Sondheim's Old Friends (c) Matthew Murphy
Broadway: Sondheim’s Old Friends
At the Samuel Friedman Theatre
The new musical revue, Sondheim’s Old Friends, started out as a one-time concert celebration of the life-long friendship between British theater producer Cameron MacIntosh and the legendary musical composer Stephen Sondheim in May 2022. And while there are still remnants of this concert still evident (including the title and some needless photo montages), the new stage show, directed and choreographed by Matthew Bourne (Swan Lake), refocuses the evening to a celebration of Sondheim’s genius. (His death in 2021 still feels fresh.) Instead of conceiving an original story to tie together the 40 songs, Bourne has decided to take two approaches: One is to present them as standalone, concert songs and the other is to recreate them as they would have been in a production of the show they are from. The latter presentations are sort of a shock as there have been so many revisionist reworking of so many of Sondheim’s shows that it feels kind of revolutionary that Bobby is once again played by a man and Amy is played by a woman in the Company sequence. While the concert was populated with a who’s who of mostly British luminaries (like Judi Dench and Petula Clark), only two performers have made the leap from that evening to Broadway (with the West End and L.A. productions in-between): the British actress Bonnie Langford and Broadway legend Bernadette Peters (it’s shocking that when the musical opened in London last fall, it was Peters’ West End debut!). Joining Peters as her co-headliner is the luminous Lea Salonga while Langford is joined by a mix of sixteen(!) British, Broadway and one Aussie mainstay performers (some Tony and/or Olivier winners) like Beth Leavel, Kate Jennings Grant, Gavin Lee and Joanna Riding.
Sondheim's Old Friend (c) Matthew Murphy
Peters is known for her many interpretations of Sondheim’s roles in her career include Dot, The Witch, Madame Rose and Desiree Armfeldt, so her portion of the show feels like a look back and a celebration of them (seeing her as Dot in the magical Sunday finale of Act One was goosebump-inducing). Salonga’s songs, on the other hand, feel like auditions for her to perform in full productions of Passion, Gypsy and especially Sweeney Todd. Her two numbers as Mrs. Lovett opposite Jeremy Secomb (a former Sweeney) were powerful, funny and scary. It’s time for someone to cast this talented performer in her second professional Sondheim show. The rest of the show falls to the talented cast, and it’s nice to get the big ensemble numbers from Sunday in the Park with George, Company, Sweeney Todd and my personal favorite, “A Weekend in the Country” from A Little Night Music (although nothing will erase the memory of a virtuoso three-person version of that song lead by Christopher Durang). Some other standout numbers include Leavel’s “The Ladies who Lunch,” the all-too-short West Side Story segment and Langford’s “I’m Still Here” (the Shirley MacLaine revised version of the song from Postcards from the Edge). Sondheim’s Old Friends may have Peters and Salonga as the show’s draw, but it’s really Sondheim who is, as a Sweeney Todd lyric goes, “proof of heaven as you’re living.” Indeed.
BOOP! (c) Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman
Broadway: BOOP!
At the Broadhurst Theatre
Betty Boop, the animated heroine of many short films in the 1930s, is finally making her big Broadway debut in BOOP!, and its success is largely thanks to two people. It’s a welcome to actress Jasmine Amy Rogers, making her Broadway debut as the titled Boop, and a welcome back to veteran director and choreographer Jerry Mitchell. Rogers is just smashing as Betty Boop, who, in Bob Martin’s smart book, is a successful actress in vibrant black and white (thanks to David Rockwell’s set and Gregg Barnes' costumes), where she starts to feel a bit uncertain of her purpose in life. Enter Doc Brown and his DeLorean time machine … well, in this story it’s Boop’s Grampy (an enthusiastic Stephen DeRosa) and his interdimensional-travelling sofa. In need of a change, Betty finds herself in present day New York at the annual Comic Con, to be exact, in all its colorful zaniness, and by chance finds a big Boop fan in teenager Trisha (an impressive Angelica Hale). From there, her wild adventures begin, including getting involved with the big mayoral campaign of Raymond Demarest (Erich Bergen), being run by Trisha’s aunt (Anastacia McCleskey), as well as catching the eye of Trisha’s friend and occasional chaperone, Dwayne (the amiable Ainsley Melham). Throughout all these machinations, Rogers never abandons the Boop persona but adapts it through 21st century lens. It’s a splendid acting debut, and she also sings the heck out of legendary songwriter David Foster and Broadway stalwart Susan Birkenhead’s infectious, if slightly generic, songs.
BOOP! (c) Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman
As for Jerry Mitchell, it's been seven years since his last Broadway musical (Pretty Women: The Musical) and BOOP! feels like a more comfortable fit. His imaginative take on the material is reverent, but also with a cheeky modern sense of humor. The Comic Con sequence just brims with visual jokes (including an easter egg from one of his older shows) and the dance number that starts Act 2 is endlessly inventive. A lot of the second act sort of drags in its attempt to tie up the many plotlines (the mayoral race would seem like the best place to do some cuts, but then we wouldn’t have Bergen’s fourth wall-breaking comic turn or the delicious parody of the New York 1 news channel). But Mitchell recovers and ties up everything in his signature dance party finale, often replicated by other shows but never as deftly done by Mitchell here, which he perfected in his most successful shows (Hairspray and Kinky Boots). And talk about an abundance of riches, I haven’t even mentioned the delicious supporting performance by Broadway royalty Faith Prince as Grampy’s love interest or the energetic and hardworking ensemble. BOOP! is a charming surprise in this crowded Broadway season.
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