Applause for the Clowns

Review: A Little Night Music
Walter Kerr Theater, New York
September 11, 2010

When Bernadette Peters and Elaine Stritch were announced as the replacements for A Little Night Music, anticipation was high. Isn't it bliss, it seemed, to have two prime interpreters of Stephen Sondheim's work appearing in one of his shows again? Two thrilling moments happened when I returned to the Walter Kerr. The first was a collective hush as the clarinet began "Send in the Clowns." The second was a sigh of relief: Elaine Stritch remembered her lines.

From other reports, this isn't always the case. Time takes a toll on the memory, as Sondheim duly noted in his lyrics. "Remember?" an omnipresent vocal quintet sings as they fill the roles of narrators, servants, a theater troupe. And when Madame Armfeldt sings "Liaisons," recounting the extravagant affairs she held as a young courtesan with kings and dukes, she searches between verses for the next: "Where was I, where was I? Oh, yes."

Now 84, Stritch hasn't lost her spit-and-vinegar attitude, nor her razor-sharp timing. She finds unexpected laughs, with perhaps an ad-lib or two, but also poignancy. Her predecessor, Angela Lansbury, had a crisp, Old World haughtiness camouflaging the tenderness beneath. Stritch seems cognizant of death, that the parade has passed before her eyes. She started on Broadway as Ethel Merman's standby, and what a relief to see the old girl's still got it.

Bernadette Peters was last seen in two Merman revivals, Annie Get Your Gun and Gypsy. Though she impressed in an unlikely turn as Rose, Peters is a more natural fit as touring actress Desiree Armfeldt. Her Desiree stays an actress off-stage, even around her old flame, middle-aged lawyer Frederick Egerman (Alexander Hanson, still giving a relaxed but confident performance). But as the inevitability of losing her lover sets in, her facade melts, setting up a "Send in the Clowns" for the ages. Formerly sung by the vulpine Catherine Zeta-Jones, the song now centers on the deep regret of "losing my timing this late in my career."

My opinion of the reduced orchestra and the younger members of the cast has not changed. But the two new actresses's performances alleviate some of the production's Bergman-esque chill with an added dose of comedy, which infects the other players. In place of lavishness, we get truth: from an old woman who winks at death to an actress worried she's past her prime. Make way for the clowns--they're finally here.