On Sondheim: An Opinionated Guide
Read On Sondheim: An Opinionated Guide Online
Authors: Ethan Mordden
On Sondheim
On Sondheim
An Opinionated Guide
Ethan Mordden
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries.
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America
© Ethan Mordden 2016
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above.
You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Mordden, Ethan, 1947–.
On Sondheim : an opinionated guide / Ethan Mordden.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978–0–19–939481–4 (alk. paper)
ebook ISBN 978–0–19–939501–9
1. Sondheim, Stephen—Criticism and interpretation.
2. Musicals—United States—History and criticism. I. Title.
ML410.S6872M67 2015
782.1'4092—dc23
2015027518
Stephen Sondheim at New York Philharmonic performance of
Sweeney Todd
: © 2014 Chris Lee, used with gracious permission of Chris Lee Photographer.
Other illustrations courtesy of The Billy Rose Theatre Collection, the New York Public Library For the Performing Arts, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations; Culver Pictures; and private collections.
A portion of the passage on the
Into the Woods
film appeared in somewhat different form in the author’s blog, Blogger: Cultural Advantages.
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
CONTENTS
An Introduction to Sondheim’s Life and Art
Sondheim’s Mentors and the Concept Musical
Saturday Night
West Side Story
Gypsy
A Funny Thing Happened On the Way To the Forum
Anyone Can Whistle
Do I Hear a Waltz?
Company
Follies
A Little Night Music
Pacific Overtures
Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber Of Fleet Street
Merrily We Roll Along
Sunday in the Park With George
Into the Woods
Assassins
Passion
The Frogs
Road Show
This is not a reference work. A superb database is available online at
www.sondheimguide.com
, so comprehensive that it includes all the pertinent details of Sondheim’s stage shows from the first production to the last revival. The site is extremely easy to navigate and, incidentally, has no affiliation with the present volume.
My intention is to bring the reader closer to Sondheim’s oeuvre, to explore his unique approach to the creation of musicals while trying to position him in relation to developments in Western art, especially in twentieth-century music and theatre. Sondheim is, after all, the man who intellectualized the American musical, much as Eugene O’Neill intellectualized American drama and William Faulkner intellectualized American fiction, and Sondheim should—where it is relevant—be viewed as much in the broader perspective of the arts as in the more limited survey of the musical per se.
I have endeavored to address all readers simultaneously, from the aficionado through the average theatregoer to the newcomer whose familiarity with the subject is still in process. While doing so, I have left out or skipped lightly through the Sondheim clichés—his collection of antique games, for instance—in trying to keep the book fresh. A great deal has been written about him, and he has added more information in his many interviews; I have tried as much as possible to strike out on my own. Except for statements specifically attributed to others within the text itself, all observations and interpretations are mine. The bibliographical essay at the end of the book is not meant as a list of works consulted, because in many cases I didn’t examine these books till I had finished this one. Rather, the bibliography is intended to lead the reader to other works, some of which offer compelling discussions among Sondheim and his collaborators, or fascinating analyses of Sondheim’s work. For my own part, I think the best source in Sondheim study is the black and white of his compositions—the scripts and the scores, with a healthy overlay of quotations from the most eloquent Sondheim expert of all, the man himself.
To my close friend and agent, Joe Spieler; to fellow musical-theatre buffs Jon Cronwell and Ken Mandelbaum; to Ian Marshall Fisher in London; to Chris Lee and Edward Yim of the New York Philharmonic; and, at Oxford, to designer Jack Donner; to savvy Ken Bloom; to Joellyn Ausanka, mistress of all she surveys; and to my wonderful editor, Norm Hirschy.
