"But in the time the show is set, wouldn't a woman nearing 40 be considered 'late in [her] career'?
"I thought the younger casting in the London production worked very well - especially in the case of Charlotte. How does it make sense that Anne is 18 and went to school with Charlotte's sister, and then most productions cast Charlotte as 45."
One difference between
Smiles of a Summer Night and
A Little Night Music is that Desiree has a 4-year-old son in the former, whereas she has a 13-year-old daughter in the latter. It's been 14 years since Fredrik and Desiree have last seen each other. She complains that in the old days, he walked out on her performances as Hedda and Phaedra. Hannah Waddingham is 34 or perhaps 35, having been born in 1974. She was playing Hedda and Phaedra when she was 20? She was already a famous actress when she was 20?
In too many recent productions, Desiree has been 60ish. Penny Fuller, about to play the role in White Plains, is 68. That's wrong. But 30-35 is also wrong.
Clearly, Desiree should read as about 45. That makes sense of the chronology while not being too old to make sense of other things in the show, such as Anne's catty comment that Desiree must be at least 50, prompting Fredrik to respond that he doesn't think she looks that old. Anne's line makes no sense if Desiree really does look 50. Anne's clearly being catty out of her own insecurity.
Actually, this was all discussed before at
https://forum.broadwayworld.com/readmessage.cfm?thread=986430#3735748 I agree completely about Charlotte. Flower girls are usually between four and eight, at least in the United States. Since Anne would be about the same age as Charlotte's younger sister, it would seem that Charlotte would have been at least 10 years older than Marta. (Although since Marta is now teaching gymnastics in a school for retarded girls, perhaps she was a year or two older than Anne.) Anyway, I think it makes sense to play Charlotte as late 20s-early 30s. And it makes it all the more galling for both Charlotte and Anne if they are afraid of losing their husbands to an older woman.
Of course, it does seem as if the creators didn't necessarily think out the chronology of all of this too carefully. For one thing, it does seem as if Fredrik in the musical had his affair with Desiree while his wife was still alive, making them both less sympathetic.
Indeed, in some ways Desiree isn't all that sympathetic a character. She's having an affair with one woman's husband while plotting to steal another woman's husband and she's more or less abandoned her child.
I really feel that a Desiree who's too young simply can't have the kind of poignancy that a Desiree in her mid-40s can have and that seems to have been intended for the role. As I wrote in that other thread, "The other finalist for the role, along with Glynis Johns, was Tammy Grimes, who would have been just 39 when the show opened if she had been cast.
"They said the main reason they chose Johns was that she conveyed more vulnerability, which may have been partly the result of her being older.
"But it also says something about their point of view. In the movie, the actress playing Desiree conveys very little vulnerability. She's in charge, she's plotting, she's strong, she's decided what she wants and there's little doubt that this woman can get what she wants. And that's the right way to play the role given the screenplay. She's quite wonderful.
"Also, in the movie Desiree doesn't have the kind of combative relationship with her mother that she has in the musical. She isn't dominated by her mother to some degree, as she is in the musical.
"There's no scene in the movie that corresponds to the 'Send in the Clowns' scene."
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