Boring Sondheim Shows? — Page 6

As a theatre artist, I like to hold theatre to a higher responsibility. More the most part, I don't like to just be entertained, I like to go away thinking about what has just happened.

I like when a show has something to say. I like to have to dig for comprehension, and discuss the show. There's not much to discuss about shows like Wicked, except how they made that green girl fly. That doesn't mean that there's not a place for that kind of musical, or that it's not great that it brings people to the theatre, or that's it's also not great theatre.

But with Sondheim shows, there's always something to discuss. His shows always deal with humans in conflict with each other, and life as a whole, and they NEVER solve themselves at the end of the show. There are themes, and leitmotifs, and hidden melodies that become full fledged songs, etc. There's always so much more going on than what's onstage.

But FIRST and foremost I'm always entertained. As someone said before, at his prime, and most of his shows are a perfect marriage between subtance and style, and you can't tell which is more important. But there are some shows of his that I can totally understand people not liking. And if you don't like the shows that I think are his best, I just have a little less understanding.

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Updated On: 6/24/06 at 02:12 AM

I'm responding to this after six pages of comments have been posted, so forgive me if I'm reiterating someone else's comments.

For KJisgroovy, Walter Kerr didn't like musicals that weren't AABA, basically. He loved snazzy show tunes. Shows like "Gypsy" and "Hello, Dolly!"

Some of the shows he didn't like were "West Side Story", "Most Happy Fella", "Evita"

And yes, Sondheim's lyrics for "Do I Hear A Waltz" (which I would choose as the show of his that I find the most boring) are not his best and seem rather pedestrian. But, given the animosity that went of during the creation of that show, no one did his best work.

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This marked the start of the split between the theatre fans and the mass audience. The latter flocks to see PHANTOM and WICKED and SPAMALOT; the former support shows like LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA, RAGTIME and GRAND HOTEL as well as the Sondheim shows.

I suspect the same people that find Sondheim's shows boring also find PIAZZA a chore to sit through.

I, as well as many others, think PIAZZA is amazing and unlike theatre snobs (yes, I said it) I like ALL types of musicals. I don't put myself in a category where I think I am smarter/dumber than others and limit myself to liking certain types of musicals. And how dare any one of you (including myself) to think just because a person does not/does like certain musicals that he/she is smart/dumb.

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And how dare any one of you (including myself) to think just because a person does not/does like certain musicals that he/she is smart/dumb.

Hold on there, I never said anything about smart vs. dumb. The point is not how smart one is but whether one can relate a show and not only the writing but also the production style. It also has to do with a "mass audience" made up largely of tourists and business travelers. These people are often looking for light, fun entertainment and would probably opt for JERSEY BOYS over SWEENEY TODD. Nothing wrong with that.

Some people think I am missing something for not liking PHANTOM, but honestly that show just doesn’t speak to me. It doesn’t even whisper.

I don’t see it as a clear-cut line in the sand at all. More like a fork in the road and yes, many people do defy logic and travel down both paths. In many ways I do. I enjoy a good old-fashioned light-hearted musical comedy. I love THE PRODUCERS, and DROWSY CHAPERONE. I loved 42ND STREET when I saw it in 1980. The following year I had a choice: Go see 42nd again or go back for a second look (in previews) of the new Sondheim musical MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG. I chose MERRILY. First of all to hear the score again - it was that good, and the cast album would not be out for a few months - and to see the changes.

John Boy did not like COMPANY because he didn't like the characters and he didn't like the score.

Q for JB...had you heard any of it before seeing the show?

I first heard the recording of COMPANY and loved it. More with each subsequent listen. I got the script from the library and read it. It was not until several years later when I finally saw a production on stage, so I knew exactly what to expect and what the show was about. If I had been in New York in 1970 and seen Ethel Merman in HELLO DOLLY! and Ann Miller in MAME and then the next night walked into COMPANY, my reaction may very well have been the same as John Boy's.

GRAND HOTEL was a show I saw without benefit of knowing the score (because of the long delay in getting a cast album done) but I liked it a lot even though the night I saw it the cast was not giving their all. I saw it again a few months later and that confirmed for me that it was as brilliant a piece as I had suspected.

