A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC: 40th Anniversary Concert

...sort of.

The show premiered in New York in 1973 but the semi-staged concert we saw at the Palace Theatre on Monday was to celebrate 40 years since it's first London production.  It opened at the Adelphi with the deliciously characterful cast of Jean Simmons, Joss Ackland, Hermione Gingold, David Kernan, Maria Aitkin and Diane Langton and their cast recording is still my favourite version.

Owen took great delight in pointing out that, for all my ranting about the current trend of adapting films into stage shows, that A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC was based on Ingmar Bergman's "Smiles On A Summer Night".  Indeed Sondheim also did the screen-to-stage PASSION and is said to be working on a stage amalgamation of Luis Bunuel's THE DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGEOISIE and THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL.  A subtle but important difference to MADE IN DAGENHAM and KINKY BOOTS. 

Meanwhile, back to the Palace (sounds like INTO THE WOODS eh?)  The Palace really is a frightful barn with a particularly gloomy auditorium but it was good to see it so busy for this one-off event.  By the end of it I was aching to see a full revival of the show!

We were treated to a cast that most producer's would chew their leg off to have - namely Janie Dee as Desiree Armfeldt, Anne Reid as Mme. Armfeldt, Jamie Parker as Count Carl-Magnus, Joanna Riding as Countess Charlotte and Laura Pitt-Pulford as Petra.

I felt David Birrell as Frederick Egerman sang well but was a bit anonymous when acting opposite Dee or Parker while Fra Fee as Henrik made the oddest noise when singing in his higher register (which his character does), he sounded like a gurgling drain.

What was enjoyable was getting reacquainted with Hugh Wheeler's exquisite book, the perfect setting for the jewel of Sondheim's score.  A great book should give you the impression that, stripped of it's songs, it can stand alone as a play and when original director Hal Prince described the show as being like "whipped cream with knives" that is exactly what Hugh Wheeler wrote, he mixes comedy and drama to perfection.

Even in the semi-staged setting, the best performers sparkled.  Janie Dee was a lustrous Desiree with her trademark champagne-dry wit and she sang SEND IN THE CLOWNS with a resigned sadness.  Yes, she muffed the final moments during the CLOWNS reprise but by then she had won us over.

Jamie Parker and Joanna Riding were marvellously paired as Count and Countess Malcolm, both finding their laughs with ease.  In his solo number IN PRAISE OF WOMEN, Parker showed off his considerable singing skills as he had in last year's GUYS AND DOLLS at Chichester and was huge fun too in the duet IT WOULD HAVE BEEN WONDERFUL with Birrell. 

Joanna Riding had the audience in her hand with her cutting lines and also duetted well in EVERYDAY A LITTLE DEATH with Anna O'Byrne's Anne.  It would be a lovely change for Anne not to be played as a hysteric but O'Byrne was on firmer territory when singing.

As the all-knowing Madame Armfeldt Anne Reid was enormously enjoyable, her withering put-downs were as dry as dust and apart from a tiny stumble during her solo number LIAISONS she sang it well and it would be great to see her in a proper production, if only for her to have a proper setting for her performance.  Madame Armfeldt actually has the very last moment of the action which was lost in a concert setting.

However the best performance was Laura Pitt-Pulford's Petra, the sly and sexy maid who knows exactly what she wants out of life and love.  What is interesting is how her solo number THE MILLER'S SON comes straight after SEND IN THE CLOUDS, two songs of great self-awareness, but the latter gives a supporting actress a real moment to shine.  Diane Langton's titanic version lives on through the London cast recording and I have seen Sara Weymouth and Kaisa Hammarlund seize that moment to shine and now I can add Laura Pitt-Pulford to that list. She was quite electrifying.

The onstage orchestra sounded great under the musical direction of the curiously-bouncy Alex Parker and although Alastair Knights' direction kept the show moving along nicely, Andrew Wright's choreography was a trifle redundant.

When one thinks of how often theatres are dark it would be nice to think that they could be utilised for similar semi-staged productions or for a seasons of them such as Broadway's acclaimed Encores productions where classic or little-seen musicals are presented.

Well done Duncan Bell for the photographs that capture the event.

This week we finally got to see PASSION at the Donmar. You know the year is speeding by when that show it seemed absurd to book so far in advance for is suddenly the next day.

I had deliberately not read any reviews for this production but I was worried going in as Jamie Lloyd is not a favorite director and I had heard there was 'streamlining' of the score - this worried me as the score for PASSION seems so hermetically-sealed that it's hard to see where trimming could take place without disrupting the flow.

