Old Friends (2025) (Broadway)

Stephen Sondheim's contribution to the American Songbook is incomparable. His music is harmonious and his lyrics witty. This posthumous tribute revue pulls all of the best songs from his musicals. They're great songs, divorced from the context of their shows. The comedy and drama of the songs don't land as impactfully as a consequence, but the music is beautiful nonetheless. Bernadette Peters and Lea Salonga are two of the biggest divas on Broadway. Both are excellent. Perhaps the biggest surprise is that they're not in all the songs. They even cede the spotlight on some of the biggest numbers, The Ladies Who Lunch or I'm Still Here, songs made for divas. So I expected a little more of the two of them. I was surprised to find out afterwards that it was an unrecognizable Lea playing Mrs Lovett behind the cockney accent. 

Good way to spend a Wednesaday matinee off from work!

Gypsy (Broadway) (2025)

The little I knew about Gypsy going into the latest revival was limited to a couple songs and an overbearing mother. Rose certainly is overbearing. No one else can barely get a word in. She's the original Dance Mom. It's sometimes painful to watch. As far as I know, Audra McDonald is the first black Rose on Broadway. And it adds a different dimension to the character, dreaming a delusional dream in the 1920s, dooming her children every time she denies them an opportunity to go to school. That both daughters eventually found success is a testament to their resilience. They humor their mother at their own cost. It's a tragedy, dressed (or undressed) in glitz at the end with a tinge of hope at reconciliation, but really tragic nonetheless. 

Audra McDonald is a treasure. She is capital-A acting in those book scenes, heavy accent, emphasizing words, throwing around her stage presence like no one else matters. I'm used to hearing her beautiful singing voice but here she strains her voice. It's not effortless. It's not pretty. It's pained. Her Rose's Turn and Everything's Coming Up Roses hit a register of her voice that's very uncomfortable. It's a tour de force. That's what musical theater is about--it's not just singing, it's acting singing. It's not about sounding good, it's about sounding a character. The power comes from her vision of who Rose is and her embodiment of the tragedy of her life. 

Merrily We Roll Along (2024) (Broadway)

The latest revival of Merrily We Roll Along is so much better than the production I saw 5 years ago off-broadway. What's so incredible is that it's basically exactly the same and yet the presentation makes so much more sense. The confusing story-telling that usually muddles Merrily came out perfectly cohesive under Maria Friedman's direction. The minor characters' storylines come through much more clearly. And the tone is much darker than I remember. It's not just a play that moves backwards, it's a man looking back on the critical choices he made in his life that lost him his soul. It's so deeply sad and poignant in a way that was not properly conveyed before. It's about losing your friends, losing your joie de vivre, lost potential, lost time and the defeat of art by commerce. The whole thing really resonated with me; I don't know if that's due to being at a different point of life 5 years later or simply being able to follow the plot and themes this time around. Not to mention that it features some of Sondheim's most beautiful and heartbreaking melodies. The universe has a funny way of finally realizing Sondheim's most personal show after his death, the show they never quite figured out how to work, the one that broke up Sondheim and Hal Prince. I think also being a little more familiar with the music and plot, I was able to follow better and hear new things in the music, like "we never go forward" and "saying yes when I should've said no".

One of the reasons this production works so well is its 3 leads, who we truly believe to be close friends. Jonathan Groff, Daniel Radcliffe and Lindsay Mendez have been making the rounds on the late shows and magazine videos and such. And when they appear together, they seem to genuinely like each other. Sure, they're actors and they could all be fooling us but I'd like to believe their friendship is legit. On stage they have excellent chemistry. And all 3 of them are so good. Lindsay Mendez especially stood out to me. And I feel like Daniel Radcliffe has grown a lot as a singer since we saw a decade ago in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. And Jonathan Groff is actually playing piano, you could see his hands in the reflection of the rear window at the angle we had from the balcony. 

Here We Are (The Shed) (2023)

Here We Are is Stephen Sondheim's final unfinished work. It is a long gestating adaptation of Luis Bunuel's The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (they can't eat) and The Exterminating Angel (they can't leave), a combination of two brilliant surrealist fantasies.  I think Sondheim knew he wasn't going to finish it. You can see it in Act II. There are scenes that clearly left room for a song. There's a little bit of under-scoring. But Act II is virtually a straight play. And supposedly the cop out is that the nature of The Exterminating Angel doesn't call for music because they're trapped in a room, but I don't really buy that excuse. He just didn't finish it and they left it that way. Act II though has a phenomenal set. And I actually quite like the simpler set in Act I too with the banquette/signs that descend from the ceiling to form makeshift restaurants, along with the cool virtual grass on the sides of the stage.

I don't remember such an explicit eat-the-rich bent to the movie, but it works here and I think makes it relevant and modern. The music in Act I is extremely Sondheim. The wordplay, rhythm, and music are all reminiscent of his classics. I think my favorite was the patter song sung by a fantastic Denis O'Hare at the first restaurant. I didn't know his name but I recognized him from The Good Wife/Fight, though not until I saw him up close. Before the play actually starts, O'Hare and Tracie Bennette in their maid and butler outfits tidy the immaculate stage walls and mirrors. The other standout for me was David Hyde Pierce who essentially plays Niles form Frasier and has just the type of one-liners. It's a star-studded cast of theater vets paying homage to the legend. 

Aside, in a rather quiet moment of Act II there was a loud disruptive noise coming from what I can only guess was the HVAC system. I thought maybe it was part of the show at first, as the actors briefly paused but the show went cause they're professionals. Though the sound went on for quite a while.
 

