Sondheim and Prince dissed Chorus Line?- Page 3

[Mattbrain]

Posted: 4/24/07 at 4:17pm

They're just pissed because Pacific Overtures lost to A Chorus Line and only picked up two design awards.

[jv92]

Posted: 4/24/07 at 4:19pm

With a score containing Someone in a Tree and A Bowler Hat, they had every right to be pissed.

[sondheimboy2]

Posted: 4/24/07 at 4:26pm

Two quick thoughts:

One is that Sondheim has said that the way to have a hit in the theater is to tell the people a story that they will want to hear (that a Cockney flower girl can become a lady and get the guy). So, he would had to have guessed that a story about how the East invaded and corrupted Japan might not go over all that big. If he even bothered to think about anything other than writing a show that would interest him.

Secondly, it's more like A Chorus Line was pissed because Pacific Overtures won the two design awards. I remember reading one of the books about "ACL" and, in talking about the Tony Awards, it said that they were won "by a flashier musical, long since closed"...

Which makes it sound like it got beat out by "La Cage" or "Crazy for You"...

[Kringas]

Posted: 4/24/07 at 4:29pm

So, the point of this thread is that Sondheim is never anything remotely close to human, and is incapable of rancor, jealousy or spite?

Posted: 4/24/07 at 4:31pm

I'm honestly a bit bemused and disappointed (but more bemused :P ) at how much of a fight this thread already has become--I swear that wasn't my intention at all. I just had never heard Prince or Sondheim's reported comments on the show before... Another part of the context of course is Bennett was seen as a key figure in the Prince/Sondheim concept musicals at that time (interesting that for a while there they usually had much of the same crew--Boris Aronson too but always different librettists...), and him breaking away of course was seen as a rivalry by the press I'm certain. (I'm not sure if he was asked to do Night Music or not but at that point I doubt he woulda done it). I doubt they were seriously too miffed about Pacific Overtures not being the hit Chorus Line was--neither SOndheim nor Prince seemed to have ANY pretentions that it was gonna be even somewhat of a commercial success even while writing it.


I probably shouldn't ask but, Fen, I assume you mean that Sondheim owes the LGBT community more gay characters in his work (or do you think he shoulda been more open about his own life?) Either way can't that also be said about most theatre people from his generation or even 15 years earlier like Michael Bennett (with his marriages, only one work that even touched on homosexuality--though it did in a very important and groundbreaking way, etc). My point is not to put blame on more people I just find that a pretty pointless argument. (As for this "76 year old guy in buttless chaps" I have to say I wouldn't have minded seeing him in said chaps 40, 30 even 20 years ago when most of those stories are from anyway... but that's beside the point of course :P )

If we are making this personal though I corresponded with the man as a young teen in the early 90s who was enthralled with his music, and he always replied and was never anything less than I'd hope or expect from him so that's prob where the stars in my eyes come from.

jv I knwo many critics also disliked Chorus Line's music but there's no denying Chorus Line was a phenomena--people lined up outside the doors, stories of Diana Ross (the diva herself)even agreeing to stand for an early off Broadway performance, etc. Chicago, from all the press I've found, got more across the board negative reviews about its score than Chorus Line and didn't have that fever attention that the Tonys love so much. I'd *kill* to see more of the original staging than the 15 minutes I've seen though (and I think I would prefered it to Chorus Line at the time--but hey I'm jaded and cynical and a Fosse man...)

(It is interesting that for Company and FOllies it seems, even from the book I mention which I feel has a a problem overall with Sondheim's work--that Bennett got along better with Steve than anyone else on their shows excepting Boris Aronson who he adored. They came up with the staging of Side by Side--apparantly originally meant to be the finale another change Bennett suggested--without Hal's involved agreeing that the only way to make these actors dance would be to put it in the mentality of a parent's performance at a PTA meeting--something that when Elaine was later told she said she woulda walked out if she had heard that was the subtext... The only big compromise they seemed to have was Bennett's brief insistance that Tick Tock should be danced topless--somethign McKechnie was not interested in at all)

(Kringas I suppose I( have no real point to this thread-- :P But I guess I was more curious as to why Sondheim reportedly thought we shouldn't care about ACL's characters--of course sincer we don't even knwo exactly what he said who knows... And Sondheimboy--that's a good point, I read the same quote I'm pretty sure, albeit from a design standpoint, havign seen the Japanese video of the original POvertures which needs that Image DVD release long promised NOW, it is a MUCH flashier show than Chorus Line. Even if flashy seems altogether the wrong word to ever describe it)
Updated On: 4/24/07 at 04:31 PM

[jv92]

Posted: 4/24/07 at 4:34pm

Who didn't like Chicago's score? We know Clive Barnes, but Walter Kerr? Walter Kerr became a senile old coot and didn't like anything after he retired from his Cheif Drama Critic post. I believe Martin Gottfried and Douglas Watt enjoyed it.

