Word: sondheims
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...elegance, style and an easier way of life: penthouses, champagne and buckets of dry wit. Not too long ago, his appeal seemed largely confined to New York City. Now just about everybody seems to be enchanted by Bobby and his friends-Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Cy Coleman and Stephen Sondheim. By the end of April he will have appeared in Kansas City, Omaha, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. At the end of this week he will entertain the Reagans and their special guest, Prince Charles, at the White House-his third gig at the Executive Mansion since...
...STEPHEN SONDHEIM is the El Cid of the musical theater. He oversteps bounds, and the audience excuses him because his work is so good. The musical quality of Side by Side compels audiences to overlook the fact that the evening constitutes a self-conceived monument to the artist. There is nothing new or creative in Side by Side, a revue of songs from musicals for which Sondheim wrote lyrics and some of the music, punctuated by explanations and anecdotes slipped in by the show's narrator...
...Sondheim has succeeded by overstepping the bounds of creative humility. Side by Side in and of itself works by taking the opposite approach. The show is professional but low-key, and unpompous narrator Patrick Harris tells anecdotes from the lyricist's life (memorable things Sondheim said, stories from his youth, the tale of his early humiliation by master songwriter Oscar Hammerstein) and then carries over the casual tone into his introductions of the next few songs...
Kean fills the stage without overrunning it. A little too soft in "Anyone Can Whistle"--from a Sondheim show that closed after only one week--she treats this thoughtful, almost philosophical song with the same muted projection and shyness that are more appropriate to the lighter "Broadway Baby," a prayer for theatrical hopefuls, waiting for that one big chance...
...evening ends surprisingly quickly considering the show's line up of 28 songs. The audience hardly has enough time to consider what a success has resulted from Sondheim's self-congratulatory musing. In the end, it didn't matter how El Cid achieved his greatness, and it doesn't seem to matter how Sondheim arrives at his. It seems a bit of a shame, though, that while some audiences enjoyed his talent when he first presented these songs, his earlier musicals have not achieved the popularity of Sondheim in repetition...