Why Broadway Hates Stephen Sondheim

[macbeth]

Posted: 6/12/10 at 4:51pm

http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1996260,00.html

Boy is that a tabloid style headline!

[AC126748]

Posted: 6/12/10 at 4:56pm

Dumb article. BOUNCE/ROAD SHOW/GOLD/WISE GUYS didn't make it to Broadway--and took nearly twenty years to get a New York production--because, plainly, it's not very good. And it's no secret that Sondheim shows (originals, at least) have a history of not making money.

[uncageg]

Posted: 6/12/10 at 5:09pm

The article failed to mention that "Assasins" did make it to Broadway and won several Tonys.

[morethan just malice]

Posted: 6/12/10 at 5:09pm

Yes, sadly I agree that the poor show just couldn't and shouldn't have made it. Sondheim is however essential to Broadway, although Broadway doesn't always get Sondheim. I think the basic difference was similar to the Romans who preferred their spectacle shows versus the Greeks who preferred their enlightening, harder to digest shows.

[PauloFanClem]

Posted: 6/12/10 at 5:28pm

I think the article's argument is this: "Nobody wants to sponsor his latest, possibly most mature works. Only the classics, please." What the writer does is to attack the act of just reviving his classics on Broadway instead of really producing his new works, which, according to him, are much more mature than those classics. However, Assassins was produced on Broadway after over a decade from its off-Broadway production. Maybe 10 years later, we might see Road Show on Broadway. Who knows? But I think this is what the tragedy the writer means. Why we need to wait so long for them to be on Broadway instead of producing them right after they are fresh from the oven.

[Yero my Hero]

Posted: 6/12/10 at 5:40pm

A 43rd Street theater once called the Henry Miller reopened this spring as the Stephen Sondheim, with Dame Edna Everage (aka Barry Humphries), belting out "Ladies Who Lunch" from the 1970 Company.

Not exactly.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 6/12/10 at 5:41pm

He is the poet of domestic tragedy. That Broadway hasn't given him the chance to keep writing songs for new shows — well, that is a tragedy too.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1996260,00.html#ixzz0qg1bw8in

This is such a ridiculous statement. Broadway does not prevent one from composing and writing anything they wish. Note the article also doesn't mention The Frogs, which also had a Broadway production. And when he mentions "off-kilter tempos", I believe the word he means to use is "rhythms". Broadway doesn't hate Sondheim and never did. He's just only written one new show since Passion and it's simply not very good. I saw Bounce at the Goodman and the only reason I stayed for the second act was in the hope that it would get better. It didn't.

Updated On: 6/12/10 at 05:41 PM

[ljay889]

Posted: 6/12/10 at 6:27pm

^ ROAD SHOW is practically completely different from BOUNCE, and is the final version of that show. So it's not fair to judge it if you've only seen BOUNCE.

I happen to think ROAD SHOW is a fabulous score, and I enjoyed the production at the Public. I predict maybe ten year from now we will see a Broadway revival like Assassins.

[AC126748]

Posted: 6/12/10 at 6:32pm

ROAD SHOW does have a lovely score--for my money, "Isn't He Something?" and "Best Thing That Ever Has Happened to Me" are two of Sondheim's best compositions ever. The problem is the show itself, at least as it stands in its current iteration. It's dramatically inert and the plot is full of holes. It spends too much time building to points that are never capitalized upon. For it to have a Broadway life, I think, Sondheim and John Weidman would have to go back to the drawing board, throw out the current book completely, and try to find a way for the score and the story to shine equally.

[ljay889]

Posted: 6/12/10 at 6:39pm

I don't think the book was so bad that needs to be completely rewritten. Addison and Hollis' "break up" was a pretty gut wrenching moment, wonderful writing. But there is always room for improvement.

[philly03]

Posted: 6/12/10 at 6:44pm

I agree with the part of the article that says something about the lack of hummable tunes, but still has the sting-your-heart lyrics. He's got a great sense of words, but his music takes too long to catch one's ear (IMO). I think it's hard to find success in the main sight when most people care about music over lyrics, perhaps not in the theatre world but generally speaking, in today's world.

