An intermission can be dangerous. As so often with Sondheim, a few well-chosen words invite us to look afresh at the familiar. No piece of theater can exist in a vacuum, of course. Every live performance sits at the center of an intricate web of custom and convention, ritual and routine, and must share space with myriad challengers for our attention. It can be tempting to dismiss these things as peripheral to our experience of the show itself. In reality, they are central to how we perceive all that occurs on stage, with the power to shape and shatter in equal measure. This, after all, is both the peril and the thrill of live theater: it casts a spell as fragile as it is potent.