| 1930 | Stephen Sondheim (SS) is born on March 22 in New York City. Parents: Herbert and Janet “Foxy” Sondheim. |
| 1942 | SS’s parents separate, pending divorce. SS moves with Foxy to rural Doylestown, Pennsylvania, attends the Quaker-run George School, and becomes a regular drop-in at the neighboring farm of Oscar Hammerstein, destined to be SS’s major mentor figure in the writing of musicals. |
| 1946 | SS matriculates at Williams College, takes part in theatricals, and writes musicals for performance by his fellow students. |
| 1947 | SS works as a “gofer” on the production of Allegro , Rodgers and Hammerstein’s experimental musical that inspires SS in the formatting of his own experimental shows. |
| 1950 | After graduation from Williams, SS pursues two years of musical study with the cutting-edge composer Milton Babbitt. |
| 1955 | SS writes his first full Broadway score for Saturday Night , cancelled when its producer dies of leukemia. |
| 1956 | SS’s first original music is heard on Broadway in Girls of Summer , by N. Richard Nash in the William Inge manner, very fashionable at the time. The program credit is “Song by Stephen Sondheim,” though it is in fact a trumpet solo (in the Harold Arlen manner), to which SS writes lyrics for promotional purposes. |
| 1957 | SS’s first Broadway show, West Side Story . Lyrics only. |
| 1959 | SS’s second Broadway show, Gypsy . Lyrics only. |
| 1960 | SS buys a house on Manhattan’s East Forty-Ninth Street, his home from then on. |
| 1962 | SS’s first full Broadway score to be produced, A Funny Thing Happened On the Way To the Forum. West Side Story was an artistic breakthrough and Gypsy the unique triumph of Ethel Merman, one of Broadway’s greatest stars. But Forum is a sheer musical-comedy smash. |
| 1964 | SS’s second full Broadway score, Anyone Can Whistle . A failure but, through its cast recording, a cult favorite. |
| 1965 | SS collaborates with Richard Rodgers on Do I Hear a Waltz? , the older composer at odds with his younger lyricist (as well as with the rest of the creative outfit). It is the Old Musical versus the New Musical. A sour experience. |
| 1970 | Company , SS’s third full Broadway score, inaugurates the era of Sondheim-[Hal] Prince, with Follies (1971), A Little Night Music (1973), Pacific Overtures (1976), Sweeney Todd (1979), and Merrily We Roll Along (1981) to follow. Though only Company and Night Music make money in their first run, and accepting that Merrily takes a beating in its original production, the series as a whole arouses intense interest. The triumph of the New Musical. |
| 1971 | SS inaugurates an eight-year reign as president of the Dramatists’ Guild. Meanwhile, Sondheim: A Musical Tribute (a star-filled charity benefit) and a Newsweek cover hailing SS as “Broadway’s Music Man” affirm his growing reputation as Broadway’s unofficial composer-in-chief. |
| 1977 | Another turning point: the 1976 English revue Side By Side By Sondheim , seen on Broadway with (at first) its original cast of Julia McKenzie, David Kernan, and Millicent Martin, is greeted enthusiastically by even SS’s former critics. Extracted from the sometimes dense psychology of their settings within the shows themselves, SS’s songs step forward as enjoyable as sheer music-making. |
| 1979 | Suffering a heart attack at age forty-nine, SS abruptly institutes a healthful diet and now takes in a great love, old Hollywood films, while pedaling on a stationary bicycle. |
| 1984 | SS inaugurates his post-Prince era: Sunday in the Park With George (1984), Into the Woods (1987), Assassins (1990), Passion (1994), The Frogs (2004; revision of shorter work, 1974), Wise Guys/Bounce/Road Show (1999/2003/2008). Generally smaller-scaled than the Prince set, these later shows are just as adventurous, particularly the freely structured Sunday and the flowingly composed Passion . Sondheim has created the Newer Musical. |
| 1985 | An all-star New York Philharmonic concert of Follies reaffirms its importance. Originally thought popular/controversial, it now seems only popular—and the performance generates the show’s first complete recording. Meanwhile, Barbra Streisand’s The Broadway Album , programming eight Sondheim numbers (six with his music and two with lyrics only) charts at the highest level. |
| 1990 | With all of America’s musicians to choose from, Warren Beatty asks SS to write the songs for Dick Tracy . “Sooner or Later,” introduced in the film by Madonna, wins the Oscar for Best Original Song. At the 1991 awards telecast, she performs the number in a backless white gown, skinny white sable shoulder-throw, and long white gloves in classy-floozy style. Ovation ensues. |
| 1993 | SS is one of the year’s Kennedy Center honorees. |
| 1995 | A fire at SS’s house makes it uninhabitable for two years, with a loss of much personal memorabilia. |
| 2010 | Henry Miller’s Theatre, opened in 1918, has played host to the original American productions of such titles as Journey’s End , Our Town , Born Yesterday , and Witness For the Prosecution . A Broadway fixture till 1969, it then becomes a gay porn cinema, then a discothèque, and has lately returned to its original calling. Now it is named after SS, who becomes one of only three composers (the others are George Gershwin and Richard Rodgers) with a house in his honor. That same year, Finishing the Hat , the first of SS’s two lyric collections, reaches the top slot on Amazon’s book-sales rankings. SS and the New Musical are Number One. |