Flashing back

Hey, I haven't done a flashback post in a while!  I thought since this is a shortened work week, and I'm not seeing as much theater as usual (taking a tiny bit of a break for the holiday), I'd post a flashback to a grand night with a beautiful gal pal - who, coincidentally, is one of my Thanksgiving dinner dates.  Plus, while watching a Law and Order marathon over the weekend, one of the stars of the below-mentioned musical was a favorite featured player.  So, that's enough of a tenuous connection to get me to share this old review from 2010.  At least I think it is...

10/20/2010:  Hi guys!  A beautiful gal pal and I had a faboo time at A Little Night Music last night.  Well, she and I always have a faboo time.  But we also enjoyed the show, with quite a few caveats… ;)

My beautiful gal pal had seen the original cast of this revival, but I hadn’t.  This was my first trip to the show.  In fact, I can’t really remember having seen the show before, but I thought I had seen it at New York City Opera.  In any event, the show is lovely with a delightful score.  I wish the director, Trevor Nunn, had done a better job of showing the loveliness.  Yes, there is a ruefulness and a sadness underneath, but there’s also love and joy.  Two things that are sadly missing in his direction of this production.    

The direction is rather leaden, moving at a sometimes deadly pace.  Characters sort of waft on and waft off stage with no real intent.  It just sort of seemed like everyone was moving in slow motion.  And I put that directly at the director’s feet.

photo credit: Joan Marcus

BUT I loved Loved LOVED Bernadette Peters.  Not only is she physically exquisite, but she is really charming and delightful; yet, in the “Send in the Clowns” scene, she is heartbreakingly vulnerable.  Truly, that scene alone was worth the price of admission.  Truly.   Not exaggerating.  So many wonderful layers happening.  I really can’t say enough about how fantastic that scene was.  She was a little much at a couple of other times, but overall, I loved her.

Elaine Stritch.  Sigh.  Of course, she was terrific.  She’s Elaine Stritch.  She's sort of incapable of not being brilliant.  And I'm always so grateful to see her on a stage.  But she completely lost herself during “Liaisons.”  And never really found her way back.  She just sort of sat there, in the wheelchair, and you could hear someone in the pit cuing her, but it took her a while to get the thread of the song back.  She did finally finish the song, but it was so off-kilter, it was not very understandable.  And then I spent the rest of the evening worrying she wouldn’t make it through, which is totally on me and not her, I guess.  Most of the rest of her dialogue was stilted and wobbly, albeit with flashes of brilliance.  I guess she just had a bad night, which is disappointing, because what we DID get when she was ‘on,’ was great.  A salty, quirky, funny Madame Armfeldt actually works pretty well.  And she did look lovely.  And she was so delighted during the curtain call.  But it was sort of an unpleasant experience to watch her.  It was sad, really—even if she was going for a type of dementia for the character, we could tell it was the actress struggling instead of the character.  I hope it was just an off night and she rights the ship soon.

photo credit: Joan Marcus

The supporting characters were mainly fine, nothing special, though I did enjoy Erin Davie as Charlotte, and I liked Leigh Ann Larkin as Petra well enough (more when she was singing than acting, but ok).  The Frederik reminded me physically of Doug Sills, which was distracting to me, because Doug Sills is a Carl-Magnus, not a Frederik.  In my opinion, of course.  And, in fact, I would’ve much preferred Doug as Carl-Magnus.  God bless this boy, but, I’m sorry, he sounded great but he just really didn’t have any charisma.  Which Carl-Magnus should have in spades.  Otherwise, he’s just a buffoon.  Which Carl-Magnus is, don’t get me wrong, but without charm, it’s not fun.  Oh, and I was shocked to see Ron Bohmer playing Frid, the servant.  I would’ve much preferred him as Frederik.  I just loved Ron so much in the recent Ragtime revival, I was surprised to see him in such a small role here.  But he was very good, of course.


So, to sum up, I think Trevor Nunn has not done a good job with this production, but I do think it’s worth seeing for the “Send in the Clowns” of Bernadette Peters.  She is sublime.  And we all must see Elaine Stritch every chance we get.