A Little Night Music

The name ‘Sondheim’ is synonymous with musical theatre, so when you go to a Sondheim show, you know you are going to experience a quintessential piece of the theatre world.

The recent ‘Watch this’ production of Sondheim’s A Little Night Music was no exception, as the play for which classics such as Weekend in the Country, The Miller’s Son and the infamous Send in the Clowns was written.

Set in Sweden at the turn of the twentieth century, the story begins with what appears to be a prim and proper family consisting of an adult son, his father and the father’s young new wife living their perfect life. As someone who was not familiar with this play, I will admit in the beginning I was worried it would be a bland little period piece. I was proven very wrong by this witty play which was quickly transformed into an engaging and up-beat narrative, full of salacious events and show-stopping tunes.

The talent from the entire cast of this production was next-level and from the highly trained voices to the larger than life characters and all the scandal and buffoonery in between made for an impressive show.

‘Send in the Clowns’ is an extremely hard song to belt out – made famous by names such as Frank Sinatra and living legend Barbra Streisand. With big shoes to fill, Nadine Garner in the role of Desiree Armfeldt absolutely did the song justice in her emotive rendition of the classic tune. It was a special moment to see this song live.

While I really enjoyed the show, I will premise this by saying that Sondheim is about as ‘musical theatre-ish’ as musical theatre can get.  So if you’re a musical theatre virgin, try something like Grease and work your way up to Sondheim. For those like me, who love the stage, this independent theatre production was like a musical theatre hug from an old friend, full of big voices and over-the-top theatre cliches.

From the all-star talent to the beautiful costumes, you would never know this was produced by  an independent not-for-profit association which presents outstanding work on a small budget.

A Little Night Music 
The National Theatre Melbourne
nationaltheatre.org.au