Moments in the
Woods – Songs and stories of Sondheim.
Directed by Mitchell Butel.Musical
director. Josh van Konkelenberg. Arranger: Daryl Wallis.John McDermott on
Drums. Alana Dawes on Bass. Christina Guala and Vashti Tyrell on Woodwinds. Her
Majesty’s Theatre. Adelaide Cabaret Festival in association with the Adelaide
Festival Centre. June 23rd. 2022
Reviewed by
Peter Wilkins
Stephen
Sondheim’s death last year, even at the age of 91, sent shock waves through the
musical theatre world. It seemed most fitting then that the festival should include a tribute concert
in honour of the great composer, lyricist, and mentor. And who better than five
of the finest exponents of Sondheim’s songs in the country to celebrate his
genius?
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| Josie Lane, Queenie van de Zandt and Mitchell Butel in Moments in the Woods |
Director
Mitchell Butel is joined by Queenie van de Zandt, Josie Lane, Geraldine Turner
and Philip Quast to perform Sondheim’s songs, including many that they have performed
in his musicals in Australia and internationally. What follows is a concert that
would make the great man proud. From the moment the performers and the
musicians join together with Hey Old Friends from Merrily We Roll Along they fill the theatre with love. Moments in the Woods – Songs and stories of
Sondheim is more than a tribute concert. It is a joyous celebration of
Sondheim’s vast talent and profound humanity. Each performer and I suspect most
members of the audience have been touched, moved and inspired by the man and
his work. Sondheim is the Musical’s Shakespeare.
 |
Queenie van de Zandt and Mitchell Butel
|
In an evening of sheer
elation, Sondheim’s spirit soars upon the voices of the five performers imbued
with his inspiration. Sondheim is the actor’s composer and the evening is far
more than brilliant renditions of Daryl Wallis’s faithful arrangements of
Sondheim’s songs. Each singer embodies the character of the song, breathing
life into each note and playing the storyteller of life’s intricate tapestry.
In a show with too many glittering gems of the master’s genius to mention, each
artist is given the opportunity to shine.
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Josie Lane
|
The delightfully vivacious Josie Lane
enchants with her rendition of Red Riding Hood’s number from
Into the Woods and displays her comedic
talent with the opening number of
Sunday
in the Park with George, sung with Philip Quast as artist, George Seurat.
Queenie van de Zandt captures every ounce of vitriol and nastiness as the witch
in
Into The Woods.
 |
Philip Quast and Geraldine Turner
|
Butel celebrates
Sondheim’s skill as a lyricist with a cocky performance of Darryl Wallis’s
rather strange and uncharacteristic arrangement of Something’s Coming from Leonard
Bernstein’s
West Side Story.
Audiences are gifted with Send in the Clowns from
A Little Night Music by the legendary Geraldine Turner, who blew me
away when she sang The Miller’s Son, Petra’s song in
A Little Night Music in Her Majesty’s Theatre in 1978. The
legendary grand dame of Sondheim’s musicals and the first person to release a
solo album of his songs, Turner’s Ladies who Lunch from
Company brought the house down.
Butel announced that it was her birthday and
the entire audience joined in to sing a stirring rendition of Happy Birthday. Thanks
to the blessing of NT Live many may have seen Philip Quast’s performance of the
famous Benjamin Stone from
Follies.
On stage Quast’s moving rendition of Ben’s Song exhibits the private anguish
and self doubt of the celebrity. The familiar and the unfamiliar make up a
fascinating evening of songs to celebrate the prolific life of an extraordinary
and innovative talent. From solo renditions to duets such as Butel and Quast’s
hilarious Agony from
Into The Woods
and Lane and van de Zandt’s Take Me To The World from
Evening Primrose to full company numbers ending in a finale of
Sunday from
Sunday in the Park With
George, this night of tribute sparkles with song and stories.
 |
Geraldine Turner
|
It is an
unforgettable night of reminiscences told adoringly by performers who knew
Sondheim personally. “Bring your talent and observe the punctuation.” Sondheim
told Turner. He would do the rest. “And he did.” she added. Quast recounted the
time that he was doing fishing knots in his dressing room (“As one does”) and
the ever curious composer asked him to show him how. A besotted Butel proudly
showed a letter that he received from the prodigious letter writer.
After
interval the gems just kept sparkling brighter in the Ballad section of the
night. Those who were there to witness will never forget Turner’s wonderfully
cockney rendition of Mrs Lovett’s A Little Priest from Sweeney Todd or Butel’s sensitively sung Nothing Else Will Harm You
from the same musical. Van De Zandt’s Who’s That Woman from Sondheim’s Follies. And who will ever forget Lane’s
brilliant, triumphant There Won’t be Trumpets from Anyone Can Whistle
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The cast of Moments in the Woods
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In his little
known musical
Evening Primrose
Sondheim reveals his mantra in the song Take Me To The World. As a fitting finale
to the programme Quast sings a combined version of Shakespeare’s song Fear No
More the Heat of the Sun and Caesar’s speech to Calpurnia from Shakespeare’s
Julius Caesar : “It seems to me most
strange that men should fear seeing that death a necessary end will come when
it will came.” It came as it does to Sondheim last year and the company read
out some of the tributes that poured in to mourn his loss to the world of musical
theatre. But
Moments in the Woods- the
Songs and Stories of Sondheim will remain for all fortunate enough to be at
Her Majesty’s Theatre on June 23
rd as a lasting testimony to the
great man and the artists who so powerfully and lovingly brought forth their
amazing talent to do Stephen Sondheim proud.
Photos by Claudio Raschella