On balance, I saw both PHANTOM and WICKED having heard the scores in advance yet nothing I saw on stage really added anything to my experience.

It is strange how some shows can provoke such a passionate response. To date most of the Sondheim shows have worked for me. I saw MERRILY, WOODS and BOUNCE cold without knowing any of the scores, and all three are scores I happily listen to repeatedly. SUNDAY, SWEENEY, PACFIC OVERTURES and PASSION were shows I saw after hearing the cast albums but seeing the shows only enriched future listens.

The music of RAGTIME was very powerful, though nothing will match my memory of the opening night here in Toronto. That was a time when the entire cast and audience were all on the same emotional journey and at the end a huge roar went up from the crowd, the likes of which I have seldom heard live in a theatre. Oh yes, one other: the closing performance o SWEENEY TODD at the Kenedy Centre in 2002 when Brian Stokes Mitchell came out for his bow. Wow!

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frontrow, I apologize for my little outburt earlier. I have just had some experiences in the past with some people on this board about this very subject.

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JohnBoy2, I have no idea what you are asking about.

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I know I'm late in this discussion, but I wanted to say DG made some excellent points a couple pages ago, but something irked me that wasn't addressed.

It seems to be agreed upon that the musicals that make you think most is Sondheim shows. Just like you can't say what show people are going to emotionally connect you, you can't say what shows are going to make people think.

Anyone interested in philosophy can take any form of entertainment and come up with all these thoughts and questions--I even read one philosophical essay on Muppet Babies.

It even holds with philosophy aside, though. Everyone has been bringing up Wicked as a show that doesn't make you think, which is really unfair. So I'll use Wicked as an example--it and almost anything can make me think.

The most interesting aspect of Wicked I think is the person who actually accomplishes something and makes changes--Glinda. Yet she was the weaker of the two heroines--she couldn't go against the Wizard and all the love of the people that Elphaba could. But this decision of weakness leads to her success at the end--by siding with the Wizard and staying loved by the people, she was able to overcome him and implement changes in Oz, with all the people loving her. Elphaba seemed to make the hard choice to fight the Wizard--yet with the exception of a few animals, she barely accomplished anything and eventually disappears out of society. The idea that conforming can lead to greater strength than fighting is fascinating, and more so in this story because it was unintentional--Glinda didn't conform to gain power, she did out of human weakness. It honestly really makes me think.

I could go even further--Nessa is related to Elphaba and doesn't even necessarily support her, yet she is still sacrificed to get to her.

And the idea about people being manipulated into thinking she's wicked is obvious, but how often can events get manipulated? Like what happened with the lion? Do we change our perception and perhaps facts of events to match our beliefs? And do we truly believe the distorted facts?

My point is...you can't...generalize how someone is going to react to a show...emotionally, what someone is going to think, etc. That's why there's variety. Why do we have to...try to generalize things into everyone or most or people should or shouldn't feel a certain way. You can argue technicalities of a show, sure. But when you try to argue the way audiences react...it's just silly. You can't generally say there's nothing to discuss after a show, because someone may have lots to discuss. You have nothing to discuss, and that's fine.

And while I'm in this whole post thing, I'm gonna post something I've always been scared to, and hope I don't regret: Why do people get so frustrated when there are constant posts about Idina being great, or thoughts on the Rent film, or even too many Piazza reviews...and everyone complains people are just saying the same things...but Sondheim discussions are immune to this frustration? I think I have read the phrase "Sondheim's worst is better than most others' best" as many times as I see someone asking for student rush information. No one complains that people say the same things about Sondheim over and over like they do everything else.

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Will someone explain one thing about COMPANY, other than the score, that isn't mediocre?

1. THE CONCEPT - Although Hal Prince had experimented a bit with the idea of an over-arcing concept with CABARET, COMPANY was the first concept musical. It did not have a linear plot: its elements were all seen in cross-section so it was a totally new and different style of theatre. Probably the biggest innovation since OKLAHOMA! 27 years earlier.

2. The use of the songs as commentaries on the action. Of course this was not new..Brecht had done in the 1920s, and the Cabaret songs in CABARET functioned in a similar fashion, but in COMPANY we understand the characters more through the songs placed outside of the action.

