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What’s to Discuss? Old Friends Is a Familiar Trip Through the Sondheim Canon.
Led by a committed Bernadette Peters.
There’s the anticipatory intake of breath to the beelike piano before “Getting Married Today,” the thrill to the whistle that introduces industrial London and “The Ballad of Sweeney Todd,” and the sigh that accompanies those strings that descend like a red curtain as Bernadette readies herself for “Losing My Mind.” That’s a moment you know will be coming, even if you don’t look at the song listing in your Playbill. Old Friends, here on Broadway after starting out in the West End and stopping off in Los Angeles, is full of that kind of indulgence, like a rich, basic chocolate brownie — familiar ingredients and satisfying, if not necessarily a whole meal. In this version, adapted from the London run’s extended one, Bernadette is the primary close collaborator with Sondheim onstage, occupying a position between ambassador to his oeuvre, high priestess of song, and family member in mourning.
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