Sullivan Rep presents ‘A Little Night Music’. Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Book by Hugh Wheeler. Direction and Choreography by Dan Sullivan. Music Direction by Jenny Tsai. Lighting Design by Erik Fox. Properties Design by Rick Grenier. Costume Design by DW. Hair and Makeup Design by Bridget Sullivan. Sound Design by Paul Roach. At Newton City Hall, Newton, MA, through June 8, 2024.
By Linda Chin
For two weekends in June, Sullivan Rep presents the second show of its inaugural season – A Little Night Music by the late musical genius Stephen Sondheim. Like his more popular musicals – the macabre Sweeney Todd or the fanciful Into the Woods, A Little Night Music has the masterful score and brilliant lyrics that are Sondheim’s trademark and is a story about love, longing, and romantic pairings that don’t have fairy tale endings. With a book penned by Hugh Wheeler, A Little Night Music is part operetta, part social commentary, and part bedroom farce and includes melancholic and laugh-out-loud moments.
Sullivan Rep’s sumptuous production transports audiences from the verdant suburb of Newton to the Swedish countryside at the turn of the 20th century. From the top of the show, when a quintet of men and women make their entrances singing la-la-las in lovely harmony, to the couples waltzing with different partners during the show, to the finale, audiences are in for a visual and vocal treat.
Sullivan Rep’s artistic director, Dan Sullivan, directs and choreographs the show and his vision for A Little Night Music focuses on uplifting the women’s stories, specifically the three generations of Armfeldts. Renowned actress Desirée Armfeldt (Carly Evans) spends much of her time on the road, leaving her daughter Fredrika (Libby Sweder) in the care of her wise and sardonic mother, Madame Armfeldt (Veronica Anastasio Wiseman). The family matriarch reminds her granddaughter that on warm summer nights, the sun smiles three times – at the young (like Fredrika), at fools (like Desirée), and the old (like herself).
While on tour, Desirée reconnects with her old flame Fredrick (Brian Higgins), a widower whose remarriage to the lovely young virgin Anne (Rebekah Rae Robles) has not yet been consummated, leaving him sexually frustrated. Desirée is also involved with another married man, the Count Carl-Magnus (Anthony Rinaldi). Dismayed by her husband’s infidelity, Countess Charlotte (Andrea Giangreco) takes the lead in setting a plan in motion: a weekend in the country at the wealthy Madame’s manse with all of the above in attendance.
Sullivan has created lovely stage pictures framed by Newton City Hall’s historic (and impeccably maintained) interior architecture and soaring rotunda. A simple swag of flowy cream-colored fabric softens the moldings of a double door at the rear of the stage, which the performers use to enter/exit and maneuver some large furniture pieces. The seven-piece orchestra, conducted by music director Jenny Tsai, is on the upper balcony level.
DW’s costumes and Bridget Sullivan’s hair and makeup are beautifully designed and executed. Erik Fox’s lighting design also artfully adds color and texture, using a cooler blue palette for dramatic moments and warmer colors (and a Seurat-like speckled effect on the stage floor) for the weekend in the country in Act II.
At the performance I attended on opening weekend, the sound mix was off-balance, detracting from the actors’ otherwise seamless storytelling in some scenes. Fortunately, this was not the case in some of the musical’s most memorable moments. One of the first numbers, “Now/Later/Soon,” is sung in succession by Fredrik, his twenty-year-old son Henrik (Jacob Thomas Less), who’s in love with his stepmother and Anne herself, is a ten-minute tour-de-force. Carly Evans’ (Desirée’s) rendition of one of Sondheim’s most well-known songs, “Send in the Clowns” – the version by Judy Collins, one of my go-to girl songs – was sublime. And though the saucy maid Petra is typically a supporting role, Nora Sullivan shows us her lust for life and agency in her powerful and pitch-perfect performance of “The Miller’s Son.”
As Frederika Armfeldt, Desirée’s daughter and Madame Armfeldt’s granddaughter, actor Libby Sweden is a natural. Sweden’s Frederika possesses the poise and maturity of a child with an absentee parent who’s been raised under the watchful eye of a smart and devoted grandparent; Sweden delivers a nuanced portrayal and spot-on comedic timing.
Isn’t it bliss? Yes. Spend part of your weekend in the country at Sullivan Rep’s A Little Night Music. For tickets and information, go to: https://www.sullivanrep.com/
