2008 Woodie Awards
SectionsMusic, comic relief impresses
Kathleen Musgrave
Issue date: 1/22/08 Section: Features
|
"A Little Night Music" is based on the 1955 film "Smiles of a Summer Night" by Ingmar Bergman and tells the tale of old and new lovers going to the country for a house party.
During the evening of the house party, relationships fall apart and rekindle as the guests attending find out a little more about themselves.
Desiree, the famous actress (Kim Crosby), was charming, witty and glamorous both in appearance and in presence. Her costumes were sometimes big and the most extravagant - then again, what do you expect from a famous actress? One outfit that truly showed her character was while at the theater, Desiree was in a 1700s era, Marie Antoinette-esque gown, complete with the wig and beading that just screamed extravagance and mo-ney. From what I understood when watching it, that was her acting garment, but it was what best described her personality.
Crosby was very well cast for the role of Desiree and did a great job seeming not-so-wholesome. In that time period, you had to be a lady in order to be respected. Desiree comes from money, but because of her acting profession, she takes on a number of lovers. I like to describe Desiree as a classy-trashy. She's classy because of how she lives her life in elegance. She's perfect in the etiquette sense. She's trashy because she has a reputation of having numerous lovers in the past and the present. Paula Patterson, who played Desiree's mother, Madame Armfeldt, did a respectable job at being an old wise woman. Her song "Liais-ons" blew me away.
Desiree's former lover, Fred-rik Egerman (Peter Halverson), was decently cast as well. He's a soft character going through turmoil in his life because of his midlife crisis about his age. He was excellent in showing the woes of old age and the desire to be young again. His counterpart, Count Carl-Magnus Malcolm (Jeff Carney), was very masculine and powerful on stage. Fredrik was the complete opposite. Fredrik was a lawyer and acted more normal and less brutal. He wasn't sensitive, but more elegant, in the not-so-masculine way Count Carl-Magnus Malcolm was.
Fredrik's new wife, Anne Egerman (Erica Spyres), was a bit annoying in character, but fit the part perfectly as she was very childlike and nervous in the ways of marriage. I was annoyed because of her nasally voice, but that was the character's demea-nor and she was supposed to be immature.
Be the first to comment on this story