CHICAGO (CBS) —There are many reasons why the late Stephen Sondheim is considered a musical theater giant. One of them, “A Little Night Music,” is now on stage at Evanston’s Theo Ubique Theatre.
American musical theater wouldn’t be what it is today without the genius of the late composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim. In the intimate setting of Theo Ubique Theatre, you can get an idea of why in their production of “A Little Night Music.”
The plot for “A Little Night Music” is adapted from an Ingmar Bergman film. It’s a curious dance of mismatched lovers gathering at a European country estate for the weekend.
Sondheim’s intricate and ironic lyrics create the production’s rich and complex characters. Director Walter Stearns described what made Sondheim so special.
“For many musical theater fans, he is the quintessential, the most revolutionary, the most important musical theater composer and lyricist of our generation,” Stearns said. “Sondheim took musical theater and created an art form out of it.”
What about his individual pieces that surprise everybody every time they see the same show?
“They are a thinking person and feeling person’s artwork,” Stearns said, adding that “A Little Night Music” is an extraordinary example of Sondheim’s genius.
“He took this story about the 1900s in Sweden. He wrote it in a waltz-musical style. He found a form that complements the story perfectly. You have lovers, and they are sort of in the wrong relationship. And this beautiful, musical waltz takes them from the wrong relationship to the right relationship. And that’s part of the genius of the genius of this Sondheim musical,” Stearns said.
