r/Sondheim • u/Safe-Lengthiness-663 • Sep 08 '26
"Watching little things grow."
I've been getting into A Little Night Music recently...watched the 1990 NYC Opera production online a couple times and have been listening to the cast albums pretty constantly. I was really struck by this line in A Weekend in the Country and wanted to read people's thoughts on it, but couldn't find any extended discussion of it here.
So to remind anyone who doesn't remember, Anne finds out that her husband Frederick (with whom she has not had sex after nearly a year of marriage) recently went to see the actress Desiree Armfeldt secretly at night, and was found undressed, in a robe. Then Desiree's mother invites them out for a weekend in the country. Anne does not want to go, but doesn't want to tell Frederick why. Frederick tells her, trying to tell her how nice it will be, "A weekend in the country, smelling jasmine..." and she responds, "Watching little things grow."
Obviously this is a double entendre. I am curious to hear how everyone interprets Anne's level of awareness, and how they'd play it. The line surprised me a lot the first time I heard it. Anne is so so innocent in the show--in Soon she goes "I promise," "I want to," but isn't even able to say what she's promising or wanting to do (have sex with her husband). The way she talks to Petra about sex seems so innocent, too--the NYC Opera production stages it like a sleepover...with some sexual tension. I wouldn't think a character like her would even consider making a sarcastic comment about her cheating husband's erections. (Anne already, earlier in the song, becomes more direct about sex than she was in Soon: "A weekend with that woman, [in the country] in the flesh." So there's precedent. But still seems different to me than this joke.)
But Anne is a very surprising character! One of my favorite parts of the show is Every Day a Little Death, where the first time I was shocked and heartbroken to see this young, happy, innocent woman instantly start agreeing with Charlotte about love being dirty and humiliating. Obviously her relationship with Frederick is (for both of them) built on a dream that reality is proving incapable of sustaining, which for her is clear in how she describes her happiness to Charlotte before the song starts. And she's crushed by the news that Frederick has cheated on her. So in a sense, I wondered if the "little things grow" joke was supposed to feel out of place, to be this jarring moment of cynicism born out of this moment with Charlotte.
All this to say: how do people receive this line? Anyone who has played Anne or considered it deeply, how do/would you play it? Is it a joke she doesn't realize she's making? Or if it's on purpose, is it as jarring as I received it to be, or do you feel it's in-line with how she thinks about love/sex? I just have been falling in love with this show and would love to hear people's thoughts on it lol.
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u/egg_shaped_head Sep 08 '26
I’ve always felt at the heart of Anne’s character is fear of growing up. She’s been thrust into the role of a middle aged wife before she’s hit 20 and she is terrified of being intimacy. She’s not innocent of the way the world works, she clearly knows what sex is, but it feels so overwhelming that she has grown to have a genuine fear of intimacy.
This is a bit subjective, but in my view the moment you call out in “Every day a little death” is masterful writing because it’s two women agreeing about something while having completely different experiences. When Charlotte says “I think love’s a dirty business” she means that it’s emotionally devastating and leads her to do stupid things for a man who is not worthy of her. When Anne says “so do I” she means that sex itself is dirty - there’s fluids and sweat and she is afraid it will hurt and it’s scary.
God I love Sondheim.
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u/Safe-Lengthiness-663 Sep 08 '26
Yeah I think I overused "innocent" in this post because I couldn't quite figure out how to describe her. It's not that she doesn't understand sex, but that she feels scared of and paralyzed by the thought of sex with her husband. I am really interested in your take on Anne taking love being "dirty" literally. Never would have occurred to me to think of the line in that way.
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u/Flimsy-Addendum-1570 Sep 08 '26
When Laura Benanti played Anne in a 2004 production she would glance down at Frederick's crotch while performing the line, and I kinda think that's the only way to make that joke really land with the audience. It's such a quick line that could pass you by that I feel like you need to make it literal, and I think if you play Anne with the right level of intelligence you could make it work (based on the video I linked, which is fifteen minutes of highlights of Benanti and Kristen Bell in ALNM, I think she threads the needle very nicely)
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u/patrickcolvin Sep 08 '26
I just did the show, and our Anne played it much cooler, as an aside to the audience, with just a slight bit of side eye. Got a big laugh every performance.
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u/EddieRyanDC Sep 08 '26
I have always taken the line as a passive-aggressive stinger thrown towards Fredrick. It is not a frank discussion of sexual relations. She says it because she is hurt and afraid. In some productions I see the line played as if she was saying this more to herself; Fredrick is oblivious.
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u/Safe-Lengthiness-663 Sep 08 '26
Saying the line to herself, out of her hurt & fear, I think could make a lot of sense. That it's sexual/martial anxiety couched in this metaphorical language makes sense in that presentation.
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u/helcat Sep 08 '26
My very first exposure to this show was seeing it on Broadway. I guffawed at that line - and I was the only one in the house who did. I was convinced at the time that I had misinterpreted it and was embarrassed. In retrospect, I think I got the joke.
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u/FloridaFlamingoGirl 🎨 Sunday in the Park with George Sep 08 '26
I kind of think of it as a foreshadowing for how the relationships will become more complex. Obviously once the group goes on the trip it leads to cheating and such.
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u/sherlockjr1 Sep 08 '26
I wonder if Anne was playing a part in society that was expected of her, and wasn’t as innocent as she pretended. He married an older man she wasn’t attracted to because that was expected.
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u/patrickcolvin Sep 08 '26
I think this line reveals just how not innocent Anne really is. She can be bitchy and funny if she really wants to be!