Word: henrik
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...story is deliberately simplistic to showcase the music and the farce. Fredrik's son, Henrik (Ed Upton), has arrived home suddenly, hesitant to enter the monastery because of his love for his step-mother Anne (Catherine deLima). Anne is much younger than her husband, Fredrik (Colin Stokes), and wants to preserve her virginity. So Fredrik seeks satisfaction in his old romance, Desiree (Lacey Tucker), whose theater troupe is passing through town. The affair is not long without complications. Desiree's jealous lover Carl-Magnus (Daren Firestone), a moronic dragoon who loves to fight, shows up just as the two lovers...
Somehow these familiar gender battles are played as serious conflicts despite little depth of thought in the script to justify the treatment. Upton's portarayal of Henrik, for instance, is at once pathetic and sympathetic, but plunged too deeply in melancholy to make his overtures to the maid and his step mother amusing. The others seems to follow his lead when playing out marital strife caused by infidelities, both real and merely desired. The result is a series of quasi-serious conflicts rather than the farcical situation comedies of the script. Stokes attempts some slapstick with his rejected advance...
Just when a well-crafted song concludes or a set technique impresses, jarring flaws, each insignificant in itself, detract from the many strengths of the show. Attempts at more elaborate illusions such as Henrik's cello synchronization with the orchestra are better scrapped simply to preserve more sustainable disbelief. The costumes are stunning and the sets all but professional. Great care is taken of affect educated English accents (by some) and to otherwise strut and behave like European aristocrats. But then the impact of successful flourishes like the impressively choreographed waltzes at the opening and closing curtains are diminished...
...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...
...Night's Dream. The tropes of the husband and wife who are separated and then reunited, the sylvan atmosphere and the magic spells buttress the film. Egerman is very much like Bottom; he plays an ass throughout the movie, but at the end, after Anne has run off with Henrik, he is made human again. The film also contains echoes of Beaumarchais' The Marriage of Figaro and allusions to Jean Renior's classic 1939 film, "The Rules of the Game...