Review | Old Friends: You could drive a person crazy (with another Sondheim revue)

Since the death of Stephen Sondheim at age 91 in 2021, the legendary composer and lyricist has remained a dominant presence on New York stages—with Broadway revivals of “Into the Woods,” “Merrily We Roll Along,” “Company,” “Sweeney Todd,” and “Gypsy,” and the Off-Broadway debut of his final musical, “Here We Are.” Amid this welcome wave of tribute, “Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends,” a new Sondheim revue presented by Cameron Mackintosh and Manhattan Theatre Club, lands on Broadway not with a bang, but with a shrug.

This is Mackintosh’s third attempt at a Sondheim revue, following “Side by Side by Sondheim” and “Putting It Together”—just two among a long line of such tributes over the years. “Old Friends” premiered in London in 2022 as a one-night-only concert with a star-studded cast and a 26-piece orchestra, later broadcast on the BBC and released as a cast album. The concert’s success led to a full West End run with a scaled-down ensemble.

Unlike other Sondheim revues that made at least a passing attempt to shape Sondheim’s songs around a concept or narrative frame, “Old Friends” is a two-and-a-half-hour buffet of greatest hits, delivered without context, cohesion, or much reason for being. (The only actual “old friend” of Sondheim among the cast is Bernadette Peters.)

Sondheim’s work represents the pinnacle of musical theater writing—brilliant in its craft, deeply human in its storytelling, and unmatched in its lyrical and musical complexity. But what makes it extraordinary—its specificity to character, situation, and emotional arc—gets flattened in this glossy concert staging. “Old Friends” tries to be everything at once, moving from “Company” to “Into the Woods” to “A Little Night Music” to “Sweeney Todd” at breakneck speed. The result feels more like a mixtape than a tribute, more exhausting than illuminating.

Peters, now 77, occasionally struggles vocally but delivers a beautiful “Send in the Clowns” and makes the most of her stage presence. Lea Salonga, who leads the cast alongside Peters, fares better, offering standout performances of “Loving You” (“Passion”) and “Everything’s Coming Up Roses” (“Gypsy”). Elsewhere, Beth Leavel lends bite to “The Ladies Who Lunch,” while Gavin Lee supplies comic relief. The cast would have benefited from a male star capable of anchoring the “Sweeney Todd” material. In London, Michael Ball filled that role.

The sleek production is directed by Matthew Bourne, who often tries to inject surprise or novelty—such as Peters popping up as Little Red in the “Into the Woods” sequence or the male ensemble acting as the maids in “Everybody Ought to Have a Maid.” Meanwhile, attempts to introduce light scenic or costume elements to evoke specific shows are clunky and unnecessary.

Rarities like “Live Alone and Like It” (written for the film “Dick Tracy”) and the full original overture to “Merrily We Roll Along” add sparkle. A sentimental moment comes when Peters sings “Not a Day Goes By” as images from Sondheim’s life, including a rare photo with his estranged mother, play in the background. It’s lovely. But again, it begs the question: why not just air the original 2022 London concert on PBS or do a limited engagement at Lincoln Center?

The show’s opening banter gets things slightly wrong, stating that “Forum” was Sondheim’s first show as a composer, when in fact that was “Saturday Night,” a forgotten gem that’s still never had a Broadway production. One wonders why the time and money behind “Old Friends” couldn’t have gone toward presenting the Broadway premiere of “Saturday Night” or bringing “Here We Are” uptown.

“Old Friends” occupies a strange paradox. The casual theatergoer might get the most out of the revue but is also the least likely to seek it out. The die-hard Sondheim fan, on the other hand, is the most likely to attend—but also the most likely to leave underwhelmed, having seen these songs done better, in context, many times before.

Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, 261 W. 47th St., manhattantheatreclub.com. Through June 15.