Stephen Sondheim Platform

Mar 11, 2016 23:56:39 GMT Squire Sullen said:

Would LOVE to know what he was thinking when watching Wonderland tonight as well.

I was this close to going to the box office and buying another ticket, in the hope that I could sit next to him, pretend not to know him, ask him what he thought and revel in the inevitable answer. I decided I couldn’t see the show again unless very very drunk. I decided I didn’t want Sondheim to see me very very drunk. I went home instead. Wonderful though the evening was, a part of me feels sick that Sondheim – the man who wrote Gee Officer Krupkee, Not Getting Married, A Little Priest, We’re Gonna Be Alright, Move On and all those other glorious lyrics – spent the evening on the same stage as Everyone Loves Charlie, Everyone Loves Charlie, and Not Alone/Like A Toenail All Ingrown.

Shame I didn’t see any of you – I did look, but no luck! I was fourth row stalls in blue, if anyone saw me. I did see Mike Leigh later, though (I think going to see Waste), so that’s something.

Sondheim might not have said anything not said or written down elsewhere, but there was plenty that I didn’t recognise (although the speed with which he gave some of the answers suggested they were answers he’d given before), from what he listens to, to how he develops a voice for each character and sometimes, as now, struggles to do so, to a long and effusive answer saying so much about Jonathan Tunick. Incidentally, nothing wrong with getting the same answers given context: when the inevitable “Musical-to-film” question was asked, he gave the same answer about West Side Story being a terrible movie as it’s too stagey, whilst Sweeney Todd’s a great movie because it’s conceived as a movie (I know that movie has haters on here, but I broadly agree that it’s a bad Sondheim movie but a tremendous Tim Burton movie and I think it’s wonderful cinema) – but he made no qualification about Into The Woods, indeed no mention of it whatsoever, and I might be looking for answers where none occur, but does that not suggest that he thinks it inferior to Sweeney? I just found that exclusion very interesting.

Regardless, I keep remembering moments (that write up, Squire Sullen, is so complete I envy your memory, but more importantly is a lovely and superb piece of writing), questions he answered, lines he said, and just smiling; the man’s an indisputable genius with a brain the size of a planet and an encyclopaedic knowledge and great human understanding of musical theatre, and having him, even just for 45 minutes, telling even a fragment of what he knows, even a fragment of what he’s written, was wonderful. Last year I had the privilege of seeing Peter Brook in conversation, and it’s a worthy comparison – two genii in their golden years who’ve lost nothing of their youthful passion for their medium but gained a lifetime of insight they’re able to share at the drop of a hat. I really am a lucky bugger, we all are.

More importantly, though, what we got was the man in all his fast-witted, down-to-earth, intense glory. When he said (to one of The Stage’s own journalists, no less!) “That’s a meaningless question” before qualifying it himself and giving a prescient as always answer; when he answered the question about form and content (the revue form for Assassins against the revue form by way of character story for Company) with such precision; that he took none of us for fools and explained nothing, expecting, nay demanding, us to have the knowledge of not only his oeuvre but the extensive oeuvre of Hammerstein and movie musicals; when he said “Don’t take a photo” to someone just behind me with such intensity that he rendered the Olivier silent as few actors are able to; when off the cuff he made the joke about the ushers knowing Jujitsu, or wonderfully answered the question “What do you listen to when relaxing on a Sunday evening?” with “RELAXING?”... Smug alert (as always): this was my third Sondheim sighting, but more than the other two times, I felt that we really saw the man behind the shows, the wonderful, warm man, but also the genius who takes no fools. It was an absolute privilege to see a mind like his in full flow, but an even greater privilege to see a man like him in full flow.

Now, what did he think of wonder.land?