not enough Sondheim

[calimac]

Into the Woods at Ashland wasn't enough Sondheim for us, so we attended the TheatreWorks production of Marry Me A Little, a revue formed of a collection of old Sondheim trunk songs and other miscellanea, mostly from Follies and some other shows of that period.  They're sung by a man (A.J. Shively) and a woman (Sharon Rietkerk) with piano accompaniment (William Liberatore).  There's a very loose premise, accompanied by a large, elaborate set but no libretto, of the two singers being lonely singles living in vertically adjoining apartments.  As if this were Alan Ayckbourn's Taking Steps (though not nearly as funny), the two apartments are depicted on stage as occupying the same space, so the singers can sit or stand or even lie on the bed next to each other as they sing duets while each pretends to be oblivious to the other's existence, a conceit mostly, but not entirely, maintained.  Clunking sounds generated by the two messing around in the kitchen are incorporated as percussion punctuation in one song.

I wasn't familiar with most of the songs, though B. was.  Musically they were as intriguing as Sondheim always is, and very well performed, and the lyrics took that anguished introspective view of the difficulty of relationships that so marks his work.  One song for the man, "Happily Ever After," seemed Larkinesque in its bleak view of the prospect of a continuing relationship.  And the imagery of its title, and that of another song framed as a fairy tale, demonstrated that the fairy-tale imagery and phrasing of Into the Woods is not a one-off, but integral to Sondheim's mind and thought.

It lasted about 90 minutes (no intermission).  It was rewarding musically.  Almost everyone at the Sunday matinee was considerably older than us.