A Little Night Music: Ms Jones and I
We saw A Little Night Music last night on Broadway, and it was the right music. We attended the original over 35 years ago, and we realized that this was our last chance to see Angela Lansbury on stage, and our first chance to see Catherine Zeta-Jones on stage.
Stephen Sondheim is, like a very old Macallan, an acquired taste. (If you don’t believe that, then throw away two hours of your life watching Sunday in the Park With George.) He is too clever by half, and I’m sometimes wondering if I’m watching David Mamet put to music or Gilbert and Sullivan at the wrong speed. In Night Music, he begins with the equivalent of a Greek Chorus, and the proceedings are thereafter like a dance, in waltz tempo.
On top of that, the setting is Sweden a century ago. Not exactly scintillating material. (One throw-away line involved Malmo.)
Ms. Jones is a star. From my vantage point in the eighth row, she is drop-dead gorgeous, but not one of the size 2 walking sticks who flit around the media almost intersticially. She is in command of the stage, has a fine voice, and acts superbly. Ms. Lansbury performs as one would expect, gracefully and well. But what makes this show are the marvelous singing voices of every single cast member, and brilliant direction by Trevor Nunn.
This is a story of infidelity, chauvinism, deceit, and deception. Yet the characters are, astonishingly, sympathetic, and you care what happens to them. Counterintuitively, it has a happy ending.
There isn’t a song that’s memorable except the iconic Send in the Clowns, which even Sinatra felt he had to record. That’s because this is semi-opera, not full-theater. But it’s better theater than we’re used to seeing these days, and it has stood the test of three decades (or a century from Sweden). Go see it before Ms. Jones leaves.
© Alan Weiss 2010. All rights reserved.
