Grey Gardens and Sondheim

[BobbyBubby]

Posted: 12/27/08 at 5:40am

This score just oozes the influence of Sondheim, to me. Especially songs like "The Revolutionary Costume for Today", "Around the World", and "Will You?". I wonder if he has seen the show and what he thought of it.

Updated On: 12/27/08 at 05:40 AM

[Wanna Be A Foster]

Posted: 12/27/08 at 6:31am

Updated On: 12/27/08 at 06:31 AM

[B3TA07]

Posted: 12/27/08 at 6:43am

WannaBes such a WannaBe sometimes.

Updated On: 12/27/08 at 06:43 AM

[Wanna Be A Foster]

Posted: 12/27/08 at 6:56am

If you want to personally attack me, feel free to send me a private message.

If you want to discuss the topic at hand, do so in this public forum.

[B3TA07]

Posted: 12/27/08 at 6:58am

We JUST discussed this privately...but you would have to make a reply here.

[Wanna Be A Foster]

Posted: 12/27/08 at 6:59am

Thanks.

Updated On: 12/27/08 at 06:59 AM

[jv92]

Posted: 12/27/08 at 11:01am

I asked him what he thought about it in a letter and he said he'd rather not discuss other writers. I don't think he wants to comment them because he said something like if he says he loves one show, the others will say "Hey, what about me!" in a recent USA Today article.
I would think he at least enjoyed it since it's sort of unexpected and weird. I know he likes to be surprised at the theatre. I believe he also mentored Scott Frankel? Correct me if I'm wrong there.
The only modern musical he has ever talked about is Floyd Collins and that was a good 10 years ago. He loves that show a lot.

Updated On: 12/27/08 at 11:01 AM

[jewishboy]

Posted: 12/27/08 at 2:31pm

And Taboo.

[BigFatBlonde]

Posted: 12/27/08 at 2:46pm

Not just score is influenced by Sondheim, but the entire structure of the pieces and its themes are directly Sondheim/ Various Collaborator influenced.

Mother/Daughter relationships = GYPSY

Past confronting the present themes = FOLLIES

Two acts that could stand alone as independent pieces with sudden abrupt shifts in tone = SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORE, INTO THE WOODS.

The list goes on...

[somethingwicked]

Posted: 12/27/08 at 2:49pm

In regards to other writers, Sondheim has also said publicly that he finds the SOUTH PARK movie to be the most genius musical in the last ten years.

[frontrowcentre2]

Posted: 12/27/08 at 7:43pm

Sondheim has gotten careful about praising or criticizing other musicals since an unfortunate interview around the time PACIFIC OVERTURES opened in which the writer tried to portray Sondheim as badmouthing everything on Broadway. In fact one of the ONLY quotes in the story had Sondhiem saying that developing a show like A CHORUS LINE through a series of workshops removed a great deal of the challenge of doing a show. (That was then. By 1984 with SUNDAY he began to realize how valuable workshops are.)

I read the article and it did seem rather mean-spirited.

[jv92]

Posted: 12/28/08 at 12:35am

Clive Hirschon thought A Chorus Line was the second coming and Steve Sondheim did not and therefore decided to write a nasty article about him. Sondheim turned out to be right. Bennett ripped off Follies and Company, sentimentalized them, and made them A Chorus Line. And he also wrote a letter to the Times saying he liked Papp's Public Theatre and non-for-profits and that he was misquoted and that Hirschon's article was not correct in many ways.
I know, regarding that period, he also liked Chicago, or at least its score, penned by his good friends Kander and Ebb.
Regarding G.G., I've gone so far as to as it is Follies sequel. Insane much?


Updated On: 12/28/08 at 12:35 AM

[nobodyhome]

Posted: 12/28/08 at 10:27am

Here's a link to the Hirschhorn interview:

http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/07/19/specials/sondheim-japanese.html


Updated On: 12/28/08 at 10:27 AM

[jv92]

Posted: 12/28/08 at 1:13pm

The article makes it seem like he hates The King and I too. Though he has said he never liked the fact that Oscar didin't use irony in his lyrics, I don't think he'd bash a Hammerstein show, especially one of the "five masterpieces" (1943-1951) that he and Rodgers wrote, especially while his surrogate mother Dorothy was still living.

[ljay889]

Posted: 12/28/08 at 1:18pm

Wow, what did Cy Coleman used to say about Sondheim?

