Word: sondheimer
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...fresh beat and a more contemporary, populist appeal. But Rent hasn't exactly spawned a revolution, and rock on Broadway right now consists of little more than 20-year-old Bee Gees songs. On the other side are the artistes, a group of theatrical composers who use Stephen Sondheim as a model, care little about tunes that send you out of the theater humming, and seek a new amalgam of Broadway musical and traditional opera...
...first incarnation, this revue, mounted off-Broadway in 1993, suffered from comparison with its predecessor, the plotless Side by Side by Sondheim, which was a joyful feast of the composer's best songs. The successor (with Julie Andrews and a mismatched company of four) seemed to consist of leftovers garnished with Sondheim's less nourishing material and served up thematically as an odd sort of cocktail party. This Broadway revise finds the party device strengthened, but still forced, and the selection of songs improved. The new cast, led by Carol Burnett with great warmth and good humor, is creamy...
Bernstein's brilliant melodies coupled with Stephen Sondheim's moving lyrics tell a story of injustice, poverty, crime and, yes, stereotype. But that story is intentionally told to reveal the assumptions inherent in society, to point them out to the audience in order to combat them, not to perpetuate them, as the Amherst petition's signers would have us believe...
...ragtime revival of the 1960s, he has long been up to his ears in vernacular music, lavishly stirring it into his classical compositions (McTeague, Songs of Innocence and Experience) and accompanying his wife, the mezzo-soprano Joan Morris, in delectable recitals of popular song (they do everything from Sondheim to Shine On, Harvest Moon...
...musical comedy were all but synonymous. Of late, though, the Great White Way has become a neon-lit recycling bin for tributes (Fosse), revivals (Annie Get Your Gun, Cabaret), retread movies (Footloose) and British imports that were creatively dead on arrival (any Andrew Lloyd Webber show). Yes, Stephen Sondheim still strikes sparks, while a few up-and-comers, especially Adam Guettel (Floyd Collins), show signs of vibrant life. But it's long past time for something really fresh. Contact, the exhilarating dance play by choreographer Susan Stroman and writer John Weidman that opened last week at Manhattan's Lincoln Center...