Sondheim’s A Little Night Music at New Milford’s TheatreWorks: Wow!

David Begelman  

Don’t be surprised at that cold draft around your feet when taking in Stephen Sondheim’s A Little Night Music at New Milford’s TheatreWorks. Because this is one show that is bound to knock your socks off. It’s that good, thanks to gifted director Bradford Blake, and a cast that is so accomplished on stage, it’s hard to believe the performers are a group of community players, and not some professional company jobbed in from the Great White Way.

Sondheim’s musical is based on Ingmar Bergman’s Smiles of a Summer’s Night. The film is a comedy of manners in which its characters find themselves paired with lovers or spouses who are uncomfortable fits. What looks at first like frivolous ventures in sexual exchange and couplings is in reality the desperate search for the right love connection, a more serious quest.

The Bergman film and the Sondheim show are somewhat dissimilar treatments of the same theme; the musical is in a lighter mode than the Swedish director’s masterpiece. All the same, the somber overlay we are accustomed to in such films as Fanny and Alexander and Winter Light is accentuated in the musical in the form of Henrik Egerman, a bible-thumping and suicidally disposed young man (played with callow ardor by Brendan Padgett). A cellist, he has the misfortune of being immersed in a strict Lutheran religious code, while having the hots for his stepmother, Anne (played without a trace of guile by the radiant Jessica Stewart).

Anne is married to an attorney, Fredrik (played extraordinarily well by Bruce Tredwell) for 11 months in a relationship that is unconsummated for reasons that are unclear. Her eyes are finally opened to new romantic possibilities with an adoring stepson who cottons on to the advantage of sinning over salvation.  

New Milford’s production of A Little Night Music is such a happy combination of direction, performing, and production values, the occasional lapses into sharps and flats are barely noticeable. And performers are backed up by an equally impressive team: musical director Charles Smith, costume designer Lesley Neilson-Bowman, set designer Paula Anderson, and the superb lighting design of Scott Wyshynski.

Director Blake’s ingenuity in staging the musical is everywhere in evidence. He makes stunning use of a turntable on which groups of performers rotate on stage in  clockwise motion and exit behind a curtain when their scenes end. The device is dramatically effective, as was his unusual staging of a dinner scene in which all principals sat in a row with their backs to the audience. Curiously, their repartee was as vivid here as it would have been had they been turned around, facing the audience.

Performances without exception were—excuse the redundancy—exceptional, from the lovely cameo portrayal of ingenuous Frederika Armfeldt by the 12 year-old Becca Myhill, to the accomplished characterization of Mademe Armfeldt by the area’s theatrical treasure, Jane Farnol. Ms. Farnol’s Mademe Armfeldt was a delightful study in irony and crustiness—from a wheelchair, no less. When prompted by Frederika to cheat at cards to ensure the desired outcome, Mademe counters, “Solitaire is the only thing in life that requires complete honesty.”

Equally impressive were performances by Susan Pettibone as Desirée Armfeldt, the sometime mistress of Fredrik and Count Carl-Magnus Malcolm (played with his customary commanding, and in this case imperious, presence by Mark Feltch). Desirée—as if you wouldn’t have guessed it from the getgo—is an actress. Despite the fact she has distinguished herself in plays by Racine and Ibsen, she has a reputation for promiscuity (Ingmar Bergman’s sidelong glance at the traditional gossip about performers down through the ages, although his traveling clown threesome in The Seventh Seal was among the spiritually elect in this searing film).

A highlight of the show was Ms. Pettibone’s rendition of its most popular song, Send in the Clowns. Responding to the impending termination of her affair with Fredrik, she delivers an interpretation of the song that is vocally accomplished and suffused with emotion and subtext.

Outstanding portrayals are also turned in by Priscilla Squiers as Countess Charlotte Malcolm and Jackie Decho-Holm as Petra, a servant girl. Charlotte is a wife forever bewailing her husband’s philandering ways, and whose occasional flirtations outside of marriage belie her steadfast commitment to her blustering and duel-inclined Carl-Magnus. With a realistic grasp on the thing she has with her husband, she complains, “You’re a tiger, I’m a hawk; together we’re a zoo.” Ms. Squiers turns in a performance that is charismatic and beautifully focused, while Ms. Deco-Holm’s opened-faced interpretation of The Miller’s Son toward the end of the musical was delightfully earthy.

