I just saw Lonnie Price's documentary on the 1981 Merrily production..The George Kaufman, Moss Hart play, Merrily We Roll Along, reversed chronological order of its scenes in 1934.
Pinter's reverse chronology play, Betrayal came to Broadway in 1980.
Also an addendum here... William Remmers Utopia Opera group presented a transcendent version of Passion. What a moving production!
I first heard of Stephen Sondheim when a compilation show called Side by Side by Sondheim opened (1976).
I don't know who told me but because I was a songwriter he was someone I should experience. (A standard opinion at the time was that his lyrics always shine. However, you won't leave the theater humming his songs.)
Perhaps I even saw the Side by Side revue. I remember learning of his wisdom and understanding of marriages and relationships while he himself had never married.
Perhaps the first album I got was Follies, or Company.
Friends of our family had prepared the lithographs for Pacific Overtures posters so the design of that Sondheim show was indelible and mysterious. I learned history from that album and found it entertaining. I liked the Someone in a Tree song especially and thought the tea song served the necessity of assassination gruesomely. I knew nothing of the history of Nippon until I followed the album. It's a pageant musical for a world exposition.
My favorite Sondheim album was the Smiles of a Summer Night musical, A Little Night Music. It was immediately accessible to me and I loved following the Now/Soon/Later interactions. I may have also followed with the piano vocal score which made the music more accessible, although it would be years later that I would have played through the score.
(That is the album we are listening to now; A Little Night Music. Is it true Ingmar Bergman would never allow another of his films adapted after that? The difference between hearing the album and seeing A Little Night Music in its staged entirety is radical. Many Broadway musicals have a soundtrack album as the best experience. I haven't seen Hamilton, only heard the album. I may be mistaken to think the album is the way to go.)
These were concept albums with songs connected without dialogue, and as a continuous sequence they did not disappoint. (Company, Follies, A Little Night Music, Pacific Overtures are great concept albums from beginning to end)
Hearing the characters come to life through dialogue opened another dimension, connecting with someone else's skills, the bookwriter, the director, the actor....
The book to each of these pieces is a big part and remains somewhat obscure. I still have no idea what connects the Follies songs. I suppose that album had the strongest impression on me because of the happy fellow breakdown that occurs on side one and more completely on side two. It was a great relief to return to the girls upstairs. I suppose the first hearing of the Waiting for the Girls was a complete visual emotional experience as well. With that ensemble song Sondheim was tapping into the meditative brain, allowing for space to fill in the world he was creating as though it was unfolding free form.
Seeing his scores addressed the total lack of free form in the compositions.
They exist on a number of levels, words, music, character development, because they have perfectly figured accompaniment.
There is a colorist foundation through the distinctive vamp that can be found in many or most of his pieces.
Andrew Lloyd Weber seemed to be purely chordal and melodic in his entertaining compositions; Stephen Schwartz was somewhere in between with his own examinations on pop songs, or is it just his overview of music in general? Each songwriter delivers something personal. I'm reminded that Weber, though, does not write his own words.
Sondheim's work is vamp based. His unique coloristic harmonies often mask traditional progressions, revealed slowly, barely revised from their sources, barely unique at times.
He seemed very much a composer of necessity. He had to write something and somehow his personality would need to take shape, almost of necessity.
He wouldn't have discovered his personality if he wasn't forced to write songs.
SWEENEY TODD and Beyond - this show's original production was easy to see at the time.
We get into some difficult issues because of the collaborative nature of musical theater. It is arguable that Sweeney Todd captures an auteur's vision but its story is too solid (book by Hugh Wheeler, who adapted Smiles of a Summer Night, but really it derives from a play by Christopher Bond). It works too well in its inevitable progression forward. It achieves perfect anger, perfect rage.
If you felt terrible at the beginning you will feel great by the end. There are pieces that take you as they find you, and the worse you are feeling at the beginning of Sweeney Todd, the better you'll feel by the end.
With Sunday in the Park there was a distance from the artist and his purpose. His support from the supporting cast was so great that he (George) only seemed self-indulgent. The painting that is the product of the first act speaks for itself, but not for the musical.
On another occasion though, watching Sunday in the Park with an openness to the possibility that you can be consoled. What I'm saying is I'm mostly inconsolable, but let's say, if I could be consoled, then Sondheim's Sunday in the Park would make me feel better. I feel support for the possibility of a better self expression.
