Word: armfeldt
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Thankfully, Sondheim gives audiences a guide to understanding A Little Night Music right from the beginning. The wheelchair-bound matron Leonora Armfeldt (Lucy MacPhail '01) explains to her granddaughter (Kari Gauksheim '01) that people fall into three categories: the young, the fools and the old. MacPhail does a wonderful job with her elderly, jaded character, providing perspective on the play by holding the rest of the characters in brazen contempt. The Leibeslieders, a kind of Greek chorus, add another narrative layer to the work. Each of the singers parallels a character and performs occasional scenes based the plot, though...
Frederik is not the only character trying desperately to stay young. When actress Desiree Armfeldt (Kate Agresta '02), Frederik's former lover, comes to town, Frederik spies her on stage and escapes his wife for a nighttime tryst. Despite her age, Desiree has not lost her charms, and their ensuing rendez-vous stands out as the most artfully staged and intriguing scene in the play. The audience watches the pair's lovemaking silhouetted through a screen. At the same time, on a different part of the stage, Leonora appears to reminisce about her youth spent manipulating aristocrats and complains that...
...lighter-hearted films. Ostensibly a comedy of manners, "Smiles of a Summer Night" stars Gunnar Bjornstrand as Fredrik Egerman, a successful middle-aged lawyer whose second wife is the virginal 18-year-old Anne (Ulla Jacobsson). As Anne rebuffs Egerman's physical advances, Egerman turns to the actress Desiree Armfeldt (Eva Dahlbeck), an old lover and friend of his, for help. During a visit to Desiree's lodgings, Egerman has a run-in with the jealous Count Malcolm (Jarl Kulle), Desiree's current lover...
...further complicate matters, Countess Malcolm (Margit Carlqvist) is jealous of Desiree, and Henrik (Bjorn Bjelvenstam), Egerman's grown son from his first marriage, is in love with Anne. Old Mrs. Armfeldt, prodded by her daughter, invites everyone to spend the weekend at her country estate. During the course of the summer night, and under the influence of a mysterious love potion served at dinner, eight people turn into four couples...
...face, no longer displaying the blush of youth, makes a great subject for the camera. While Bjornstrand's features oftern seem a mask concealing his ture emotions, Dahlbeck's face bears witness to all the joys and travails to which life has subjected her. Naima Wifstrand as old-Mrs. Armfeldt steals every scene she in which she appears; her impossibly wise old dragon is as good as anything Edna May Oliver ever did in Hollywood...