Smiles of a Summer Night

(Sommarnattens leende)
Year: 1955
Cast: 4 male, 7 female
Set: Interior/flexible

Smiles of a Summer Night

(Sommarnattens leende)
Year: 1955
Cast: 4 male, 7 female
Set: Interior/flexible

To enquire about or apply for a license to perform Smiles of a Summer Night, please contact Josef Weinberger, Ltd.
plays@jwmail.co.uk
+44 (0) 20 7580 2827

‘This nocturnal sunshine is just the stuff to get us through the dark midwinter.’
– Financial Times on the 2008 London production of A Little Night Music

Famously re-worked as the 1973 Stephen Sondheim Broadway musical A Little Night Music, Smiles of a Summer Night is a collection of love affairs and intrigues revolving around a middle-aged lawyer, his young wife, his former mistress (a sophisticated stage actress), her lover, and his wife. They gather for a weekend at the country estate of the actress’ elderly mother, who works her own kind of magic on this ‘ménage of many.’ A parody of the ridiculous male, this is Bergman’s comic exploration of a favourite theme; men, the species which turns to women for salvation.


Notable productions (of A Little Night Music)

  • Malmö Opera, Malmö 2013 (dir. Dennis Sandin)
     
  • Théàtre du Châtelet, Paris 2010 (dir. Lee Blakeley)
     
  • Menier Chocolate Factory/Garrick Theatre, London 2008/2009 (dir. Sir Trevor Nunn; revived on Broadway, New York, in 2009/10) (Picture above)
     
  • Schubert Theatre/Majestic Theatre, New York 1973 (dir. Harold Prince