[jv92]

Posted: 12/28/08 at 1:21pm

If you read the little notes that everyone wrote to Steve for his 70th birthday regarding his "Songs I Wish I'd Written", everyone's was very sweet- Charles Strouses', Lee Adams', Bock and Harnick's, Kander and Ebb's, Hugh Martin's...everyone but Cy Coleman. Coleman came off as a complete d*ck even after Sondheim picked out about 5 songs for the list written by Coleman and Carolyn Leigh. Marvin Hamlisch brought up Sondheim durring a Broadway: The American Musical interview and it looked like he was having difficulty praising him. I don't think they like him very much.
The notes can be found in tha Appendix of Sondheim on Music, an excellent colleciton of interviews about Sondheim's music writing process published shortly after his 70th birthday. Updated On: 12/28/08 at 01:21 PM

[frontrowcentre2]

Posted: 12/28/08 at 4:00pm

If you read the direct quotes it is totally consistent with what Sondheim says to this day.

But watch... some of the bitchy show queens here will twist that into claiming Sondheim says he hates MY FAIR LADY and KING AND I but loves THE WIZ. And that, obviously, is not what he says.

In fact he has frequently said that "why" musicals where you take a successful film or play or novel and just add songs for the sake of making a musical is a poor excuse for a show. (LEGALLY BLONDE anyone?) So, MY FAIR LADY is a good example of a why musical, but one he admits turned out very well. (Mainly, I think, because all Lerner did was expand on moments that Shaw had only touched on briefly. Lerner also streamlined the final confrontation between Eliza and Higgins, which to me is definite improvement.) Sondheim has also frequently said that while CAROUSEL is his favourite R&H score, KING & I is hi favourite book, and again I would be hard-pressed to argue either of these choices.

It's all in the interpretation, but if you read the quotes and ignore the rest, it makes sense.

And thank you for posting the link. I first read that in January 1976 just before PACIFIC OVERTURES opened and all it did was make me want to see the show and hear the eventual cast album.

[jv92]

Posted: 12/28/08 at 5:32pm

Stephen and I have very similar tastes in R&H shows.
He has also said he likes Cabaret and Chicago and She Loves Me. He said My Fair Lady was the "most entertaining" thing he ever saw, but yes, like frontrowcentre said, a "Why?" musical.

Updated On: 12/28/08 at 05:32 PM

[nobodyhome]

Posted: 12/28/08 at 7:09pm

"Though he has said he never liked the fact that Oscar didin't use irony in his lyrics,"

I don't recall having read that. Do you remember where it was he said that?

I'm not the biggest MFL myself, but it's such a huge transformation of Pygmalion, even while retaining a tremendous amount of Shaw's text, that I can't think of it as a "Why?" musical.

jv92, I don't get what you're getting from Coleman's comments. Not at all. They seem totally gracious to me.

Hey, frontrowcentre, it sounds like you think jv92 posted the link.

[jv92]

Posted: 12/28/08 at 8:24pm

Nobodyhome, perhaps I was biased reading Cy's note knowing he said some things about Sondheim.
And he said that about Hammerstein at a talk he had with Frank Rich at the Kennedy Center.
And I should have put up the link to the Hirschon article being that it's saved to my favorites. Sorry.

[nobodyhome]

Posted: 12/28/08 at 8:40pm

No need to be sorry.

I'll have to watch that Rich interview again. It's just such a pain. I'm not able to download it to a sound file and so if I want to find something in it, I have to watch the whole thing. And if you try to stop it in the middle to take a break, you have to go back to the beginning, at least in my experience.

For those who haven't seen it, the link is clickable at this page:

http://www.kennedy-center.org/programs/newseason/sondheim/#

[jv92]

Posted: 12/28/08 at 11:29pm

Why exactly does he love The Wiz so much? It really doesn't have a great score and it's filled with false rhymes, which Sondheim has compared to "wet washcloths"

[jv92]

Posted: 12/28/08 at 11:29pm

DOUBLE POST. Updated On: 12/28/08 at 11:29 PM

[jv92]

Posted: 12/28/08 at 11:29pm

OH GOD. TRIPLE POST! AHHH! Updated On: 12/28/08 at 11:29 PM

[nobodyhome]

Posted: 12/28/08 at 11:43pm

I think he loves The Wiz for the reason he says: It captures joy, something he has great difficulty doing (though he's managed it on occasion).

And as for the false rhymes, I think for him it's appropriate to the idiom and it also displays a disregard for the rules that is part of the reason it conveys joy.
Updated On: 12/28/08 at 11:43 PM