Yesterday, my grandparents gifted my cousin and me tickets to see the concert version of Sondheim’s A Little Night Music, produced by the Royal Conservatory of Music. Thanks, grandparents! Admittedly, I wasn’t too familiar with this show going into it apart from “Send in the Clowns”, which I affectionately refer to as “the song I skip when it comes up in a Broadway playlist.” It’s too much of a downer for an 11:00 number, and I will die on this hill. You can take my theatre-kid club card, it’s okay.

Nonetheless, we came in with open minds. Here’s a brief overview of the show before I delve into specific performances:

The show is about a bunch of love stories and how messy they get. There’s Fredrik (Eric McCormack), a pedophilic widower who married an 18-year old named Anne (Sadie Laflamme-Snow). I know age is just a number and this show is set 100 years ago…but ew. The show made it abundantly clear that even though they’d been married for 11 months (so was she 17 when they got married?), they have yet to consummate their marriage. Wonder why they had to emphasize that…

Fredrik’s son, Henrik (Justan Myers, who, side-note, was great in Hart House’s Heathers a few years back), is studying to be a priest or minister or something, but is also in love with his teenage step-mother Anne (the scandal!) This isn’t too important to the plot until the end, when he tries to hang himself on a tree (tree played by a chorus member standing on a chair). Back to the A-plot, Fredrik recently rekindled his love affair with his old love, actress Desiree, who curiously has a daughter named Fredrika (Annie Grunwald) that was born around the same time her love affair with Fredrik ended. Desiree is having an affair with Charlotte’s (Gabi Epstein) husband Count Carl-Magnus (Dan Chameroy), so he’s jealous of Fredrik and she’s jealous of Desiree. Anne’s handmaiden Petra (Tess Benger) is also there, and she’s sexually active and loves to live her life (go for it, girl). I found Act II to be much more exciting than Act I, as all of the shenanigans come to a crescendo. That’s the basic plot, with an attempt to not give away too much if you aren’t familiar with the show. Overall, it’s quite witty, the plot moves quickly (especially Act II), and the music is really lovely. I won’t get caught up in the parts of the plot that may be a bit dated…overall, I liked it.

The show, as it was the concert version, had minimal blocking, props, costumes and set pieces. The orchestra sat centre stage, and when actors were not in scenes, they watched the action from seats positioned on each side of the stage. This show is very music-heavy, so none of this really mattered to me.

Re: casting, I was pleased to find out that I was familiar with a bunch of the cast members (subtle flex), which was exciting. So let’s talk about them:

Eric McCormack (Will from Will and Grace!) starred as Fredrik. I’d never heard Eric sing, nor did I know he could. He’s a fantastic actor, as the millennial generation would know from his sitcom stint. And apparently he’s from Toronto, which is cool. I found his singing pleasant – nice tone, nice vibrato – but not as technically strong as some of the other cast members. To get on my high-horse for a second: Sondheim’s music is very precise; his vocal lines are intricate and require a lot of attention to detail. Some composers write songs where the orchestra serves predominantly as support to a vocal melody. Sondheim’s pieces are often a bit different, because the vocal line can stand as just as important (but not necessarily more important) than the orchestra. So, from a technical standpoint, singers can’t always rely on the orchestra to give them cues, and have to be very confident in their notes, otherwise it can end up sounding a bit sloppy. That was my main critique with Eric’s singing – it was not precise enough in comparison to other singers. It was pleasant, but some notes were thrown away, which I didn’t love. I’m being nit-picky here, but in comparison to the legend queen goddess Cynthia Dale as the female lead Desiree, he felt like stunt casting. Sorry, Eric.

Let’s talk about Cynthia Dale. Cynthia Dale WAS the Stratford Festival for many years. In my family, it sort of became this annual joke, not “what show will we see this year?” but rather “what Cynthia Dale role will we see this year?” She played every lead, even when she started aging out of them. Maria in the Sound of Music? Check. Nellie in South Pacific? Yup. All of them. My childhood singing teacher had a vendetta against Cynthia; though they’ve never met, she’s around Cynthia’s age and presumably would have loved to have had her career. So every time I hear the C word pop up in a show around the city, I can’t help but murmur to myself, in my teacher’s crisp, spiteful tone, “Cynthia Dale”. And Cynthia is fantastic, don’t get me wrong. Her voice is clean, her acting is great. It just sort of felt like Ontario only had one female musical theatre lead for 10 years. But, she is a queen, and she delivers in this show. Hail queen Cynthia.

To me, though, while Cynthia and Eric were solid (for the most part), there were a few standout performances that are worth mentioning:

• Gabi Epstein as Charlotte. Full disclosure: I’ve done two shows with Gabi and she’s a wonderful person on and off stage. But personal feelings aside, her stage presence is unmatched. Her comedic timing is objectively perfect. Her voice is loud and strong. Gabi is great. See her in things.
• Dan Chameroy as Charlotte’s husband, Count Carl-Magnus. He gave me “I am Rodolfo” vibes from the Drowsy Chaperone. Confident, farcical, beautiful baritone voice. When Dan and Gabi were enthusiastically making out toward the end of the show (light spoiler?), I laughed very hard. Very strong duo.
• Tess Benger as Petra – her performance of “The Miller’s Son” was well executed. When she was on stage, I wanted to watch her. She also has an uncanny ability to dramatically flop around the stage – on the floor, on a chair, in someone’s arms, wherever – it was a choice and I’m all here for bold choices.
• Sadie Laflamme-Snow as Anne – I thought she had a pretty soprano voice.
• The man in the chorus/quartet who sang the times of the day during the Act II song “The Sun Won’t Set.” He had only a few lines in this song – “8 o’clock;” “9 o’clock”… – but boy, did he sell it. Yes, sir. Take that one line of yours and give it your all. I see you.

Anyway, there were many more people in the show, most of them were good, but I didn’t have anything noteworthy to mention about their performances. There were some small issues I had – I thought some of the audio was a bit unbalanced, as it felt like the singers’ mics were too loud. Some of the members of the quartet had pitch issues. Sometimes the singers were difficult to understand because their diction wasn’t so clean. There was an annoying flashing blue light coming from the orchestra equipment. But overall, I enjoyed the show. The music is beautiful, and there were some laugh out loud funny moments. It’s not going on my list of top shows I’ve seen this year, but it was pleasant and an afternoon well spent.

A Little Night Music played at Koerner Hall in Toronto from May 26-28, 2023.