The Shaw Festival has a tradition of offering cut-down musicals staged very handsomely but with the orchestra and cast adapted to a smaller scale in the Royal George Theater. Their musicals performed on the open, smaller stage of the intimate Court House Theater have been modest, more experimental works, a description that does not fit Sondheim's A Little Night Music.
Morris Panych has a reputation for messing about with other playwright's works, but here he treats this much-loved musical version of Ingmar Bergman's lovely film, "Smiles of a Summer's Night," fairly faithfully. Unfortunately, he does not give the piece much distinctive character.
Though not providing the best singing this music has received onstage, the production is cast with mostly adept singing actors. Goldie Semple is as lovely and touching as anyone I've seen in the role of the bewitching diva, Desiree Armfeldt, and makes her famous number "Send In the Clowns" something very personal and memorable.
George Masswohl sings well and is commanding enough as her lover Frederik but handles the drama and considerable comedy of the role no more than perfunctorily.
Michaela Bekenn is pretty as Desiree's daughter, but hardly the bewitching creature she is supposed to be. Still, veteran actress Donna Belleville is not only expectedly witty and winning as Desiree's dowager mother, but she stops the show singing Madame Armfeldt's racy reminiscences of "Liaisons."
Director Panych allows strong-singing Thom Allison and the usually delightful Patty Jamieson to overplay Count Carl-Magnus and his Countess as something close to cartoon characters. One unavoidable distraction from any concentration on the dramatic interplay is mandatory in the show's original composition: it requires minor characters to also function as "The Liebeslieders" who not only provide appealing vocal support but also dance pointlessly in and out of the action. On the Court House Theater's small stage, they appear to interfere with the action and make all the movement seem crowded and clumsy. For the same reason, Valerie Moore's choreography looks cramped and disorganized. I like Charlotte Dean's costumes, but the sets cannot begin to approximate gardens and gatherings on an elegant estate, despite Alan Brodie's ingenious lighting, which does manage to establish distinct locales.
Overall, this is a pleasant entertainment with unusually rewarding performances by Goldie Semple and Donna Belleville, and some of Stephen Sondheim's most beautiful music, especially the orchestral introduction and underpinning of the finale. But although Paul Sportelli's arrangements and fine musicians provide surprisingly full sound, six players are just not enough.