For what Bernadette Peters went through in Sunday in the Park she returns with a vengeance in Into the Woods.
Into the Woods was closer to a song musical yet it was also, after its long journey, cumulative. By the end we receive the direct instruction, Children Will Listen. I was moved by that warning as well as the idea that we are not alone even when we are alone, yes, all that made perfect sense, but I was not happy by the third time I heard that.
His structural compositions are working so well by this time that he is truly a Hollywood Songwriter.
What struck me from Into the Woods was the perfection of its production in its televised form (1980? No, it was a 1991 PBS Broadcast.). Everyone was basically too good.
The pairing of baker Chip Zein and the zany Cinderella seemed conveniently miraculous, although the baker lost his alter ego, his performance equal (Joanna Gleason, the baker's wife).
The young folk presented fresh behaviors, suggestive of the child of the modern day upper West Side.
We are the children of the Woods. Each song is a meditation on stories from childhood.
I didn't realize our show in Forest Hills, The Great Enchanted Forest and its revival, Out of the Forest, were meant to be echoes of Into the Woods since a mash-up is a necessary exercise for any fairy tale adaptation. (Ours was originally of Mother Goose stories.).
Combine the various stories of fairy tales. It seems only fitting they would connect with a Disney audience (of which I am one. A Disney audience is an undefined term I'm using here as though already established.)
James Lapine entwines the stories of the Brother's Grimm.
The meeting of Dick Tracy with Sondheim seemed to follow after Jersey Kosinski appeared in Reds. (Sondheim also wrote the music for Warren Beaty's Reds.)
Dick Tracy's basic songs are also perfectly prepared. Mandy Patinkin returned after playing George Seurat. (What Can You Lose is the simple duet he plays with Ms. Madonna)
Sondheim was becoming a Hollywood songwriter, which is what he had to be. The direct bigness of songs of the cinema already appeared in Follies. My favorite song in Follies, Who's That Woman, is easily a Busby Berkley number.
Just briefly I feel that Follies only has one soundtrack recording worth hearing and that is its original one. Why couldn't they get a better recording engineer?
Assassins (of the OO ES AH) also contains derivative material masterfully assembled and notated. It is arguably someone's book that makes it so ghoulish and hilarious and accurate. In a way it establishes the condition you need to be in before entering the world of Sweeny Todd in order to feel great by the end. There's a nihilism that is invigorating and uniquely American. We all want to get on the America bandwagon, which is to say we're of the United States.
Meanwhile we are in a unique position now to see the nation tumbling after everyone had been saying it must tumble for other reasons.
The first Sondheim show I saw on stage was Sweeney Todd. It was a fairly quiet audience experience when Len Cariou and Angela Lansbury led the cast. The last performance with George Hearn and Dorothy Laudan brought down the house. The audience loved it.
I stood for Sunday in the Park's original production. It was then I learned how something can work first time, every other time.
I'm remembering that Donna Murphy was in Passion and after seeing her in Song of Singapore I could not forgive Sondheim for giving her this role.
I rejected Passion with such passion that it obviously touched a nerve and I will look back upon it as one of the greatest things of all time.
Here are the Sondheim shows listed in Wikipedia:
Saturday Night (1954, produced 1997): Book by Julius and Philip Epstein
I have no idea.
What follows is why Sondheim was already beyond legendary... West Side Story and Gypsy.
West Side Story (1957): Music by Leonard Bernstein, book by Arthur Laurents, directed by Jerome Robbins
There is a movie version that can be overwhelmingly compelling. Ultimately it is less likely I can imagine going through it again. The music combines well with the visuals. We get a view of old New York before being torn down to build Lincoln Center and all those other densely clustered blocks of apartments.
The song Cool takes place in a low ceiling garage, and the movie is in a widescreen format so it's perfect.
As to Sondheim's lyrics, they capture the unrest to the point where you think he is in a state of unrest. It's the ultimate act of teenage unrest with Natalie Wood being the only girl in town, coming direct from James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause to Gypsy Rose Lee, the daughter who escaped the stage mother to become a star.
Horror film director Robert Wise returns to the musical after directing Sound of Music.
Gypsy (1959): Music by Jule Styne, book by Arthur Laurents, directed by Jerome Robbins
Gypsy seems more radical in that it connected the actual creativity of Gypsy Rose Lee, the writer, to everyone's mother issues.
Two Universal Blockbusters in a Row!