[ljay889]

Posted: 4/24/07 at 4:36pm

CHICAGO did NOT get all across negative reviews. There's a few positive press quotes out there from Barnes on the original production. He loved Verdon.

Posted: 4/24/07 at 4:38pm

I know--nearly everyone loved the leads and most at least gave some of the due praise to Fosse. But even more than Pippin (whose score, which I'm very fond of, was not appreciated at the time) Kande rand Ebb's score was NOT appreciated by critics. I think I fairly clearly implied I was discussing the *score*

JV, (besides Kerr) Gottfried didn't like it at all and also complained of the overamplification (something I know which was a complaint by even fans for most of Fosse's 70s shows)--however by the time of his Broadway Musicals book in the early 80s (which was like my bible when I was 9 or 10 and first really into reading about musicals) he has come around and especially lovesa dna goes into detail on the pastiche aspects (I think he even says that it was hard to appreciate in the theatre because it was just so noisy and aggressive)

From all I've seen and read I would much prefer the Fosse original staging of Chicago to the revival though I doubt some people who say it woulda been just as much a success as the understated revival staging--even the simple fact that the chorus girls often wear much sleazier looking outfits (down tot he chorus boys in their polka dotted briefs) and all the other more aggressive elements I think wouldn't have attracted the mainstream audiences the way the softer revival (and softer movie) do
Updated On: 4/24/07 at 04:38 PM

[ljay889]

Posted: 4/24/07 at 4:43pm

I'd like to see actual reviews where the score was bashed.

It's far superior to ACL'S score.
Updated On: 4/24/07 at 04:43 PM

[jv92]

Posted: 4/24/07 at 4:43pm

Chicago was quite loud, but that has nothing to do with its score. He should have blamed Abe Jacobs. I knew Gottfried liked it at some point. Thanks for correcting me.

[jv92]

Posted: 4/24/07 at 4:45pm

Oh, it was bashed ljay. Kerr really hated it as did Barnes. One of them, I can't remember who, even went so far as to suggest (though subtley) that Ebb was a terrible lyricist.
Updated On: 4/24/07 at 04:45 PM

[sondheimboy2]

Posted: 4/24/07 at 4:46pm

If you read the review excerpts of "Chicago" in Stephen Suskin's "More Opening Nights on Broadway", the reviews will remind you of the reviews that "Follies" got. (From the daily papers, at any rate.)

Not seeing the songs as much more than pastiche.

The only song that got much notice was "Mr. Cellophane" because that was the only time that the reviewers felt anything for any of the characters on-stage. Most of the reviews use words like "Cold" and "Joyless".

And, if they weren't dissing "Pacific Overtures," they word they should have used is "ravishing."

[ljay889]

Posted: 4/24/07 at 4:46pm

I believe it. But I still want to see the reviews.

Posted: 4/24/07 at 4:49pm

K&E's greatest scores (and out of my top theatre composers they're probably the ones I feel have the spottiest consistancy level) have never gotten their fair due by contemporary critics only being seen as classics sometime after (even Cabaret was dismissed as too much of a Weill copy at first, etc). I guess they share that with Sondheim to an extent, except that by the late 70s or so theatre critics started getting more nervous about dissing Sondheim's brilliance as he was getting to be seen more and more as beyond reproach (and quite rightly if you ask me ). Looking at the Times archives though it's funny, even in the 80s revival of Sweeney at NYC Opera the Times *music/opera* critic reviewed it this time and calls the score "singsongy" and basically not worth much at all.

