the end of the second play I saw on Saturday, I was sobbing hysterically, but that will be another post. :)