The sublime Merle Dandridge is a musical theater dream come true in 'A Little Night Music'

A grand operetta on the vagaries of romantic love, “A Little Night Music” is no small undertaking. Imagine Shakespeare’s “As You Like It” rewritten as a decadent sex farce, set aloft to music that takes its inspiration more from Rachmaninoff than from Rodgers and Hammerstein and unleashed on the stage as a series of waltzes.Pasadena Playhouse’s producing artistic director, Danny Feldman, has proved that growth is still possible in a time of spiraling crisis for American theater.

Compounding the uneasiness, the ensemble introduces the dramatis personae in strokes that can seem unnecessarily broad. I’ll confess to having a few moments of doubt about whether Pasadena Playhouse was going to be able to pull this off, but everything snapped into place as soon as Dandridge took center stage.

A full synopsis would be a dizzying experience, but the musical has a neat geometry. A loves B who loves C who loves D, but genuine objects of affection can get misplaced in the ensuing madness.Pasadena Playhouse’s Sondheim Celebration kicks into gear with a revival of “Sunday in the Park With George,” directed by Sarna Lapine.

Rounding out this roundelay, Petra , the Egerman’s maid, also fancies Henrik, enticing him whenever she can into a quick tumble on the couch. She’d settle for the miller’s son, as she’ll magnificently explain in song in the second act, but the shy, sensitive scion of a lawyer is hard to resist. In general, the women are stronger performers than the men. Nearly all the singing triumphs belong to them. Long delivers Madame Armfeldt’s “Liaisons” with raspy defiance. Berry nails every lyrical note of domestic rigor mortis in “Every Day a Little Death.” Lewis earns the late spotlight of Petra’s “The Miller’s Son” with vocal brio. Voorhees, lighting up her duets and trios with a gorgeous soprano, is perhaps at her most musical when releasing one of Anne’s mirror-shattering laugh.

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