What a bacchanalian feast MasterVoices mastermind Ted Sperling set out for our delectation: a semi-staged concert version of Stephen Sondheim’s 1974 musical folly The Frogs, unseen since 2004, when Nathan Lane – recruited here as host/narrator – amended Burt Shevelove’s adaptation, elicited seven new songs, and launched an all too-brief run at Lincoln Center.
Even then, the work came with a storied past: that original staging in Yale’s overly resonant swimming pool, with Meryl Streep and Christopher Durang among the ribbiters.
It’s a mystery why this playful pastiche has sat on the shelf for so long. The script was truncated for this brief run (only three performances, all pre-sold out), but Sperling laid on some extra sauce: 200-odd choristers hovering over the Rose Theatre stage in towering tiers, a cadre of lithe dancers carrying out Lainie Sakakura’s alternately antic/erotic choreography for amphibians and Dionysians respectively, and Sperling himself leading the orchestra.
He deserves kudos for the dream-team casting as well: Douglas Sills as demi-god Dionysus, determined to troll Hades in search of a playwright who, resuscitated, might shake up the Athenian theatre scene while inspiring the polis; Kevin Chamberlin as his slave Xanthias, a reluctant Sancho Panza; Mark Kudisch as the aggressively buff co-god Herakles (hilarious); Chuck Cooper as the bored boatman Charon; Peter Bartlett, in signature doddery mode, as Pluto, ruler of the Underworld; and two contenders for the honor of being brought back to life. Place your bets: Peevish pedant George Bernard Shaw (Dylan Baker, perfection) or Shakespeare (a soulful hunk as embodied by Jordan Donica, last seen as the swoon-inducing Lancelot in Camelot). It’s not that tough a choice, but every actor shines.
Unfortunately, unless you had the foresight to order tickets weeks ahead, your odds of getting to see this Olympian semi-revival were slim to none, so let’s just all pray that the gods grant us a full revival, perhaps with a timely overhaul.
The Frogs opened November 3, 2023, at the Rose Theater, and closed November 4. Information: mastervoices.org
