The Fifth Avenue Musical Theatre Company and A Contemporary Theatre's co-production of Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music marks a profound step forward for Seattle as a producer of world-class entertainment.
Sondheim's 1972 operetta is a fable of mismatched lovers who are untangled from their mistakes beneath the smiling sun of a white night. Set in a Swedish countryside at the turn of the 20th century, the play bears similarities to A Midsummer Night's Dream, but is closer in spirit to Chekhov than Shakespeare. David Armstrong's direction emphasizes this with an "advance and retreat" staging in which Dionysian indiscretion is tempered with a moral apprehension. Although the play is loosely based on Ingmar Bergman's Smiles of a Summer Night, Nancy Thun's and Candice Donnelly's sets and costumes create an impression very different from Bergman's 1955 black and white film, suggesting a Gallic re-visioning of a Russian country estate. The stellar cast includes Britain's Hayley Mills as Desiree Armfeldt, an actress whose life has crumbled into a series of meaningless affairs with ignorant and vain men, and Claire Bloom as her mother. Mills, cast against type in a brazen and brassy role, delivers an achingly frail rendition of "Send in the Clowns." The rest of the cast similarly avoids the "voice for voice's sake" style that has permeated musical theatre since the early '80s. The songs of A Little Night Music are character- and event-driven moments that require as much acting skill as vocal talent.
This original production brings Sondheim's classic work to life with a stunning dexterity that transported the opening night audience to another world, one in which all human error is set aright by the sun that smiles upon us all. Would that it were so in real life.
1. Overture And Night Waltz
2. Now / Later / Soon
3. Glamorous Life, The
4. Remember?
5. You Must Meet My Wife
6. Liaisons
7. In Praise Of Women
8. Every Day A Little Death
9. Weekend In The Country, A
10. Night Waltz I - The Sun Won't Set
11. Night Waltz II - The Sun Sits Low (previously unreleased)
12. It Would Have Been Wonderful
13. Perpetual Anticipation
14. Send In The Clowns
15. Miller's Son, The
16. Finale: Send In The Clowns (Reprise) / Night Waltz (Reprise)
17. Glamorous Life, The - Elaine Tomkinson (bonus track)
A Little Night Music
