Sondheim's Old Friends, Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, New York, NY

 

The company performing "Comedy Tonight" in Sondheim's Old Friends in the Manhattan Theatre Club's production. Photo credit: Matthew Murphy.

Sondheim’s Old Friends, the Manhattan Theatre Club’s current production at Broadway’s Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, is a love letter to the late composer/lyricist Stephen Sondheim. As pretty much every theatre aficionado, and especially every musical theatre aficionado, knows, Sondheim was the preeminent creative force behind some of the most iconic works of the last half of the 20^th century. And many of those iconic shows have been (and continue to be) revived in the first quarter of the 21^st century: witness the currently-running Gypsy with Audra McDonald, and two Tony-nominated revivals during the 2023-2024 season, Merrily We Roll Along (which won) and Sweeney Todd. Devised by producer Cameron Mackintosh, Sondheim's Old Friends is a smorgasbord of some of Sondheim’s best.

In addition to those revivals, Sondheim’s work has been anthologized in several revues. Small wonder that he should receive a love letter from the theatre community for his astonishing body of work: he has provided thousands of jobs for hundreds (perhaps thousands) of professional performers, not to mention dozens of productions at high schools, colleges, and community theatres every year across the country and around the world.

And if Sondheim’s Old Friends is a love letter to Sondheim, this review is a love letter to that love letter. Led by Bernadette Peters, perhaps the performer most closely identified with Sondheim, and Lea Salonga, who credits Peters with teaching her to sing one of her signature songs, Old Friends includes more than 40 songs from 13 shows and one film. Peters created roles in two Sondheim shows, Sunday in the Park with George and Into the Woods, and has appeared in Broadway revivals of Gypsy, A Little Night Music, and Follies. Salonga is new to Sondheim, but she firmly establishes herself as a premiere interpreter of his work in this performance.

Peters gives a delightful twist to her trip down memory lane: in addition to a snippet of the Witch, she gives us her take on Little Red Riding Hood in Into the Woods (with Jacob Dickey as a sensual, dangerous Wolf), and instead of Rose in Gypsy, she gives us her very funny take on Mazeppa, the bugle-blowing stripper (along with Beth Leavel as Electra and Joanna Riding as Tessie Tura). Those three have each played Rose, so they have a fine time bringing the strippers to the stage, for a change.

Beth Leavel as Electra, Bernadette Peters as Mazeppa, and Joanna Riding as Tessie Tura in "You Gotta Get a Gimmick" from Gypsy. Photo credit: Matthew Murphy.

I saw Salonga in her Tony-winning Broadway debut in 1991’s Miss Saigon and last year as a one of the headliners of Wolf Trap’s Broadway in the Park in Vienna, VA. Her talent was apparent from the beginning, but this show demonstrates her incredible range as an actress/singer. She delivers a haunting “Somewhere” from West Side Story, a torchy, tortured “Loving You” from Passion, a rousing “Everything’s Coming Up Roses” from Gypsy, and a completely authentic, unexpected “The Worst Pies in London” as Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd, with fine-voiced Jeremy Secomb as a menacing Sweeney. It appears that there is nothing Salonga can’t do, brilliantly.

There are 17 performers listed in the program, including four understudies, three of whom went on (seamlessly) at the performance I attended. Each performer has several moments to shine, as well as becoming part of the ensemble for other numbers. These are not reproductions of moments from the plays, but individual scenes in which whole worlds are created, if only for a moment, as the performers give us their own takes on the songs.

Some primary examples: Tony-winner Beth Leavel and Gavin Lee portray a couple in “Sorry/Grateful,” a song from Company originally sung by the lead character and five different “husbands.” Leavel and Lee create a couple we can recognize, long-married and somewhat rueful about their circumstances. A bit later, Leavel takes on “The Ladies Who Lunch,” also from Company. With her phrasing and expression, Leavel puts her own imprint on a number iconically performed by Elaine Stritch (in the original production) and Patti LuPone (in the most recent revival), not to mention her sparkling performance in Gypsy’s “You Gotta Get a Gimmick.”  Lee gives us a biting, re-gendered “Could I Leave You?” from Follies and enjoys a romp in a re-gendered version of “Everybody Ought to Have a Maid” from A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, along with Jason Pennycooke and Greg Mills.

In addition to her turn as one of those Gypsy strippers, Joanna Riding provides a comic highlight as the desperately nervous bride in “Not Getting Married Today” from Company. Bonnie Langford gives “I’m Still Here” from Follies a wry world-weariness. Kate Jennings Grant masters the polysyllabic, satirical wordplay hysterically in “The Boy From,” a ditty Sondheim contributed to The Mad Show.

That this is a finely-tuned, talented cast of outstanding performers is especially apparent in group numbers. The first act ends with “Sunday” from Sunday in the Park with George, creating a visual and aural tableau that never fails to give me chills. Jacob Dickey, Daniel Yearwood, Peter Neurether, Alexa Lopez, and Jasmine Forsberg deliver a soaring rendition of West Side Story’s “Tonight Quintet.” Peters and a number of the female performers blend perfectly to make “Not a Day Goes By” from Merrily We Roll Along, one of Peters’s signature songs, an emotional highlight.

Jeremy Secomb as Sweeney and Lea Salonga as Mrs. Lovett in a number from Sweeney Todd. Photo credit: Matthew Murphy.

Matthew Bourne is responsible for the crisp direction and musical staging, which keep things moving as one scene/song leads into the next. Stephen Mear’s choreography is not showy, but simple and appropriate. Bits and pieces of scenery and costumes (design by Matt Kinley and Jill Parker, respectively) give the actors (and us) enough information to set the scenes and characters, when needed. Lighting design by Warren Letton, sound design by Mick Potter, and projection design by George Reeve add to the beauty of the proceedings.

Sondheim’s Old Friends could refer to the songs in his canon as well as the characters and performers who sing them. Perhaps the most ubiquitous is “Send in the Clowns” from A Little Night Music, sung here by Peters. It may be that the most difficult part of putting together an anthology of Sondheim’s songs is determining what “makes the cut” and what doesn’t. This revue samples heavily with songs that are “old friends” from Company, Follies, and Gypsy. I realized after the show that Anyone Can Whistle, Do I Hear a Waltz?, Pacific Overtures, and Assassins are not represented, but when you write a love letter like this, there is simply not enough time to include everything, especially when there so many “old friends” from which to choose.

Sondheim’s Old Friends is in a limited run through June 15. If you treasure old friends like these, make sure to see this before it disappears.

The ladies of Sondheim's Old Friends with Bernadette Peters and Lea Salonga in the center. Photo credit: Matthew Murphy.