A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC'S reopening tonight...(review updates here) — Page 14

I almost went tonight. Going out of town now so I'll have to wait another 2 weeks.

Michael Bennett--just how many times have you seen it?!?

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An excellent article. Sian Phillips is particularly eloquent.

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are you people in the cast and can't gossip about this at work so you do it on a BWW website? I like broadway and i love to be entertained but, come on! this thread is starting to sound like the sports commentators while watching ESPN 2. Get a life or another hobby.

Sorry Changing - you and I must have seen two different shows on Friday night.

Its true that Stritch takes her time with the material but I don't believe its because she doesn't know her lines. If anything most of the pauses are coming from the fact that she gets enormous laughs -- often two or three per line. Her Liaisons is perfection - every beat, every detail is clear - she paints a rich portrait line to line in that song - if the tempo is a little slower because of it, who cares - I'll take it over Lansbury's rendition any day.

And I don't even know what to say about your assessment of Bernadette, who's performance has been so beautifully captured by everyone else here who's reported on it

You are certainly entitled to your opinion, but to say it was an off performance - it was - but only in your head -- judging from the audience reaction Friday night, yours must have been an extremely minority opinion.

I (to answer PalJoey's question above) have seen the production 5 times and Friday nights was absolutely the strongest its ever been - from the entire cast.

Sorry changing -(but maybe you should take Stritch off as your avatar if you are so at sea with her work as an artist).

Yeah, I'm generally happy to play the contrarian, but I just don't get how anyone can think negatively of Peters' performance here.

I've never seen anyone connect to material and a scene in such a way that they have tears streaming down their face and can barely get the words out.

Changing - thats simply not true in terms of her flubbing lines. I know the script - there was one line that she got incorrect at the top of Act 2, and which she stumbled to amend- the others were correct. You may not like her characterization (Stritch is definitely playing the character as older, more frailer than Lansbury) but I maintain some of what you are interpretating as grasping for lines is a character choice (this is after all a character who says at four times in the script "where was I or "what was I talking about?"). At any rate you can discredit the pauses and the longer pace of this cast as being too slow for your tastes - but its simply incorrect to say she was making errors in her dialogue - at least on Friday night - it was pretty accurate..

In terms of Peters - there is definitely a heart to her Desiree. She plays the role as an actress more comfortable with playing a 'part' then exposing her own vulnerability, which is precisely why her moments with Frederick, when she lets go of that persona have such a moving, even needy quality to them.

And there are always people who walk out of intermission of every show on Broadway - and every time I've seen this production - including twice with CZJ - there have been people who left. Its simply not a show thats for everyone's tastes. Take that for what you will.

Does Bernadette usually come out the stage door? Regardless, I'm so excited to see her in this!

I saw the show last thursday and both Elaine and Bernadette came out through the stage door. Though Elaine kind of just ran into her limo while Bernadette stayed and signed. I even got a picture wit her, which is awesome.

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Hex, I don't think 6 should be necessary. I was helping a friend rush La Cage across the street this Saturday and the line for A Little Night Music had no more than 15 people in it (and we didn't arrive until 9:30). If you could easily see either performance of the show on Saturday, I would say 6 would be unnecessarily early (unless you want to be first in line).

I got to the box office Saturday at 10:30. No line, and, also, a ticket in the front row, on the side.

Rushed this yesterday with my student daughter and it was too funny! All ten or so people in line when I got there at 9:45 AM were under the impression the box office opened at 10 AM, so I got to inform them, that just as it says right on the front door of the theater and as it is the policy for every B'way theater I've dealt with, the box office opens at NOON on Sundays.

They started by giving away extreme side orchestra, and I was sad to be the first person to be offered mezzanine--which by the way, wasn't at all full. Happily, the mezz isn't that far away in that theater, and we relocated to some empty third row center seats at intermission, which was amazing.

I can't imagine anyone finding phony moments in Bernadette's performance. Her Send in the Clowns made me weep, and even though Stritch needed some off-stage help with Liaisons yesterday, she blew us away with the humor/pathos of her line deliveries. I originally had tickets to see this with CZJ and Lansbury that cost more than the student prices we paid yesterday and turned them back in when Zeta-Jones was too sick to perform, so I can't make a comparison. But wow, those two were lovely...and I was just transfixed!

