Variety Article: Critics Hate Sondheim- Page 3

[BlueWizard]

Posted: 12/21/04 at 8:43pm

Seems to me that's how most of us experience our humanity.

True, but I was referring more to the tone of R&H's work and how they construct their narrative and characters. R&H work within an old, well-established and oft-repeated structure, which greatly informs the tone of their musicals: like the unity found in Shakespeare's comedies, R&H's musicals present a world where everything works out fine and the characters undergo change with relative ease. Sondheim, by contrast, uses unconventional forms and always supplies a self-questioning tone to his characters so that nothing is ever that neat-and-tidy; to me, that is a more realistic depiction of how life is.

[MasterLcZ]

Posted: 12/21/04 at 8:51pm

This is just like the 17th century & 18th century debates between the "Rubenists" (art lovers who preferred Peter Paul Rubens) vs. the "Poussinistes" (those who prefered Nicholas Poussin).

[BlueWizard]

Posted: 12/21/04 at 8:56pm

Or the arguments about who was the better writer, Shakespeare or Chaucer.

[Sumofallthings]

Posted: 12/21/04 at 8:58pm

"And the reason he would have such a hard time doing so is because he is marching two steps ahead of them."

Applause for Priest!

[Feodor Sverdlov]

Posted: 12/21/04 at 9:26pm

Of course it isn't just critics that don't embrace Sondheim, it's the general public, as well. I don't think their lack of interest in his shows is all down to the critics. After all, there are many examples of critics panning something that becomes a big hit, and vice versa. His scores just don't appeal to the general public. There's no right or wrong about it. It's just the way it is.

[MusicMan]

Posted: 12/21/04 at 9:30pm

Except that Priest forgets that Sondheim wouldn't exist without his antecedents and even Stephen forthrighly asserts that the lyrics for PORGY AND BESS are the greatest ever written for the musical stage.

BlueWizard, the old-fashioned format you disparage R&H for working within is the one they invented for the musical form. The "unconventional forms" you attribute to Sondheim are the work of his librettist/collaborators--they propose, Sondheim disposes.
In the end, both life philosophies are authentic viewpoints of the authors (unlike the many R&H and Sondheim wanna-bes who have followed in their wake).

[StickToPriest]

Posted: 12/21/04 at 9:34pm

I was not in any way dismissing the works of Rodgers, Gershwin, et al.


I was asserting that they paved the way for Sondheim to go where they couldn't and he has taken theatre to new heights on a road they built, but one they couldn't take themsleves.

[BlueWizard]

Posted: 12/21/04 at 9:43pm

But I certainly don't disparage R&H for using what is now an antequated form -- it was the form they themselves invented, and it suited their purposes nicely! In fact, I give them all the credit they are due for moulding the musical theatre to what it is today.

What I am saying, however, is that Sondheim took the form that they created and ran with it -- challenging it and moulding it to suit the needs of the show, which I appreciate and find more fulfilling.

To me, R&H are like the early Italian Renaissance poets who created the sonnet form, a tightly structured poetic structure with a narrow focus. Sondheim is like the English Renaissance poets (Spenser or Shakespeare) who took the unwielding sonnet form and changed it so that a wider range of subjects could be approached from different directions.

I think both R&H and Sondheim are brilliant and represent the best of musical theatre. Also, without R&H there would be no Sondheim. However, I think Sondheim's songwriting, his wordplay and ability to encompass character, thematic hue and the finer nuances of emotion, is more accomplished than R&H.

Updated On: 12/21/04 at 09:43 PM

[MasterLcZ]

Posted: 12/21/04 at 10:13pm

Fun SS tidbit:

In their original screenplay for 'The Last of Sheila', Stephen Sondheim and Anthony Perkins made a joke about Alice Faye's name being pig-Latin for 'phallus'.

[MusicMan]

Posted: 12/21/04 at 11:32pm

BlueWizard, that's like saying Stravinsky is more accomplished than Mozart because Igor's music was denser, more complex, complicated, "modern" or what have you. Each man was of his time and spoke for his time. Personally, I feel Sondheim's place in musical theatre history will be analogous to Wagner's in opera--a polemicist who argued for the seriousness of his craft. And like Wagner, I think he will remembered as sui generis--- influential, yes, but an anomaly in his field.
As I said earlier, I think Sondheim's viewpoint is authentic--for him. But it doesn't hold true for me, nor, I suspect, a lot of other people. I simply do not subscribe to the notion that life is a charnel house (SWEENEY TODD) or that love equals death (PASSION), to name the two projects of which Sondheim is progenitor. The former strikes me as a facile 20th-century cliche and the latter as adolescent claptrap. But, that said, I can still appreciate the craft the man brings to his work and am thankful for the decades of enjoyment he has given me. I most certainly put him in the pantheon of the greats but hardly grant him the final word on the "human condition."

[Plum]

Posted: 12/21/04 at 11:35pm

Ooh, the love/death juxtaposition. Shakespeare had a few things to say about that. It's fun to read Romeo and Juliet from a morbid point of few.

[BlueWizard]

Posted: 12/22/04 at 12:48am

MusicMan, I'm not very familiar with classical composers, so I'm gonna leave that analogy alone. I certainly agree that "each man was of his time and spoke for his time." But I still believe that R&H never strayed from the musical form they fashioned for themselves; Sondheim's work, IMO, has been much more adventurous and various, which make his musicals much more satisfying, to me anyway.

Updated On: 12/22/04 at 12:48 AM

[MusicMan]

Posted: 12/22/04 at 1:57am

"R&H never strayed from the musical form they fashioned..."

Not so. They were constantly reinventing the form during their streak. They chose adventurous and adult subjects, abandoned the chorus opening, had characters die on stage, jettisoned the overture for staged pantomime, introduced modern staging techniques that influence designers and directors to this day, presented the first "concept" musical, used dance to advance story, advocated multi-racial casting, presented political metaphors that reflected current events, etc. etc. AND, their shows, for the most part, worked, had universal appeal and found an audience. Their efforts were as pioneering in their time as Sondheim was in his (and more successful).
'Nuff said.

[The Distinctive Baritone]

Posted: 12/22/04 at 3:30pm

I think one's tastes often has to do with one's personality. For example, since I'm a kind of "dark" individual, and somewhat cyncial, Sondheim is right up my alley. But for more sunny, optimistic folk who are upbeat and like to keep things that way, I can see why they'd prefer Rodgers and Hammerstein or Gershwin.

[StickToPriest]

Posted: 3/7/05 at 7:47pm

"Their efforts were as pioneering in their time as Sondheim was in his (and more successful)"

Success depends on your point of view.
I do not view success based on ecomnomics.
And, just to clarify, this does not mean I do not think R&H were not successful, they were extremely sucessful both economically AND artictically, and were two of the world's most gifted artists.

But to say they were more "sucessful" than Sondheim depends on your definition of success.