All principals were backed up by vocally accomplished performers like Ron Dukenski, Greg McMahan, Catherine McCollian, Jessica Smith, and Jody Bayer, whose presence on stage enhanced the action. Lest it go unnoticed, this is a cast that looks terrific doing the occasional waltz, a tempo favored in this most sentimental of Sondheim works.

If area theatergoers miss this show, it will be their loss and this reviewer’s profit. So they would do well to get on the stick and see this dazzling production.

A Little Night Music opened at New Milford’s TheatreWorks, on September 26, 2008. It runs until October 25, 2008. Performances on Fridays and Saturdays are at 8:00 PM, Sunday matinees at 2:00 PM. Tickets are $26 and may be purchased online at www.theatreworks.us, or by calling (860)-350-6863.

     

 

 

 

 

 

 

      

      

 

At the Movies

With David Begelman

Citizen News Film Critic

“To Rome with Love:” Woody Worsening

Woody Allen’s new film “To Rome with Love” is among several recent ones that fall short of an intended cinematic aim. In this case, it’s obscure what that aim actually is. The film seems to get lost in diverging rivulets of narrative intent.

The movie is another chapter in the director’s effort to underscore his fascination with European cities—in this case, Rome. In “Vicki Christina Barcelona” it was Barcelona, Spain, while in “Midnight in Paris” it was the capital of France reworked through a time-warp.

Difference is not confined solely to geography in the Allen oeuvre. Woody’s also influenced by the work of other authors and movie-makers. The impact of Ingmar Bergman is obvious in his 1952 “A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy,” Tolstoy in his 1976 “Love and Death,” Dostoyevsky in the 1989 “Crimes and Misdemeanors,” Pedro Almodóvar in the 2008 “Vicki Christina Barcelona,” and German expressionist directors, like Lang, Pabst and Murnau in his 1991 “Shadows and Fog.”

“To Rome With Love” is instructive in showing how the director’s creative vision can be compromised. Every Woody Allen movie depends upon three separate elements. First, there is the quip, gag line, or hilarious comment of which Woody is an acknowledged master.

Second, there is the knack for creating the comic situation. “To Rome With Love” is bulging with them, as are most of Woody’s films. An example in this film is Leopoldo (Roberto Benigni) who suddenly becomes a celebrity for no apparent reason. He is hounded relentlessly by paparazzi and T.V. hosts who magnify the importance of the most trivial features of his behavior, including shaving. (The humor in this is a riff on the silliness of celebrity status.)

Another example is Giancarlo (Fabio Armiliato), a mortician who is discovered to have a thrilling lyric tenor voice that becomes even more professional in the shower. His reputation is assured when the mountain is brought to Mohammed and he sings Pagliacci at an opera stage outfitted with a shower.

The third element is the inclusion of the first two elements in a narrative that is consistent. Here is where “To Rome With Love” breaks down—irretrievably. It’s in stark contrast to “Match Point” or “Vicki Christina Barcelona” in which the director had no acting role. Curiously enough, he cast himself in ”To Rome with Love,” as he did in the flop “Scoop.” Could it be that the price Allen pays for being a fall guy for the first two elements—an inevitable consequence of casting himself in a film—is crippling a narrative by succumbing to the enticements of being a stand-up comedian? Could it be that the “Annie Hall” days are over, and that Woody’s narrative proficiency is enhanced when he’s behind the camera, rather than appropriating major roles for himself?

There is another feature of Woody Allen films that comes through loud and clear. It’s his preoccupation with the mystery of love. He’s constantly seeking to understand a character in the throes of a sudden passion, change of heart or reversal of erotic feeling. If the cinematic scenario parallels a personal one, Woody should join the crowd. Most of us find ourselves in similar predicaments at points in our lives. Except for most of us, the mystery isn’t elevated to the status of a metaphysical imponderable. We get on with it—in whatever way that makes it possible to survive. It’s not important that the bee explain why he chooses one fragrant flower over another. Only that he stay on the task of whatever he has to do to shore up the hive. Reality is forward motion, not contemplating navels.