A weekend at a country estate, a fading actress, a troubled son, an older man infatuated with a younger girl, a jealous husband, a duel, unspoken affections realized – sounds like Checkov? Or just an overly familiar theatric structure? Add some music, some great costumes & you have a first class Stratford production.
Sondheim’s A Little Night Music, our first Stratford production was fairly familiar to me, thanks in part to the unavoidable Send In The Clowns but mainly because over the past year I’ve seen, via TCM, the original source – Bergman’s Smiles of A Summer Night. His sweet yet ironic look at marriage, fidelity with a touch of magic. Also, via TCM, I saw the film adaptation of the stage musical. The film was a bit of a mess but I did enjoy Elizabeth Taylor in it, even her rather naive singing had some appeal.
I love function musical instruments as stage props – in this case a piano that seemingly floated across the floor to define new rooms, new potentials, & a class system. The show opens with a literal & figurative Greek chorus that appears periodically to underscore or presage the plot points. Men in tuxes, ladies in glittery gowns, & songs in complex triplets. They step in out of scenes to be dinner guests, waiters – stunning duets, trios, quartets that carry and envelope the the show. In fact at points they seemed to enjoying the performance more than the featured players.
The story line – that’s what google is for – moved along quickly & featured, like the chorus, various triads of relationships – 3 smiles, a woman with 2 beaus, a husband with a wife & mistress. A touch of French farce, a play-within-a-play which should have been a lot more fun that it was.
Perhaps concentrating on the complex music lead to a rather restrained performance – too much concentration on hitting those right notes than enjoying hitting those right notes. But hit them they did. I enjoyed the pull & tug of the layered trio Now/Later/Soon; the darkness of Every Day A Little Death; Act 1’s rousing closer – A Weekend in the Country.
The ‘hit’ Send In The Troops, I mean, Clowns was given a superb treatment by Yanna McIntosh & musical director Franklin Brasz – simple oboe started it with the right feeling of tenderness but they resisted pathos for an unexpectedly touching moment. The orchestra was strong but never outshone the singers – loved the use of harp & sweet cello.
Performances were uniformly strong. No one stood out though. As I said earlier I felt the show was just a bit restrained. Perhaps this is the difference between musical theatre & Broadway musical. Oklahoma! vs. Night Music? It is an enjoyable production, beautifully staged with stunning costumes, & a compelling musical score. Highly recommended but maybe not for the kids.
An American Hero
he is our hero
he did what any red-blooded American
has dreamed of doing
has longed to do
but has never dared
he taught those degenerates a lesson
that they have deserved
for decades
same-sex marriage wasn’t enough for them
now they are cutting their dicks off
flaunting their fake tits in our faces
he wasn’t taking it anymore
he did what others lacked the guts to do
he took back his dignity as a man
showed them he wasn’t going to tolerate
their constant whining for rights
in the face of his deeply held religious convictions
he stood up like a man
became a martyr for cause
the victim of their
insidious eroding all that is good
it was their own fault
for being out late at night
for dancing to Satan’s music
for kissing in broad daylight
where children might see them
for using bathrooms
that normal folks were now afraid to use
for mistaking the first round of gun fire
for the Skillerx remix of Lady Gaga’s
soon to be released single
for not ducking fast enough
for being so busy sucking cocks in washrooms
for fingering one another’s ass hole
slathering the shit on each other
in degenerate pleasure
for smearing their come and shit
on the Declaration of Independence
for wiping their stinking ass slime
on the pages of the Koran
the Torah the Bible
the Crucifix
for using their entitlement
to wipe that fecal spunk
on the American Dream
his American Dream
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TOpoet 
