Why is A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum

[laura is broadway]

Posted: 1/25/09 at 3:14pm

so different from all other Sondheim shows? I know it was one of his first, but I think his lyrics for West Side Story which was before it are much better. I just don't enjoy it at all the way I enjoy his other shows... and yes I've seen it. I don't get things out of it the way I do most of his shows.... Any explanations?

[LaRue]

Posted: 1/25/09 at 5:43pm

I love Forum and have played Pseudolous. It is one of the funniest shows ever written.

[dramamama611]

Posted: 1/25/09 at 5:54pm

He wrote it during Passover?

[Unknown User]

Posted: 1/25/09 at 6:45pm

I just spoke to Mr. Sondheim and he apologizes. He's notifying his publisher that he will no longer license any productions, despite it being his most popular show. He said "If LAURA doesn't like it, then I've failed. I'm getting to work trying to write another show she approves of, a comic Gothic tragedy based on a painting, a serial killer and a bunch of fairy tales like all my other shows. PLEASE tell her I'm sorry."

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 1/25/09 at 6:47pm

Well, she IS Broadway, after all.

[BobbyBubby]

Posted: 1/25/09 at 6:50pm

To be fair to Laura, Joe, Sondheim isn't a fan of his score either.

[Unknown User]

Posted: 1/25/09 at 6:55pm

I don't know why Bobby, but I tend to give him a little more leeway criticizing his own work.

[sally1112]

Posted: 1/25/09 at 6:57pm

The show is different in its tone, but similar in its cleverness. I really enjoy it and place it in my top three favorites of his body of work.


JoeKv99- grow up. Your comment is mean spirited, which would be ok if it were funny, but its not that either.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 1/25/09 at 7:00pm

How is advocating mean-spiritedness if it is funny any classier?

[BobbyBubby]

Posted: 1/25/09 at 7:01pm

You got be there Joe.

The only criticism of the score, which I happen to enjoy, is that it often slows down the rapid pace of the magnificent book. Sondheim was young and probably made compromises he would not have made later into his career.

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 1/25/09 at 7:25pm

It is one of Sondheim's more enjoyable shows.

It is a shame they botched what could have been a great movie version by gutting the score - one of Hollyood's normal actions when they film a musical.

Updated On: 1/25/09 at 07:25 PM

[CurtainPullDowner]

Posted: 1/25/09 at 7:31pm

It contains one of my favorite all time lyric:
"today I woke, too weak, to walk"

[Unknown User]

Posted: 1/25/09 at 7:37pm

Well I wasn't really trying to be funny- which can be a problem with my posts, I know- but rather trying to address the massive 'wrongness' of the OP.

First, it's a massively popular show- maybe not his most performed any more, but among the VERY MOST popular (and performed) shows written by the very best theater composer of our time. Obviously, someone likes it.

Second, Sondheim's output has run the gamut from light comedy to melodrama to pastiche, to contemporary to- God, I'm running out of adjectives. Follies, Merrily, Passion, Saturday Night, Pacific Overtures- Are those shows somehow of a type and Funny Thing the exception?

You can certainly say "I don't like Forum" and you could debate that. I feel anyone is free to dislike any show. (Except Xanadu- not loving Xanadu gets you deleted.)
Updated On: 1/25/09 at 07:37 PM

[dramamama611]

Posted: 1/25/09 at 7:50pm

Actually, the original OP did pretty much say that they didn't like it as much and gave a few reasons: the lyrics, how it didn't speak to him/her as his other work and was looking to see if anyone could help him/her pinpoint WHY.

Sheesh.

[laura is broadway]

Posted: 1/25/09 at 7:55pm

"I just spoke to Mr. Sondheim and he apologizes. He's notifying his publisher that he will no longer license any productions, despite it being his most popular show. He said "If LAURA doesn't like it, then I've failed. I'm getting to work trying to write another show she approves of, a comic Gothic tragedy based on a painting, a serial killer and a bunch of fairy tales like all my other shows. PLEASE tell her I'm sorry."

