Unpopular With The Populace

Happy New Year, everyone. There's a more extensive post coming later tonight, but for now, a quick thought:

In high school, I was a huge, obsessive fan of Stephen Sondheim. I bought every CD I could get my hands on. I obsessed over every song. I thought every single thing he ever touched was pure gold. I probably drove everyone I knew crazy with my obsession.

And I still love his music, but eventually, well, I had it pretty well memorized. Listening to a cast album hundreds of times pretty much ingrains it in your head. And as a result, I haven't listened to some of his shows in years. I still love his work, and will defend it to anyone, but I don't relate in nearly so obsessive a way. I'm even capable of recognizing that some of his songs aren't the greatest things ever written. It's probably a healthy development.

But as a result, that means that I haven't listened to some of his shows all the way through for literally years. They're still in my head somewhere, but I haven't actually experienced the music in a long time. Which is understandable, but still a shame.

But over my commutes last night and this morning, I listened to Anyone Can Whistle. And I had forgotten how stunning it is.

It's probably the most egregious example of a common occurence in Sondheim's career: books that undercut the score's brilliance at every turn. Arthur Laurents' book is, no question, a disaster zone: a terribly scattered satire that doesn't hit nearly enough targets, which clashes with the human love story being told within. And I'm not just saying this based on its reputation: I was lucky enough to see it when Pegasus Players produced it in 2004. While the production was variable in quality, it was still clear that no revival could make this show really work.

But the score...just wow. To choose just two moments in a string of brilliant pieces: in "Me and My Town," the opening number, the corrupt mayoress (Angela Lansbury in the original, brilliant as always) sings a jazzy lament over her town's dire situation. And then her backup singers come out, and it turns into a deranged dance number about a small town affected by economic depression. It's impossible to explain how demented the effect is, but I was walking down the street with a goofy smile plastered on my face at the sheer delightful audacious lunacy of it.

The first act ends with a sequence called "Simple". In brief, it centers on a doctor who claims that he can determine who in a mixed group is crazy and who isn't. He does so, perverting logic and confusing everyone around him, through 13 minutes of increasing musical and mental derangement. It's quite impressive as it goes along, building to a crescendo of lunacy. Then the music cuts out, the doctor tells everyone "You are all mad," and, in a burst of circus music, the entire cast appears onstage, wildly applauding and laughing at the audience. Even coming from a pair of earbuds, it sent chills up my spine.

So the moral, if there is one, is this: you know that CD you love, but haven't listened to in years? Pull it out and listen to it again. You'll remember why.

Also, you should really get a copy of Anyone Can Whistle.

And Stephen Sondheim is still God.

The Stephen Sondheim Theatre

Joining the ranks of artists like O'Neill, Rodgers, Gershwin, and Hirschfield (and producers and money men like Golden, Minskoff, Schoenfeld, and Jacobs), Stephen Sondheim will have a theatre named for him on Broadway. As Playbill reported, the Roundabout will name the theatre currently known as the Henry Miller's Theatre (a Broadway actor and theatre owner little known today) for Sondheim after the current tenant, Dame Edna and Michael Feinstein's All About Me closes. (While the Roundabout has a long-term lease on the recently-renovated theatre, they are renting it to commercial producers for the current production.) The renaming was announced last night at a Roundabout gala honoring Sondheim on his 80th birthday. Roundabout has said that the renaming is due to a gift from a group of musical lovers to the theatre. The names of the group and the size of the gift have not been announced.

I'm personally pleased--more honors for Sondheim are always a good thing. And if I ever see a show there, you can bet I'll say "I'm going to spend the night at Stephen Sondheim's."

Happy Birthday Mr. Sondheim

Today marks the 80th birthday of Stephen Sondheim. I doubt it causes much controversy any more to call him the greatest living musical theatre artist. Hell, aside from the odd Edward Albee partisan, I imagine calling him the greatest living theatre artist would not raise many eyebrows any more. He has been lucky enough to see his status go from fringe figure to great man of the theatre in his own lifetime.