A Little Night Music (2022) (Barrington Stage Company)

How appropriate for Act I to end with A Weekend in the Country for our weekend in the country. It's really extraordinary how Barrington Stage Company has grown and thrived over the last 28 years, making Pittsfield, MA a regional theater destination, so much so that we saw Norm Lewis in the audience! It wasn't sold out, but definitely a majority of the seats were occupied. The Boyd-Quinson stage was actually pretty large and the they got some big names in the cast. The 7-piece orchestra was admittedly a little thin. And I think it's not Sondheim's best music. I love the complex counterpoint but it's not especially melodic or hummable. Typical Sondheim, criticism, I know, but after Company and Into the Woods this year, this is definitely the inferior music. It is certainly more challenging to follow and appreciate than Into the Woods. Of course, there is the iconic Send in the Clowns and that scene was brilliantly acted by Emily Skinner. But other than that, I wasn't really into the other songs. The Miller's Son is good, I guess, but doesn't really fit there after Send in the Clowns, sung by a minor character. The opening is a dance, rather than a song, which was kind of surprising. When the chorus sings, it's pretty difficult to make out the lyrics. And of course, near impossible to catch all the lyrics in the counterpoint when they're singing over each other. But I don't doubt Sondheim's brilliance. The story is adapted from a Bergman film, a sex comedy recalling a Shakespearean comedy of shuffling partners. It works on stage and though it took a little while for the plot to get going, by the time we got to Act II with all the players in place, it was a good time.

Into the Woods (2022) (Broadway)

You wouldn't have been able to tell from the Disney movie-adaptation of Into the Woods, but Stephen Sondheim's fairy-tale musical is actually raucously funny. The newest production, recently transferred to Broadway from Encores! at City Center, is extremely campy. And it works so well that it leads me to believe it was always meant to be this way. Especially in the first act, which is generally lighter in tone, the comedy is integral to the production. And even when it takes a darker turn in the second act, it's still there. The second act, by the way, is still excellent, despite being basically an entirely different show. The second act is almost a non sequitur in tone and plot. There is a beautiful moral somewhere in there about childhood and innocence and the example we set for the next generation. It just so happens to be cleverly intertwined with familiar fairy tales. 

The set is pretty bare bones, but it's made up for by some very imaginative puppetry, specifically for Milky White(!), the giant's hands and shoes, and the birds. Kennedy Kanagawa is a standout puppeteer, literally endowing emotions into the simple cow puppet. The orchestra sits on stage and Sondheim's lush melodies come through beautifully (looked like maybe a 20-piece orchestra). The songs are such that there are many one or two-liners that various characters pop onto stage to recite before exiting. The lack of set helps make that more believable. 

Standouts from the cast include Patina Miller at the top. I remember being awestruck by her Leading Player in Pippin, and she is deliriously wicked as the Witch here. Sara Bareilles has now gone full Broadway, and her voice is actually beautifully suited to Sondheim. I would've liked to see Neil Patrick Harris but I think Brian d'Arcy James made an excellent Baker too. And Phillipa Soo as Cinderella is good too (Chinese Cinderella!). Jack and Little Red Ridinghood as the child characters can really play up the camp--Julia Lester as sassy Little Red is especially funny.

PS. Morgan slept through basically the whole thing. I kept nudging her back awake and then she'd get mad at me and promptly doze back off. Shame because it was really good! At least she wasn't missing any visuals. The woman in front of me was really tall unfortunately, blocking a third of the stage.

Merrily We Roll Along (Off-Broadway) (2019)

I didn't really like it while I was sitting in the Laura Pels Theater, but Merrily We Roll Along has grown on me as time has passed the more I think about it. The story is beautifully bittersweet. It makes you wonder what was going on in Sondheim's life at the height of his career that he wrote such a downer. He claims that Opening Doors was the only autobiographical song he ever wrote, but are we really to believe that a musical about composers isn't personal? Maybe he was longing for a collaborator. The music is very Sondheim and quite beautiful: Merrily We Roll Along, Opening Doors, Old Friends, Like It Was, Not a Day Goes By...but I hate the ending. Our Time is awfully cheesy.

This off-broadway production features just six actors in what appears to be a prop warehouse of a set. The small cast makes things a little confusing as all the actors play multiple roles, and sometimes you can't quite tell if they're playing the main character or a supporting character. The whole backwards structure can be a little difficult to follow but it is an innovative way to tell a story. If I had known from the beginning that that was how it was going to be, I might've paid closer attention to the opening scene, because by the time we got to the end I forgot what they had said.

Into the Woods (2014)

I thoroughly enjoyed Disney's adaptation of this Sondheim classic. The music and lyrics are so complex, and hauntingly beautiful.  My favorite is when the characters sing different lyrics and melodies simultaneously, the counterpoint that Sondheim is so good at.  His characters think out loud in natural rhythmic speech.  The opening sequence (Prologue) introducing all of the characters is masterful with each character passing on the infectious theme to the next.  An extravagant production design realistically recreates a dark and creepy wood.  Along with Colleen Atwood's Oscar-nominated costume design, the audience is transported to a fantasy world.

Meryl Streep finally broke her own rule of never playing a witch to join Into the Woods.  She has a much better platform to show off her singing chops than with ABBA's Mamma Mia.  Streep actually has a very good voice; case in point "Children Will Listen." Emily Blunt also has an excellent singing voice as the Baker's Wife.  They are emotional, comedic, and most of all musical.

The story has depth, an existentialist message that might go over the head of a Disney-aged audience, but the original musical is not intended for children.  There are themes of morality and parental relationships.  The story is cleverly told through a clever combination of classic fairy tales reimagined.  This is what makes a good musical: a clever idea, good music, good acting and a thought-provoking story.