Word: sondheims
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Like the aging chanteuse in his paean to theatrical longevity, "I'm Still Here," Sondheim has survived through musical vogues and eras. The Broadway where he started out in the '50s is no more. Once the majority of Broadway audiences were New Yorkers; now they are mostly tourists. Rock and pop have moved into the mainstream, edging out movie and show tunes as the world's musical lingua franca. Sondheim's not bitter: "Pop made people listen to lyrics more." He is regretful, though, that orchestras have shrunk - no new Sondheim show has had a full orchestra since...
Others give the credit to Sondheim himself. Director Nunn compares the lyricist's poetic gift and humanism to Shakespeare's. Both men, he says, are "fascinated with the contradictions of human beings, with their complexities and ambiguities. As with Shakespeare, there's heightened poetic expression in Sondheim, but when you dig into it, you find it's in touch with something real." The song "Send in the Clowns" contains not just pretty lyrics, but musings perfectly pitched for the character of Desirée, a glamorous actress pushing 40 and facing what may be her last chance for love...
...sing - the lyrics. He found that, unlike the numbers in most musicals, they didn't stop the show, but rather carried it on, each song a little scene in its own right, deepening the characters while advancing the plot. "I approach characters like an actor approaches them," says Sondheim. "With the risk of only slight exaggeration, by the time I have written a score I know the book better than the author does. I've examined every word, and why [a character] says...
...small, in many ways, has been good for his art. Moving off-Broadway - which he did with Sunday in the Park with George, his groundbreaking work on painter Georges Seurat - proved something of a relief to Sondheim. "I remember being very exhilarated," he says. "I found it liberating. It was nonprofit, so I could indulge myself. We were less worried about the commercial aspects of the piece...
...even as his shows have shrunk, Sondheim casts a long shadow, making it difficult for potential "new Sondheims" to grow. At the same time, globalization has boosted the McMusical: crowd-pleasing, corporate-franchised extravaganzas like The Lion King, which play seamlessly from Peking to Peoria. Sondheim, with his precise relationship with the English language, doesn't travel so well, with the exception of West Side Story and Sweeney Todd. "Amateur companies tell me that when they're doing a Sondheim, that's often the hardest of them to sell," says Lynne Chapman, of the U.K.-based Stephen Sondheim Society. "When...