3. The use of songs to reveal what the characters really think and feel. Traditional musical structure has two people meeting and falling in love ("If I Loved You" and the entire bench scene in CAROUSEL is considered the finest development in words and music of this idea.) In COMPANY, nobody falls in love. Robert has sex (quite a lot it seems) but at the climax of his scene with April she cries out "I love you." Of course she isn't really in love, just in the throes of passion but Robert can't bring himself to lie back to here and hesitates (to a rather harsh guitar sting.)

4. The use of pastiche: The best example of which is the Andrews Sisters styled "You could drive a person crazy."

5. "Being Alive" - one the most beautiful and heartbreaking 11:00 numbers ever.

6. The dialogue. The characters are all wearing masks and in the birthday party scene they play "attitudes" to hide their emotions. SO their banter is superficial and more than a little bitchy. Only when the characters sing ("Sorry Grateful", "Someone is waiting", "Getting Married Today") do we learn what they really think and feel.

7. The "sound" of COMPANY was very contemporary for 1970. But unlike HAIR which dated very quickly, COMPANY still sounds of its era without being anachronistic.

8. Though the show was very much a product of its time, the themes of loneliness and isolation in the big city are still relevant. While most musicals portray love and sex in the context of a happily ever after fairy-tale, COMPANY is a more realistic look at our ambivalent feelings. We are all sorry-grateful at different times. And as much as many of us view the idea of falling in love and living happily ever after, the truth is there is no happily and no ever after. It's all one day at a time and the little things (good and bad) that you do together is indeed what makes a perfect relationship. (The idea that perfect is not always happy or ideal is in itself worthy of an entire play.)

9. Barcelona. The post-coital duet for Robert and April has a lovely, haunting melody infused with an over-arcing sadness. They made a connection had some very hot and passionate sex and now...there is nowhere else for their relationship to go. This is an idea never previously explored in a musical. Or since, as far as I know. And given the nature of contemporary relationships, it seems more and more relevant.

10. Flawed, unlikable characters. Yes some of them are downright obnoxious. (You almost want to belt Sarah the way she keeps correcting minor details in her husband's stories. And Joanne is someone you would be trying to avoid at any party.) Even as archetypes, they are realistic. In fact outside of Madame Rose in GYPSY (***she is either called "Mamma" or "Madame Rose" or "Rose." Nowhere is she ever called "Mamma Rose." Look at the script.***) these are probably the most unlikable yet fascinating characters ever to inhabit a musical.

11. The out-takes. "Multitudes of Amys" may very well be the most beautiful song Stephen Sondheim has ever written. "Marry Me a Little" and "Happily Ever After" may not have worked in the show but they are both brilliant little one-act plays and have found homes in cabaret shows and Sondheim recitals.


I have to add that every time I see a production of COMPANY, I marvel at how brilliant the score and the book are and how well they function together.

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I definitely agree Christoph, but like I said, every show, no matter how "fluff"y one wants to call it, can stimulate a lot of thinking and analysis.

I'll be honest--I used to be anti-fluff, and I thought better theatre made you think, but I've totally changed my tune. There has been quite a few musicals lately--Tarzan, Wedding Singer, when people have asked me if I would recommend it...and I've answered it's not the best musical I've seen, it has its flaws, but I think it's really fun and enjoyed it.

I feel like I have something to add, but I'm not finding the right words--I've deleted a couple of sentences...maybe when I get back tonight it will come to me.

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Passion was soooooooooooo boring. Thankfully I rented the DVD from the library. I was very glad that I didnt pay close to $100 to see that show. It was a good show but very boring. The music and acting were boring. It wasn't anything dark like Sweeney and there wasnt anything to grab your attention like intresting plots in wierd places

Wow, I can't fathom how anyone who truly watches Passion could find Donna Murphy's performance "boring".

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PASSION is truly one of the few musicals that can bring me to tears.

Sondheim shows just know how to hit that emotional spot with me. Sweeney gets me. The second act of Sunday REALLY strikes that emotional chord with me. The messages of his shows just really hit me.

And I thought I was the only one who liked Act 2 of Sunday better than Act 1! I'm glad to see I'm not alone.

I think The Frogs is a pretentious bore.