Mervyn LeRoy's Rosalind Russell sequel is the Broadway play adaptation, A Majority of One.
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962): Book by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart, directed by George Abbott
Crazy fun music. An incredible compositional accomplishment. The music is outrageous. The unfortunate segments like the music hall songs everybody ought to have a maid show up in Sweeney Todd, too, I suppose, with the extended shaving competition.
There's a Richard Lester movie. Does it use the score?
Anyone Can Whistle (1964): Book and direction by Arthur Laurents. Anyone can turn their town into a tourist attraction...?
Kind of an in joke like Billy Wilder through Kirk Douglas exploiting the boy trapped in a mine. I enjoyed a revival of it. Another similarly toned piece I think is Carl Reiner's Cold Turkey. I don't know. It explores the character of a person who would sing Anyone Can Whistle. I actually wrote a song facing a similar concern but it was just flatly stating, "Why are the easiest things so hard to do?"
Do I Hear a Waltz? (1965): Music by Richard Rodgers, book by Arthur Laurents, directed by John Dexter
Sondheim must keep working. Is there an Italian singer involved, Sergio Franchi?
Company (1970): Book by George Furth, directed by Hal Prince
Sondheim's perfectly structured songs force the performers to become emotionally involved... to the detriment of Dean Jones. They unbalance the work of anyone else, and yet they probably arose from the book. George Furth is a familiar face in the world of comedy.
Follies (1971): Book by James Goldman, directed by Hal Prince
I don't know. The album copy I have has no information whatsoever, since it is probably a reissue without the gatefold. I saw Fred Astaire with Jane Powell. He could have been singing the Gotta Run Now Blues. (The Royal Wedding score is pretty great and well played by its orchestra.)
Oh, Goldman wrote the script for the Paul Newman movie production, They Might Be Giants.
A Little Night Music (1973): Book by Hugh Wheeler, directed by Hal Prince
The Frogs (1974): Book by Burt Shevelove (2004 version book by Nathan Lane)[114]
This takes place in a swimming pool?
Pacific Overtures (1976): Book by John Weidman, directed by Hal Prince
Educational
Sweeney Todd (1979): Book by Hugh Wheeler, directed by Hal Prince
A big word piece.
Merrily We Roll Along (1981): Book by George Furth, directed by Hal Prince
The second time I saw it the scenes followed chronologically rather than in reverse, which was a Pinter Betrayal idea applied to the original broadway production. The scenes followed in reverse order. When they were sequentially moving forward the show worked well. Again we feel like we're in the territory of Burt Bacharach.
Sunday in the Park with George (1984): Book and direction by James Lapine
Into the Woods (1987): Book and direction by James Lapine
Assassins (1990): Book by John Weidman, directed by Jerry Zaks
I love the Czolgoz song. I am so American.
Passion (1994): Book and direction by James Lapine
I don't know.
Road Show (2008): Book by John Weidman, directed by John Doyle (formerly titled Wise Guys, Gold!, and Bounce)
I really don't know.
I remember seeing a fun Sondheim revue that took place in a beach sand box???
Evening Primrose (1966) has I remember snow, etc.
The Last of Sheila (1973): is fairly nasty. Is Anthony Perkins in it, too, in addition to writing it?
As hero artists I group Stephen Sondheim with Woody Allen in that there is consistent quality in their work and they are well trained in the craft of writing. I suppose one might connect with Stanley Kubrick, too. The choice of subject matter is fascinating and its execution is always sustainable, repeatable. If you don't like it the first time, try again. There's something there to fulfill us as an Audience.
The mystery name for me in connecting with Sondheim as a composer is that he studied with Milton Babbit.
I eventually played through the score of Sweeney Todd and was amazed how decipherable it all was. The piano score completely captured the sound of the orchestra. My understanding was that this was the product he delivered to the orchestrator.
Sondheim songs work well as written.
I'm trying to think of what I like to sing other than the Czolgosh (his Ballad of Leon Czolgosz -- Head of the Line) song from Assassins. I guess the "I Am Nothing" exchange between Hinkley and Squeeky Fromm? I sang it once with Meghan Burns who was playing Cementeria at the time. It always reminds me of an Ellis Regina song. (elis "Só Deus É quem Sabe," not much to that. Late Seventies pop makes its way into the Hamilton score, too.)
The recordings go hand in hand with the compositions.
(here's a sample of an entirety of one of my own pieces
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_S7PFXTJMA)
ah, the disordered mind...
