A Little Night Music

Photo: Carlos Gustavo Monroy

In a perfect world, there would always be a top-notch production of Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler's A Little Night Music running nearby. This isn't a perfect world, so the production of Night Music at the White Plains Performing Arts Center was a rare and lovely treat. Yes, the production values were nonexistent. Yes, the orchestra was too small. Yes, the cast was uneven. But the production still managed to capture the wistful humor and rueful romance that make Night Music unique among musicals. (The show is in my top five musicals ever.) Stand-out performances by Mark Jacoby, Erin Davie, Eddie Egan, and Sheila Smith certainly helped, and the score and the book remain as wonderful and new as they were in 1972.

I would have enjoyed the show even more if the high school class sitting nearby had ever shut up (they even changed seats during the show so they could talk to different people!). The management of the theatre spoke to them during intermission, and I moved to the other side of the theatre for the second act, but the unruly, unmannered little twerps deprived me of the full enjoyment of a solid production of a gentle masterpiece.