Notes on Sondheim (on Sondheim)

Yesterday afternoon I went to see Sondheim on Sondheim. I don't know why I was excited to see this, because lately I'm not much of a musical theater fan, and I've never known Sondheim's work well enough to say definitively that I like it. I guess it was Barbara Cook: We gays have a genetic inclination. Also, Vanessa Williams (more later). The show doesn't officially open until April 22, so the following may not be applicable a few weeks from now.

This show is for bone fide Sondheim fans. It is almost three hours long, and one of its features is the inclusion of songs that had been cut from the final versions of his shows. This is a bad idea for us layman viewers, because it is abundantly clear to us why those songs were cut in the first place: they are bad. And it makes the show longer than it ought to be. Also, when the layman viewer is faced with three hours of Sondheim songs, they all begin to sound the same.

The random selection of songs are loosely strung together by a projected video interviews with Sondheim. Sometimes this works but I found it to be mostly weird (though I can't imagine any other way for the show to make cohesive sense except to have Sondheim on stage in the flesh). His interspersed insights are sometimes used objectively—as in, this is the song that made audiences finally sympathize with Passion [insert "Loving You"]—and then other times interpretatively—he talks about his horrible relationship with his mother [insert "Children Will Listen"]. This latter trick is really confusing, because Sondheim himself claims that he'd only written one autobiographical song, which is a boring one about the biz. So we don't have a solid point of view.

There is only one direct reference to Sondheim's sexuality. He talks about struggling to understand himself and how he didn't fall in love until his 60s, but we are never told that his lover is a man. I was willing to let this pass, but Ann, my friend who came to the show with me, wasn't: She pointed out the discrepancy of his reading aloud a horrible letter his mother wrote to him in which she bemoans his existence. This seems like an act of exposure that would render the word "gay" pocket change. Did producers edit it? Or is Sondheim still not really out? What year are we living in?

I love Vanessa Williams; I love even her Christmas albums; I am convinced she's a wonderful person and I would like to eat brunch with her. But I see her as something of a tragic figure because for someone who has had a long, post-Miss America career in the arts, that career is a pretty uneven one. It leaves me with the impression that either she isn't picky or she doesn't know what she likes to do, like she's either lazily or manically tossing darts in the general direction of the dartboard. In SoS, she stands out as, say, the local news anchor guest-starring in a high school production (this is not to disparage her really talented colleagues). This is compounded by her not wearing costumes very well: We never for a moment lose sight of the fact that we are watching Vanessa Williams sing. That said, I have to give her some credit. It seems like a mean thing to make her share the stage with Barbara Cook in a Sondheim revue.

But Barbara Cook! A boy hasn't lived until he's heard "Send in the Clowns" sung live by the lady herself. Also, Norm Lewis's "Being Alive" makes me want to see "Company" again, and that's a show I am very tepid about. And Cook and Williams's duet of "Losing My Mind" is definitely one of the many highlights. One can't dispute that Sondheim is a tremendously gifted songwriter, and it's a rare thrill to listen to many of the songs in a single evening (or afternoon). But for SoS, there's a disparity that still needs to be worked out. At times I'd rather have been watching something formal, with a solid narrative structure, and at others I'd have preferred informal—like, at Joe's Pub, with a drink in my hand. It seems best to go one way or the other and then stick to it.