Barbara Robertson
's rendition of "Send in the Clowns" is reason enough to see this production of "A Little Night Music". What's right with her singing is what's right with her entire performance: it's robust, direct, genuine and, when the occasion requires, vulnerable to the point of nakedness. With her throaty voice and conversational manner, Robertson delivers perhaps the best version ever of a song that's been done nearly to death.Though there are strong moments, the rest of the show doesn't measure up. Even a workmanlike production of Stephen Sondheim's most accessibly beautiful work is something to be grateful for, but we had reason to expect more from director Gary Griffin, whose reimagining of Sondheim's "Pacific Overtures" was nothing less than brilliant. He doesn't, of course, have to reinvent every play he touches–actually, his modesty in that regard is refreshing–but Griffin does have to direct each one as a consistent whole, a task at which he fails here. A few isolated soaring performances can't carry an entire show; here, in fact, they serve mostly to highlight the earthbound competence by which they're surrounded.
"A Little Night Music" is extremely demanding of its tiny chorus, and these five singers simply aren't equal to the challenge. From the opening bars, sung as they enter through the aisles, their voices sound weak and strangled, and though they gain some fullness as they go along it's never a big enough sound to fill the mainstage at Chicago Shakespeare. Perhaps Griffin originally intended to use the more intimate studio which was home to "Pacific Overtures", and was overridden by box office considerations; but plenty of Chicago theaters manage to do full-scale musicals in full-size houses with the talent at hand. Music director Thomas Murray, who did such a fine job with "Pacific Overtures", seems here to have gotten preoccupied with his 14-piece orchestra and left the singers to fend for themselves.
Sometimes they do fine: Michael Cerveris sings "In Praise of Women" and "It Would Have Been Wonderful" with the same comic flair he brings to his spoken performance as Desiree's lover Carl-Magnus Malcolm, the world's most self-impressed soldier. And Jenny Powers as the servant Petra has the range and power for "The Miller's Son," though not quite the acting chops to turn the song into the show-stopper it was meant to be. But Kevin Gudahl as Fredrik, the object of Desiree's desire, and Samantha Spero as Carl-Magnus's wife Charlotte are never more than competent when singing, and as a result never gain the stature their roles require. And ingenue Julie Ruth plays Fredrik's much younger wife Anne with such vapidity that she seems more like a fly on Desiree's sleeve than a rival requiring unseating. Ruth's performance, like that of Paul Keating as her smitten step-son Henrik, is awash in missed opportunities for comedy and pathos alike.
Yet one still gets to see and hear the work of Sondheim and librettist Hugh Wheeler at the height of their talent, and that opportunity shouldn't be missed.