For Sondheim Fans

[+ WilliamM]

But for me, it does something that theatre can do so well - move our souls and minds in unexpected, if sometimes unwelcome ways. And I embrace that.

 

I do not understand how you were moved in perhaps unwelcome ways. Perhaps because of the music? If so, I was too.

[bostonman]

I do not understand how you were moved in perhaps unwelcome ways. Perhaps because of the music? If so, I was too.

 

To clarify - "moved" to me is not always a positive thing lol. So in other words, the show's subject matter and frankness does still shock me, even as well as I know it. I love the intense drama of it, but a good deal of that intense drama is admittedly ugly. Just that some people don't want to experience theatre like that - but in this case, I welcome it. (On the other hand, I'm not so sure I want to see the current 1984 on Broadway, due to the extreme violent elements of it. I think that the difference is that Assassins isn't necessarily a visually graphic show as much as it is graphic in its storytelling.)

 

I would say this applies to the music as well - not that the music "shocks" me really, but I do find it very involving. Much of the score hits me emotionally very deeply. Sometimes because of the dramatic situation that music conveys, and sometimes just because music is powerful in ways one can't really describe. There are parts of this score that are very beautiful, and parts that are - yes - fun and entertaining - and there are parts of it that are very tense and dramatic and that hit me in a sort of pit-of-the-stomach way, even to the point of tears.

 

Over the years, and having been musical director for 3 productions (2 college, one regional), the score continues to fascinate me. As does the book. (I consider Weidman's work to be some of his best ever - and I really do feel that the Booth/Oswald scene is one of the best book scenes in a musical, period.) So yes, this material is very close to my heart and to my personal sense of artistic expression. But that doesn't mean it isn't also at times very hard to take.

 

I also think it's a very valuable show in terms of its use of historical material. So much of what is in the show is based on things these people did actually say. (Right down to things like Zangara being angry that there were no photographers at his execution - which we hear him sing about near the end of his song.) And - most people know only about Booth and Oswald, and none of the others - maybe Hinckley. Some of these people, like Sam Byck, are truly forgotten footnotes. So it's also an intriguing introduction to this part of our history.

[N13]

I fully comprehend what Bostonman was trying to say. Unfortunately, I don't agree with his assessment. If the majority of audiences were capable of recognizing, much less understanding, the 'irony' of turning a very dark subject into a pastiche, it is too small a sampling to justify it. This, of course, is imho. I find nothing 'warm and fuzzy' about someone who, whatever the rationalization, takes another's life. The world is full of 'those poor people who didn't have a chance because of their terrible upbringing.' As one who overcame his own painful childhood, I know that it can be put behind and a finer, less anti-social, way can be found, nurtured and then lived without perpetuation and/or replicating the violence and hate.

 

We are living in a time when buffoons are perceived as respectable by a not small percentage of our population. Does painting the assassins as shallow and ridiculous resonate with any of the figures currently appearing as rational in our media, perhaps, show that painting them that way does not register with everyone?

 

Because something can be done, it doesn't mean it should be done. Assassins. Clever? yes. Bleeding heart? Also yes. Necessary? No.

[bostonman]

I find nothing 'warm and fuzzy' about someone who, whatever the rationalization, takes another's life.

 

I understand that.

 

So then, do you summarily object to any play, musical, or film that depicts murder/assassination or any other horrible violent act? (I assume you do not object - as most of us don't. Most of us accept what we see onstage and in the movies as a form of entertainment even when it is dark and even when it is based on real events.) Do you object to productions of Julius Caesar on the same merits, even if the characters are not "modernized" as the recent NYC production was? (I mention this obviously because of the recent controversy, but also because yes - the show does depict a real historical assassination.)

 

If you're an opera fan as I am, you know that opera contains countless murders, many of them onstage, some of them based on real events. Aside from the more typical shootings and stabbings, we have firing squads, a soprano boiled in oil (La Juive), an entire order of (real life) nuns sent to the guillotine, poisonings, other beheadings (such as in Salome), hangings, fires, floods, sinkings, and all sorts of other horrid ways to kill people. In Peter Grimes, a young boy is brutalized (by a man who has, rightly or wrongly, a reputation for doing so) then, unguarded, slips off the end of a cliff. The backstory of Il Trovatore involves a baby being burned to death. Composer John Adams (Nixon In China) wrote The Death Of Klinghoffer, about the Achille Lauro incident. The recent Two Boys by Nico Muhly explores the real-life story of an internet-based murder. Philip Glass musicalized Kafka's In The Penal Colony, which depicts a gruesome death by machine. But we can also go back to the beginnings of opera, to Monteverdi dramatizing the tyrannical Nero in L'Incoronazione di Poppea, with brutal deaths such as Seneca's suicide (demanded by Nero) in a bloody bath (the actual death is not musicalized, though - though we are treated to a very moving scene where Seneca's henchmen plead with him not to die, and the stoic Seneca facing his impending death bravely).