I'm not going to go into a lengthy discussion of why he's the best, because others have done it far better than I. I can just say that discovering his musicals made me fall even more in love with the art form, and they've brought me great joy, intense feelings that run the gamut, and real moments of transcendence throughout my life. He's an artist, one of the great ones in theatre history, and I'm so grateful that he exists.

So if you own his cast albums, go listen to them today. If you don't, borrow and copy them from a friend, or look up Company or Follies or A Little Night Music or Sweeney Todd on youtube. It will be worth the effort.

And happy birthday, Steve. My wish is that you give us much more to hear and see. Blow out the candles.

Dan Savage Interviews Frank Rich About Stephen Sondheim

This interview is three weeks old, and I somehow missed it when it came out, but it's entirely brilliant. One of my very favorite journalists interviews another about one of my favorite theatre artists. It's a beautiful thing, and you should read it right now.

Shaw Festival Announces 2009 Season!

The Shaw Festival in Niagara on the Lake, Ontario, Canada, has announced its 2009 season. Press release here.

The Shaw Fest is probably my favorite theatre in the world. As the name suggests, the primary focus is on the plays of George Bernard Shaw (one of my favorite playwrights) and on other plays written during and about his lifetime, 1856-1950. They do productions in repertory in three theatres: The Festival, an 860-seat proscenium, the Court House, a 325-seat thrust, and the Royal George, a 325-seat proscenium.

The biggest news this year is that the festival is doing all of the Noel Coward Tonight at 8:30 plays. These were ten one-acts that Coward wrote for himself and Gertrude Lawrence. Coward and Lawrence would play the lead couple in all of the plays, of which three would be presented per night. The Shaw Fest production will be the first time that all 10 have been presented by a professional company since the premiere in the 1930's. They are being presented in three bills of three, one in each theatre, with the tenth presented as a noon-time stand alone production in the Royal George. For Coward lovers such as myself, this is pretty extraordinary. Very few of these plays are ever done any more. In fact, the only two I have seen, Still Life and Shadow Play, were presented as one-acts at previous seasons of the Shaw Festival. The chance to see all 10, to drown in Coward, is something like heaven. No word yet on casting, but I'm betting that each of the 10 gets a different pair of leads. Lord knows there are enough great actors in the ensemble!

As for the rest of the season:

There are two Shaws this season. The Festival is hosting The Devil's Disciple, set in Revolutionary America. It's a rather strange melodrama, whose most interesting character (General Burgoyne) doesn't appear until Act III. I'll be interesting to see how it plays. In the Royal George they are doing In Good King Charles' Golden Days, an obscurity about which I know nothing. However, the Shaw does his obscure plays remarkably well, so we'll see if it is worth resurrecting.

The musical is Sunday in the Park With George, by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine. Hot damn. Love this show, and it is so rarely given a first-class production. I'm expecting magic here.

Two classic American plays are on the docket, one serious and one funny: Eugene O'Neill's A Moon for the Misbegotten and Garson Kanin's Born Yesterday. The O'Neill has had two successful Broadway revivals in the past 10 years, and it holds up beautifully. In the intimate Court House, I bet it'll be spellbinding. Born Yesterday is more discussed than performed these days, but it was a huge hit in the 1940's, and I think a really strong production would still be highly entertaining. 

They are doing a production of a 1986 French-Canadian play called Albertine in Five Times, by Michel Tremblay. I know nothing about it. Anyone out there know anything?

Finally, and perhaps oddest of all, the eleventh production of the season isn't appearing in one of the theatres. John Osborne's The Entertainer is being presented in the Festival Theatre's rehearsal studio. It's brief run, so I'm guessing this is a pretty experimental thing. I don't know Osborne's play, but apparently with the right lead it's absolutely riveting. I'm curious to see how it works.

Overall, I think it's going to be an amazing season. I haven't been up to Niagara on the Lake in the last two years, but for this, I think I need to start making plans now!