Stephen Sondheim’s bittersweet romantic farce, A Little Night Music, opened on Broadway in 1973.

In this 50th-anniversary production at the Hayes Theatre, director Dean Bryant has put the focus on probing acting rather than vocal pyrotechnics to explore the musical’s investigation of “the pain of being alive”, as he puts it in the program.

Leon Ford and Blazey Best in A Little Night Music, Hayes Theatre Co, 2023. Photo © John McCrae

Featuring gorgeous music and insightful lyrics by Sondheim and a clever book by Hugh Wheeler, A Little Night Music is based on Ingmar Bergman’s 1955 film Smiles of a Summer Night.

Set in Sweden in 1900, the musical is a whirlwind of love, longing, desire, regret and tangled liaisons between middle-aged lawyer Fredrik Egerman; his 18-year-old virgin wife Anne; Fredrik’s old flame, actress Desiree Armfeldt; Desiree’s jealous lover, the pompous Count Carl-Magnus Malcolm; the Count’s embittered wife Charlotte; and Fredrik’s repressed, angst-ridden son Henrik.

Set designer Jeremy Allen has created an elegant space with a blue and white tiled floor, blue walls and large windows at the back through which we can see the musicians and the quintet...