Putting it Together

Putting it Together first saw the light of day as a Stephen Sondheim song review, strung together by a paper-thin plot, in a 1993 Off-Broadway production with Julie Andrews, who was making her return to the stage. Julia McKenzie followed with a London outing and then Carol Burnett took it to Broadway in 1999. The songs are fine but as a show it depends on the talent of the performers.

Ipswich Little Theatre chose to mount it as their first ever musical, an ambitious choice indeed for a theatre group whose audiences are most comfortable with farce and thrillers.

Director David Austin’s cast of six includes some Ipswich Little Theatre regulars supplemented by some new faces who together make an agreeable ensemble. Standing in front of the house curtain, Sam Hoepner as the Butler and Courtney Murrin as the Maid were the perfect personable couple to open the show with “Invocations and Instructions” from The Frogs, Sondheim’s amusing patter-piece which explains the do’s and don’t’s of theatre etiquette and eloquently brings the audience into his world.

Together they did well with “Send in the Clowns”, the only song known to yesterday’s audience, whilst later, Murrin, with an impish twinkle in her eye, made a meal of “The Ladies Who Lunch” (Company). Hoepner nicely captured the ambivalence of “The Road I Didn’t Take” (Follies), Michael Hogg had his best moment as The Husband with the rueful “Good Thing Going” (Merrily We Roll Along) and dripping with bling, Liz Ball, had a ball, as The Woman who wanted “More” (Dick Tracy). From the same movie score Robert Shearer used his powerful tenor to nail “Live alone and Like It” and Company’s “Marry Me a Little”.

Despite suffering pitch problems throughout the show, Tracey Spence finally delivered a spot-on version of the bride’s tongue-twister section of “Not Getting Married Today”. The ensemble work was good and most effective in the recurring “Rich and Happy” (Merrily We Roll Along).

The off-stage five-piece band under the direction of Kenneth Weaver accompanied with skill, whilst the simple lighting plot and the rear stage design of a night shot of New York City set the appropriate mood.

Putting It Together is not the best Sondheim compilation but top marks to Ipswich Little Theatre’s production which put it together with style.

Peter Pinne