Putting It Together at Porchlight Music Theatre
★★★☆☆
Porchlight Music Theatre (see
Resident companies). By Stephen
Sondheim. Dir. Brenda Didier.
With McKinley Carter, Adam Pelty,
Alex Weisman, Michael Reckling,
Aja Goes. 1hr 45mins; one
intermission.
This Sondheim revue is set at a generically urbane cocktail party in a generically posh apartment, thrown by a generically discontented middle-aged couple. They’re joined by a just plain generic younger couple; a few sparks fly, but they’re outflown by recriminations. Musical revues such as this one, conceived by the composer and Julia McKenzie, the director of its original production in 1993, are perhaps unavoidably reductive. But Sondheim and his collaborator seem determined to diminish his output to only his most sorry/grateful expressions of romantic indecision—certainly a running theme in his work, but not perhaps as defining as Putting It Together would imply.
If the show is conceptually questionable, Porchlight’s production is at least stylishly put together. Adam Pelty and McKinley Carter are splendid as the older couple, particularly in the Act I climax featuring a pair of songs from Follies, the bitter duet “Country House” and the even more acrimonious “Could I Leave You?” Pelty plays both heart-hardened husband and half-hearted playboy with weary credibility, while Carter is simply heartbreaking. Aja Goes and Michael Reckling are perhaps a bit too young for the younger couple; Reckling seems as if he can’t possibly have earned the loneliness of Company’s “Marry Me a Little.” Alex Weisman amuses as the puckish, fey observer who gooses the action. Musical director Austin Cook makes Sondheim’s music sound terrific in jazzy new arrangements.—Kris Vire
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