.... I don't hate it, it's just very different from his other shows, and I don't enjoy it as much, but I still like it a lot more than many shows out there.... I'm sorry if you thought I was being pretentious or something. I recognize my opinion isn't that important. I thought it was a popular opinion, but I guess I was wrong. Well maybe not so much a popular opinion, but it seems like it's not usually associated with his other shows, and to me his score and lyrics especially are very different, and maybe I'm wrong... I just wanted a good discussion about it and why it (at least seems) less deeper than his other shows, I guess I phrased it badly.

"Well, she IS Broadway, after all."

Haha, my name is not Laura, when I made the name I was a huge fan of Laura Benanti.



Updated On: 1/25/09 at 07:55 PM

[Schmerg_The_Impaler]

Posted: 1/25/09 at 7:56pm

Well, as David Zippel and Andrew Lloyd Webber once penned, it is "all for Laura."

Oh DEAR. Did I just reference Woman In White on a Sondheim thread? I think I should be shot in the face.

[nobodyhome]

Posted: 1/25/09 at 10:52pm

"To be fair to Laura, Joe, Sondheim isn't a fan of his score either."

I wouldn't say that, unless you've read or heard him say something I haven't. He's said that the tone of it isn't at one with the tone of the book, with the exceptions of a couple of songs. But that doesn't mean he doesn't think it's good writing.

And I think he's wrong. I've directed the show and I think the score works just about perfectly.

[RomanBartelli]

Posted: 1/26/09 at 2:53am

Yeah, could you really imagine this show's book paired with the Sondheim style we know from his later works? His score fits well and I don't think any number in it is a dud. To each their own!

[BobbyBubby]

Posted: 1/26/09 at 3:00am

I think the original opening number sounds a lot more Sondheim than "Comedy Tonight".

[nobodyhome]

Posted: 1/26/09 at 1:56pm

"Yeah, could you really imagine this show's book paired with the Sondheim style we know from his later works? His score fits well and I don't think any number in it is a dud. To each their own."

Well, he wasn't suggesting that his later style would have been right for the show. He feels has too much of a salon feel rather than a low-comedy feel.

"I think the original opening number sounds a lot more Sondheim than 'Comedy Tonight'."

Just wondering whether you're thinking of "Love Is in the Air" or "Invocation."

[appleric]

Posted: 1/26/09 at 2:17pm

Actually "all for Laura" is a Billy Joel song. I'm just saying.

[Scripps2]

Posted: 1/26/09 at 2:34pm

To me, it is an enjoyable but conventional musical comedy of its period.

But it doesn't offer any of the experimentation, innovation, perception, exploration or analysis that his later shows do.

And it is those characteristics that the theatregoing public have come to understand as part of the Sondheim brand.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 1/26/09 at 2:56pm

Actually, Laura, your question--why is it different--would have been fine if you hadn't added in the value judgment.

It IS different, for many interesting reasons, and it on e of my favorite Sondheim shows.

The biggest reason is that Sondheim was young and enthusiastically influenced by the comic voices of Larry Gelbart and Burt Shevelove. Gelbart had been trained in the live TV comedy world of Sid Caesar. Shevelove was a Yale-educated classicist who directed a lot of comedy on television.

They set out to translate the conventions of ancient Roman comedy into contemporary vaudeville and make a crowd-pleasing comedy.

So the "experimentation, innovation, perception, exploration and analysis" that Scripps mentions are there, but they're there in the overall concept, which was so much a combination of Shevelove's classicism and Gelbart's comedy, there wasn't much room for Sondheim to do anything except throw a couple of triple rhymes in every now and then.

But the entire script and score are written with such exuberance that I think you'll like it if you give it another listen or two.

It is VERY different from the darker colors that Sondheim attempted to paint with in his subsequent shows, but you can enjoy it for what it is.

[Kad]

Posted: 1/26/09 at 3:01pm

I enjoy ...Forum, but as a whole I find the score doesn't mesh well with the book. Only a few of the songs seem to complement the book, like "Everybody Ought to Have a Maid" or the reprise of "Lovely".

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 1/26/09 at 3:02pm

Excuse me, JoeKv and Pal Joey, but exactly why should Laura not be allowed to say that she doesn't care for the show as much as his others?

For the record, I don't either.