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

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?

He wrote it during Passover?

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Well, she IS Broadway, after all.

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

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

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.

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

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

"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

"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.

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

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

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.

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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.