I swung by the theater and got a Student Rush ticket at 6:15PM. It was Row B of the bowel-cony but I moved down in to a box for the second act.

This was my first time seeing ALNM and have only had exposure to "Send in the Clowns" and "Ev'ry Day A Little Death" from youtube clips of Judi Dench, Maureen Moore & Carol Channing/Ruthie Henshall.

The show was breath-taking and the score was sumptuous as I had imagined it would be. I could have used less of the chamber singers throughout the first act as I felt they served their purpose as 'inner dialogues' best in the second act and really shined in the epilogue reprises. "Ah, well" was an absolute pisser last night.

*SPOILER ALERT - PLOT POINTS* As for the show itself, I have to say (this being my first exposure to the actual plot) I was almost taken aback by the "happy ending." After what felt like a heart-wrenching, yet permanent, goodbye during "Send In The Clowns," I was surprised that Desiree was so willing to play second fiddle to Anne for Fredrik. Perhaps this seemed odd due to the acting choices, but I just felt that the entire play was working up to a great reunion with a regrettable goodbye. For a play riddled with heartbreak throughout almost the entirety of both acts I was surprised to see everyone land in the right place alive, well and in love with the correct partner. I was hoping at the very least to see Charlotte slap Magnus and leave him after being freed of her contemptuous relationship. Also, I love Leigh Ann Larkin and was happy she had her chance to vocally shine, but where the hell did The Miller's Son come from? That wasn't even leftfield, that came from the Grand Central Parkway.*END SPOILERS*

The performances from the leading women were magnificent. With the number of concert tours and stuffy benefits Peters has done in the past decade it would be easy to forget what a gifted comedic actress she is which is one place that she truly shined and surprised me in last night. Her "Clowns" was, of course, revelatory and had the audience enraptured. For whatever reason, the moment I found tears truly streaming down my face was when the song had ended and she slowly creeped off the stage. It was haunting and heartbreaking.

Strichy was a hoot and as much as I thought her crass tone was possibly ill-fitted for a show with more classical grader, it was the perfect balance to the more somber themes and players in the cast. As stated somewhere else, the presence of these two women has truly elevated the cast and you can see it in the fervor for which they all attack these roles.

Not having seen the show until now, I don't have a means of comparison for Herdlicka & Mallory but I did enjoy their performance, although they did feel a bit caricatured. They played the emotions of their respective characters (somber/melancholy & flighty ingenue) to their extreme which worked but were their plot line to require any longer scenes I'm sure I would have found them grating by the end of the show.

As I stated above, I have watched clips of Maureen Moore's Charlotte and was so impressed therefore setting a fairly high bar for her Grey Gardens castmate Erin Davie to surpass. Davie was able to intertwine the silent scorn of her Charlotte with stellar comic timing which truly shined in the second act. I wish I enjoyed the way her and Mallory's voices sounded together more, but thankfully Davie has the majority of the singing in "Death."

Aesthetically I found the production to dance the line of feeling indoor and stuffy while bringing the outdoors on stage for the second act. For a rather simple set, I feel that it was serviceable but I do wish there was more decadence brought to the country chateau and more openness to a show that relies so much on lyrical imagery about the "summer's night," the sun setting and the moon rising.

This is definitely a "run, don't walk" opportunity to see some soon-to-be legendary performances.

Updated On: 7/28/10 at 11:06 AM

I too was at this past Saturday's matinee. Being obsessed with Night Music for years and it being my favorite show, I'll admit I was probably going to like it regardless of who was in it or how well they knew the show. But I was so happy when it blew my expectations out of the water. Bernadette was flawless, and besides one or two very minor line flubs, so was Elaine. They both made me laugh and cry and feel every emotion in between. The rest of the cast was great too, I was especially happy with Leigh Ann Larkin and her "Miller's Son". I left that theatre with more joy than I've felt in a long time. This will be one show I won't forget.

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