A Little Night Music is one of Sondheim’s most exquisitely written shows- somewhere between Wilde’s comedies of manners and Chekhov and Ibsen’s simpering naturalism. The show features a series of scandalous Scandinavians being lascivious in beautiful surroundings in a show filled with glum classical music and barbed dialogue. It is, for all intents and purposes, a masterpiece. Yet here a beautiful work of art is all but scribbled in felt tip at the hands of the the Norfolk YMT.
It is not that these are bad performers, although the sheer basics of acting are thrown completely out of the window. Considering that there are glimmers of promise and some beautiful singing voices, one must instead turn the blame on a director who has heavily under-analysed the text. There is no consideration of intentions and objectives in even the most basic sense, as illogical actions and intonations are applied to the way people speak and act. Where obvious behaviours and discussions should be present they are completely absent, left instead with fake and forced performances. For example, in the famous ‘Send In The Clowns’, there is an unspoken necessity of Desiree and Frederik to be as distanced spatially as they are emotionally at this point, of which no consideration is made, as they sit awkwardly next to each other. The only saving graces in a cast who are struggling through a play often too nuanced and beautiful for their own knowledge are those playing Henrik and The Countess, who bedazzle with their melancholy and deadpan performances. Though both fairly single-faceted, they are also utterly exquisite with what they do. Otherwise, the other performers need a good director and some serious self-confidence lessons. Not only were some of them seemingly afraid to speak, their entrance into their harmonies was weak, leaving the woman-heavy cast to sound off-kilter during Sondheim’s choral numbers (such as the opening, or the end of the first half) and not blended at all. A better vocal music director would not have only tackled this, but also have slowed Desiree’s pace down, removed the infuriating American twang of some singing tones, and also worked on the pronunciation, which meant that often jokes that were just as funny in song as in text were lost just because they had to fit a tune.
The set is unnecessarily bitty and the stage management are awful at throwing it about the stage, instead stumbling about in a way that disrupts the entire show. This is just one of the many aspects of terrible stagecraft on the part of the company; no fluid accompanies the drinks leading to many glasses being held horizontally mid-toast, some actors spend their entire time making sure they face the audience instead of just projecting, and the actors can be heard gossiping behind the curtain. When one actor loses a hat running across the stage, instead of pressing on, they stood around debating whether to grab it or not before swearing under their breath.
One must give a bit of leeway considering the cast are young. However, the brief moments of great individual performance showcase that sometimes young actors can be exceptional, and the Fringe as a whole does the same thing. Instead, we are merely reminded that sometimes clunky and poorly staged productions should just remain at home and not complicate their own lives and our own theatrical schedules. Sondheim deserves better.