However very soon into the show I was forgetting all my worries. Jamie Lloyd, for all his speeding problems, has directed the best version of the show I have seen. The original London production was top-heavy with the casting of Michael Ball and the over-rated Maria Friedman and the Bridewell production - as was usually the case with that theatre - was slightly under-whelmingly cast. But here, the production is as intense, focused and driven as the play's anti-heroine Fosca, it has the hothouse atmosphere of an invalid's sickbed.
The musical has a book by James Lapine and is based on Ettore Scola's 1981 film PASSIONE D'AMORE which is itself based on the novel 'Fosca' by Ugo Iginio Tarchetti. Tarchetti died of Tuberculosis aged only 29 while writing the novel so the strange, feverish nature of the story can be fully understood knowing that fact. The original production ran only nine months from 1994-95 but still deservedly won the Tony Awards for Best Musical, Score, Book and Actress for Donna Murphy.

Giorgio is an army Captain who is enjoying a passionate affair with the married Clara which is interrupted when he is drafted to a remote outpost. He is warmly welcomed by Colonel Ricci and Dr. Tambourri while being viewed somewhat suspiciously by his fellow soldiers for his literary interests. He soon learns there is another inhabitant of the outpost, the Colonel's sickly cousin Fosca who stays in her room and whose agonised cries are heard often.
Giorgio lends her some of his books and Fosca makes a rare appearance at dinner to thank him for his generosity which he confesses in his letters to Clara he only did at the prompting of the Doctor. It is soon apparent that Fosca has become obsessed with the handsome Captain and haunts Giorgio wherever he goes, driving him to distraction. His attempt to end their friendship leads to a decline in her health and the Doctor begs him to see Fosca again. Fosca asks one thing of him - that he writes her a love letter which she dictates much to his discomfort. He later learns she was married once but was swindled of her fortune and left destitute.

The constant drain on his emotions takes its toll and Giorgio becomes unwell. However he cannot bring himself to go on a lengthy sick leave which angers his superiors and makes him the subject of barrack room gossip. Giorgio slowly begins to question whose love is more real - Clara's carefully managed trysts or Fosca's total devotion. The news that Giorgio is to be transferred leads to a hysterical collapse from Fosca and the Colonel, suspecting Giorgio has led her on, challenges him to a duel...

Sondheim's lush score seems to never pause for a moment, using several leitmotifs to keep the music swirling around the mind only coming to rest really for two wonderfully pure love songs - or declarations of intent - sung by Fosca "I Wish I Could Forget You" and "Loving You". I defy anyone to listen to the score and then make the complaint that Sondheim is not a romantic composer.

The production has no interval so the plot's momentum is allowed to sweep one along unlike the original London production which had an interval after the scene where Fosca dictated the letter to Giorgio and which completely destroyed any intensity.

The usual Donmar design suspects are also much in evidence - Christopher Oram's stark set of three rounded double doorways beneath a painted faded mural of classical lovers is aided immeasurably by Neil Austin's romantic lighting, grey/blue for the outpost or warm sunlight for Clara's Milan.

The role of Fosca demands an actress who can turn on the intensity and Elena Roger can certainly do that. The Donmar's artistic director Michael Grandage is getting a lot of use out of her: she was his Evita in the West End, his Piaf at the Donmar and beyond, now she is Fosca... he must be scouring the shelves to see what will fit her ripe personality next as she ain't the easiest performer to fit in a show. One might suggest Googie Gomez in THE RITZ!

Her intensity and heavy accent at first pull the focus a little as there are no other attempts at Italian accents in the cast and I *did* fight hard to get the images of Edith Piaf, Rita Moreno and Liliane Montevecchi from colliding in my mind but slowly the intensity became muted and she had a wonderful quality of stillness in her solo numbers, you could feel the audience holding it's breath as she sang them.

She has been unfairly picked on by some - yes Whingers - but I am glad she played the role - it could have been Jenna Russell playing another Sondheim female role in an 'ecky thump' Northern accent.David Thaxton was new to me and I thought he excelled in the role of Giorgio, he has a fine singing voice and although his singing slightly overshadowed his acting he is still a name for the future methinks. Scarlett Strallen played Clara and, despite a worrying degree of Langfordism (Bonnie is her aunt) in voice and expression, she also was fine.

There was excellent support from Allan Corduner as the meddlesome Dr. Tambourri and David Birrell as Colonel Ricci. Birrell was sporting an eye patch from the incident in early October when the gun he uses in the duel scene misfired and led to him being hospitalised and a few shows cancelled as the Donmar has a no understudy policy. I should praise too the nine piece orchestra under the musical direction of Alan Williams for their rich, full sound.

It may not be one of Sondheim's more popular works but you will find PASSION a haunting experience if you can get a ticket.