I saw it tonight; I'm hardly qualified to make any big judgments on Shakespeare because I haven't seen a lot of it nor have I read nearly as much as I should. I have very little to base judgment on, especially of character interpretations. But, for whatever little it's worth, I really enjoyed it even though blood and guts and all that death are not usually where I gravitate. I thought the set was fantastic and that it was overall very well-directed. The music is beautiful and very evocative, but Sondheim certainly didn't have to be the one to write it -- it's nothing any decent composer couldn't have come up with and he probably did it in a day. Some of the acting left a bit to be desired but I thought Kline and Cerveris was fantastic. Marshall-Green was the biggest surprise for me. I doubted him when I heard he was cast in Swimming in the Shallows and he proved all of my "psh, television actor!" elitist doubts out of mind. He was fantastic in Pig Farm as well, and really solidified my view of him as a very versatile talent, but I still wasn't sure about the idea of him doing Shakespeare. His performance was wonderful; he's very natural on stage. Overall, the thing I loved most about the production is the huge, divine sense of theatricality it has (largely by virtue of the text) and how intensely dramatic it was. Even if I'm not generally well-versed in Shakespeare, such heightened theatricality is something I can always appreciate.
A work of art is an invitation to love.
