Catherine Zeta-Jones and Angela Lansbury are appearing on Broadway in a revival of Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music.  The musical premiered in 1973 and played 601 performances in its initial Broadway run.  The current production, which opened last December, is the show's first Broadway revival. It is puzzling that it has taken so long for the musical to re-appear on Broadway since it is easily one of Sondheim's most charming, elegant and compelling creations.   Indeed, A Little Night Music is of such sophistication musically and dramatically that opera companies occasionally perform it.  (New York City Opera mounted a production of it a number of years ago).   

A Little Night Music is basically a farce focusing on several sets of couples who have either been mis-paired or whose relationships are in serious trouble. Through a series of comic encounters the protagonists either find their rightful partner or their relationships become happily repaired.     

Suggested by Ingmar Bergman's 1955 film, Smiles of a Summer Night, the musical takes place in Sweden circa 1900.  The plot centers on Desiree Armfeldt,  performed by Zeta-Jones.  Desiree is a glamorous, early-middle-aged actress who has arrived in the city of a former lover, Fredrik Egerman.  Egerman attends one of Desiree's performances accompanied by his much younger wife, Anne.  The Egerman's marriage is unhappy and, partly to assuage his marital frustrations, Fredrik visits Desiree for a midnight tryst.   Their encounter is interrupted by the unexpected arrival of one of Desiree's paramours, Count Carl-Magnus,  who is  almost violently possessive of his mistress..  When all of the parties descend for a summer retreat at the country estate of Desiree's mother,  the plot becomes delightfully combustible.  

Catherine Zeta-Jones' natural, evanescent presence as a world famous actress lends itself admirably to the role of Desiree Armfeldt.  Jones exudes a warm, glowing cosmopolitan spirit entirely in keeping with her glamorous stage character. Alexander Hanson, as Fredrik Egerman, has a debonair persona reminiscent of 1930's and 40's British film star Ronald Colman.  Musically, one might hope that Hanson's song "Now" would be sung at a faster pace  (as in the original cast recording) to highlight the song's breathless, tongue-twisting quality.    

Ramona Mallory plays Fredrik Egerman's wife, Anne. She ably expresses the inner tension of an uncertain female who is half-woman/half-girl and in a relationship with an older man.  Henrik,  Fredrik Egerman's twenty-something son from an earlier marriage, is performed by Hunter Ryan Herdlicka.   Herdlicka memorably captures his character's neurotic, repressed and hyper-serious personality.  

Other members of the cast include Aaron Lazar as Fredrik's formidable rival Count Carl-Magnus Malcolm, and Erin Davie as Malcolm's long suffering, hapless wife, Charlotte. Leigh Ann Larkin as Petra, the Egerman's maid, gives a particularly fiery and spirited rendition of  "I Shall Marry the Miller's Son."    

It goes without saying that Stephen Sondheim is one of the most significant lyricists and composers in the history of musical theatre.  Virtually every song in Night Music is studded with worldly, perceptive and pithy lyrics. A sample of Sondheim's musical virtuosity occurs early in the first act when three separate songs, "Now", "Later" , and "Soon"  are sung separately and then simultaneously.  The musical also contains arguably Sondheim's most famous number, the poignant  "Send in the Clowns.'   

The doyenne of the evening is Madame Armfeldt , Desiree's mother, played by the legendary Angela Lansbury.  Armfeldt is an elderly, retired courtesan to royalty who through her wily charms has accumulated a substantial fortune and estate.  In her hypnotizing song, "Liasons",  Armfeldt decries the loss of sophisticated gentility in the wake of the collapse of the old aristocratic order.  She deeply misses a more refined, cultivated, and calculating era.  

As a former courtesan, Madame Armfeldt also has a very sophisticated attitude towards sex as a subtle means of advancement.  She is appalled at what she perceives the cavalier manner in which Desiree handles her love affairs. She tells her daughter, "It is not the immorality of your life that I object to, only its sloppiness." 

The orchestrations have apparently been reduced from the 1973 premiere and with a single-unit set,  the production has a chamber-like quality. However,  the musical is so strong that it does not need opulent scenery to support it.  

In another summer drama dealing with confused couplings, Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, one of the characters remarks, "What fools these mortals be!"  An audience member may have the same reaction one-third of the way through A Little Night Music.  But in response to human foibles, as Desiree states, perhaps the best response is simply "to laugh at us all" with the hope that in the end the human heart will find its rightful partner.   There is enough mirth, wisdom, comedy and song in A Little Night Music to warm up the dimmest New York winter evening.   

A Little Night Music

Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim

Book by Hugh Wheeler

Directed by Trevor Nunn

Walter Kerr Theatre