A little Sondheim at the Hayes
Image: A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC at The Hayes Theatre. Photo: John McRae
The Hayes returns to one of the classics for its next production — A Little Night Music, one of Stephen Sondheim’s most beloved musicals. Set in Sweden in 1900, it is a story of love, deceit, innocence, ageing and everything that makes humans so complicated.
Desiree Armfeldt is a famous actress whose star is beginning to fade. She is caught in a romantic dilemma between two married men whose own respective relationships are also complicated. A weekend gathering in the home of Desiree’s mother, Madame Armfeldt, brings several intersecting and conflicting agendas to the surface.
“It’s a beautiful show…it’s a story of interwoven romantic interests and is quite sort of Chekhovian in its way,” explains Blazey Best, who plays Desiree in the Hayes production. “This will be a sort of chamber version of it, sort of stripped back, really focusing on the beautiful scenes and the music.”
Best describes the show as a farce, but romantic and grand in its story and, usually, in its production. The Hayes being quite a small theatre, often requires a scaling down of sets. Best sees this as a positive for a show like A Little Night Music, because it allows the audience to connect with the book and music more intimately.
“They are the best written scenes that I’ve ever read in a musical; they stand alone as a play, they’re beautifully nuanced scenes. And the songs are the most beautiful, emotional soliloquies, so the advantage of doing it somewhere like the Hayes is that you can tell that story close up,” says Best.
Best’s character, Desiree, gets to sing the most well-known tune in the show and arguably one of the most recognisable and beautiful musical theatre songs ever written, “Send In The Clowns”.
It’s a song that has been performed within the musical and as a stand-alone by many illustrious singers, but Best does not feel the need to overthink how she’ll sing it.
“I think I’ve approached it in much the same way as if you were in a Shakespeare play and you had to start a famous soliloquy,” she says.
The beauty of “Send In The Clowns” is that it slips in subtly, as a seamless part of the dialogue in the scene.
As well as singing this iconic song, Best will get the rare thrill of being on stage with an Australian legend and the theatre’s namesake, Nancye Hayes.
“It’s an absolute honour watching her work, she is so perfect in this role,” says Best about being on stage with Hayes. “Just watching someone with so much expertise, yet so much grace and humility. It’s a privilege to be in the room with her.”
Both Hayes and Best will be joined by an exceptional cast including Leon Ford, Erin Claire, Jeremi Campese, Josh Robson, and Melanie Bird.
“Mel Bird is just an absolute crack-up,” says Best. “She’s playing the young bride of my love interest and she is just hilarious. She’ll bring down the house.”
The ensemble will also feature a quintet who will act as a kind of Greek chorus. A very capable six-piece band will provide the music for what is quite a richly textured score.
Though the sets are pared back, they are gorgeous and evocative, a perfect backdrop for the story. Best believes the Hayes theatre will add another dimension to Sondheim’s masterpiece.
“There’s something about being in an intimate space, it just brings everything to life.”