(looking at the Times the reviews for Chicago in '75 are only up in full for their subscribers--too bad--but the opening paragraphs probably give you an idea:
By CLIVE BARNES
Page 23, 1239 words
DISPLAYING FIRST PARAGRAPH - Form or content, shadow or substance those classic alternatives of artistic endeavor had their day in court at the 46th Street Theater last night. Well, not really. For neither content nor substance were truly represented, and the result was a foregone conclusion; Bob Fosse's new musical, "Chicago," is one of those shows where a great deal has been done with very little.

and the rebuttal Sunday Leisure review (which isn't that much of a rebuttal it seems):

STEPHEN FARBER
Section: Arts & Leisure, Page 91, 757 words
DISPLAYING FIRST PARAGRAPH - Chicago," the new Bob Fosse musical, has been dismissed by many critics as a visually striking but cold and empty spectacle. Fosse's conception for this bizarre, caustic "musical vaudeville" is certainly open to question, but there is a case to be made for "Chicago" as an intriguing speculation on the enticements and the limitations of theater.



Updated On: 4/24/07 at 04:49 PM

[sondheimboy2]

Posted: 4/24/07 at 4:54pm

Well, opera/serious music critics rarely like music under 100 years old.

I will always remember Virgil Thompson, composer of "Gertrude Stein's Four Saints in Three Acts", as the man who, until his dying, jealous day, said that Gershwin's "Porgy and Bess" was crap.

Posted: 4/24/07 at 5:56pm

One more thing, then I'll shut up (for a while...). I guess I really resented Liz's conjecture that Sondheim wept at his friend/co-worker's memorial service because of extreme guilt over not praising him properly about a Chorus Line... Especially since we know Bennett came in to offer advise on Sunday in the Park and other shows since then

E

[Fenchurch]

Posted: 4/24/07 at 6:20pm

Yeah, Thomson has said a lot of racist things in his time as well, which is ironic, since Four Saints in Three Acts had an originally all black cast (btw, no one had a problem with African Americans portraying actual historical figures (St. Theresa, St. Settlement, etc) with that production.

Mostly because I think that opera/serious music critics .who do know music from less than 100 years ago also. understand colorblind casting - even in the 1920's - more than most theater people do today.

[jv92]

Posted: 4/24/07 at 9:15pm

"Especially since we know Bennett came in to offer advise on Sunday in the Park and other shows since then."

And for listening to his advice. God, some of those suggestions were pedestrian. Not pedestrian...stupid.

[BigFatBlonde]

Posted: 4/24/07 at 9:28pm

Fenchurch... Sorry about your friend's arm.

My friend walked away with only a few cigarette burns.

He was young, ambitious and thought his looks would get him "somewhere"

[jv92]

Posted: 4/24/07 at 9:32pm

Re: Chicago and Celebrities-

Diana Ross hell, Liza certainly liked Chicago more than Chorus Line.

[jv92]

Posted: 4/24/07 at 9:32pm

Double post. God, I've been doing that a lot. Updated On: 4/25/07 at 09:32 PM

[neddyfrank2]

Posted: 4/24/07 at 9:48pm

(after his heart attacks, etc and cutting back on some of his partying lifestyle--of course his drug use pales compared to Bennett's, I gather from reading this)

What was Sondheim and Bennetts drug use?

[Julian2]

Posted: 4/24/07 at 10:11pm

Wow, Fenchurch, talk about unrelated.

Posted: 4/24/07 at 11:13pm

AH I'm sure we all have our share of cigarette burn scars :P

As for Liz's comment I found another mention of Bennett's memorial service which said before Sondheim performed, Bennett's lawyer mentioned the onlyt ime he had seen Michael cry was when he was listening to a pre-release of the cast album for Sunday in the Park and played Move On--and then Sondheim came on to play it while crying and said "I'll miss you Michael". I dunno for Liz to think that that was all done purely from guilt seems a bit much

neddy abotut he drug use--not sure if it's meant ot be mentioned here but since it IS covered in the biography on Sondheim (unlike the S&M "rumours") I guess it's safe enough--just that hima dn his group fo friends in the late 60s and early-mid 70s experimented a fair bit with cocaine etc--but in a party sense I don't think Sondheim was known to be an abuser the way Bennett was by the 80s (there's a lot about that in the book I mention in my initial post on here)

Posted: 4/24/07 at 11:43pm

jv yes, but Diana Ross never probably tried to see Chicago on a night where she had to stand in the aisles for the wwhole performance--that was my point of it being a phenomenon--that such a big star couldn't get a ticket