[ljay889]

Posted: 6/12/10 at 6:55pm

I find many if not most Sondheim tunes hummable. And yes, I find some songs from Passion hummable.

[PauloFanClem]

Posted: 6/12/10 at 7:05pm

Sondheim said that there's no hummable tune. The reason why you can hum a tune when you leave the theatre is because you hear the melody over and over again in a song, or you listen to the song again and again and again.

[AC126748]

Posted: 6/12/10 at 8:36pm

I sing Sondheim songs to myself all the time. I couldn't even tell you one lyric from MEMPHIS if you offered me a hundred dollars.

[Carpoop]

Posted: 6/12/10 at 8:42pm

Broadway is just being jelous of Mr. Stephen. Does Broadway not no that Mr. Stephen write many of its hits and songs too. I am angry now at Broadway for not rekognizing this from Mr. Stephen.

[wonkit]

Posted: 6/12/10 at 8:46pm

The article is full of inaccuracies and assumptions. I initially felt angry and defensive and then thought - this article just proves that you can be a published "journalist" and not have an original or even accurate thought in your head. Sondheim is funny, clever, talented and accomplished. Some dumb sh*t cut-and-paste article is hardly worth a reply. But I couldn't restrain myself!

[AwesomeDanny]

Posted: 6/12/10 at 9:57pm

PauloFanClam, I believe Sondheim said in an interview once that during a preview of the original production of A Little Night Music, at the intermission, somebody said "that song, "A Weekend in the Country" is such a catchy tune", to which Sondheim's reply is "that's because you just heard eleven choruses!". For a melody to be "hummable", you need to hear it over and over, which would require the score to be very repetitive. I would rather have a less repetitive score with fewer melodies I remember when I leave the theater.

[Dollypop]

Posted: 6/12/10 at 10:00pm

Odd, today while I was doing my grovery shopping, I couldn't get the "Kiss Me Quartet" from SWEENEY TODD out of my head. Come to think of it, I really didn't want to.

[wonkit]

Posted: 6/12/10 at 10:30pm

"Pretty Women" follows me around all the time, and now that I have seen a performance of the play, the song "Anyone Can Whistle" gets caught in my brain, too.

[The Distinctive Baritone]

Posted: 6/12/10 at 10:43pm

I agree that the article saying that Broadway "won't let" Sondheim continue to produce work to be incredibly stupid. The man is 80 years old, so he was what, 64 when Passion was on Broadway? Most people retire around that age! The fact that he wrote one show after that was great (even if the show itself wasn't).

He was supposedly putzing around with a musical version of "Groundhog Day" too, and I'm sure that if he had really wanted to finish it and had a Broadway production of it, he could have.

[sparrman]

Posted: 6/12/10 at 11:38pm

Wouldn't surprise me if Sondheim himself rebuts that stupid article.

[chewy5000]

Posted: 6/12/10 at 11:54pm

I didn't know Into the Woods was revived twice

[Gothampc]

Posted: 6/13/10 at 2:13pm

"There have also been three shows of the composer's songs (Putting It Together, Mostly Sondheim and Celebrating Sondheim)."

I guess "Side by Side by Sondheim" celebrated the music of Jerry Herman. My mistake.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 6/13/10 at 2:27pm

"You can't rent Pacific Overtures on Netflix."

Not really a fair statement. Sondheim more than anyone else has let his work be recorded for DVD. "Sunday..." Sweeney" "Into the Woods" "Passion" "Company" "Putting It Together" "Follies in Concert" are all available performed by professional companies. Additionally there is the documentary of the recording of the "Company" album which is extremely interesting.

And not a word about Madonna performing his music for Dick Tracy.

[sparrman]

Posted: 6/13/10 at 5:20pm

Not to mention the fact that the OBC of Pacific Overtures WAS videotaped, and (I believe) broadcast in Japan.