 

Un Ballo In Maschera depicts the (real-life) assassination of a King (even when it's a "Count" in the original version, as the censors demanded). So does Macbeth - play and opera. Rigoletto depicts an assassination attempt (whether we see him as an Italian Duke or as Victor Hugo's original French King - again, the censors), and a young innocent girl is stabbed and stuffed in a sack, by a professional assassin, in his place. In Turandot, the Prince of Persia is assassinated for not guessing the riddles put forth by the title character, and later a young innocent girl is tortured until she sees no way out but to kill herself. Though the deaths are not dramatized onstage, the Donizetti "3 Queens" operas depict the real-life Henry VIII sending his innocent wives to the chopping block.

 

Medea, in any theatrical or musical version, kills her children. Marguerite in Faust kills her child. Norma seriously ponders killing her children. Wozzeck and Marie's child is left alone at the end of the opera, way too young to understand that his parents are dead, as the other children go off to see his mother's body by the pond. In Pagliacci, we witness an onstage audience, there to see a commedia dell'arte comedy, forced to watch the leader of the troupe stab his wife dead, and then also stab her lover who runs up from the audience to save her. (If I'm correct, the libretto for this opera was based on a real-life event.) Otello/Othello strangles his loving and innocent wife due to jealousy based on "fake news" and a misplaced handkerchief.

 

(And there is even the wonderful Brundibar, which was written and performed by prisoners in the Theresienstadt concentration camp. The music is pretty and playful, the story allegorical and fairy-tale-like - but can we ever hear that opera without thinking of its unthinkable origins?)

 

And some of these examples of operatic deaths are fiction-based, and some are reality-based, but they are all horrible.

 

And even though many of these are tragic or serious operas, we ENJOY going to hear and see them. We leave the theatre generally commenting on how the soprano sang, more than how awful it was that her character died. It's THEATRE. (I may leave a performance of Dialogues Of The Carmelites wiping the tears off my face, after that brutal and dramatic final execution scene - and Assassins may shake me emotionally in the same way. But both are THEATRE. And actually, many more people are murdered in Carmelites than in Assassins.)

 

And - back to Sondheim - we have the senseless deaths of 3 young men in West Side Story. We have the killing of a Judge (no matter how evil) among many others (most of them killed indiscriminately, in the name of one man's revenge on the world) in Sweeney Todd. And the Shogun's mother assassinates her son, via poisoned chrysanthemum tea, in Pacific Overtures.

 

So much of art seems to be, like it or not, about horrible events, whether fictional or real. It's one way we try to cope with such violence, I think.

 

So - assuming that the majority of the above cited works are ok by you (most of them are indeed regularly enjoyed and lauded), can you delineate the difference you have with Assassins? (And that's not a challenge lol - if you really can explain why this show hits you differently, I would love to try to understand.)

[+ WilliamM]

The difference between Assassins and operas (I have seem most of the operas you mentioned) is some of the people included are political figures whom I saw in person (John Kennedy). I also saw Robert Kennedy in person, but I do not remember if he is included in the musical.

 

I lived in Massachusetts and the Kennedy family was part of our lives, whether I liked it or not.

 

Yes, the music and lyrics are witty and touching, but the musical lives up to the name -- assassination and near-miss assassinations of political leaders in the United States.

[BasketBaller]

Fascinating responses to a thorny work. I also do not see how Assassins romanticizes or justifies the assassinations, but it does muse on why people have done, or attempted, this horrible thing, and I think that's a worthy subject. The only truly comic portrayals are of the failed killers, since while Guiteau has comic moments his execution is given a weight that undercuts any laughing. The creepiness of "Unworthy Of Your Love" made me shiver when I first saw the show, and I think that what the book and score most strongly express is the pathetic nature of those who felt justified in doing this, the final scene is filled with wishful thinking and self-justification. I should say I have a taste for dark comedy and ambiguity in my theatre, I like being knocked off-balance by my reaction to a play, or musical, or opera. The central quartet of Follies are unpleasant people whose problems are of their own making; both Georges in Sunday In The Park With George would be maddening people to know; Bobby in Company is an immature narcissist; and I love all these shows.

 

So here's a thought: it's a complicated thing, what we do when we see a performance. Why does every culture in the world have some tradition of performance? I think that as civilization became more complex, with division of labor so that not everyone needed to hunt or fight, we still crave the heightened emotions and danger of fight-or-flight. So the vicarious experiences we let ourselves have via the willing suspension of disbelief are enormously good for us. The tired businessman, the suburban housewife, watching Antony and Cleopatra are the characters in the moment, and have a small imagined sense of what they go through, which gives us the catharsis Aristotle identified, the purging of emotions by in some slight way experiencing them, and then, after the play ends, being able to breathe deeply and realize we're safe.

 

That, I think, is why some people react so negatively to morally ambiguous works-- during them we are made uncomfortable, our values are challenged, and in a vicarious way, we ourselves betray those values. Some of us are moved to confront ourselves by that vicarious identification, some are troubled and made uncomfortable. Neither is right, neither is wrong.

[bostonman]

The difference between Assassins and operas (I have seen most of the one you mentioned) is some of the people included are political figures whom I saw in person (John Kennedy).

 

Which is one of the reasons that Sondheim revised the show to include the song "Something Just Broke" - which is sung by characters representing the average American. A recurring theme of the song is an "I remember where I was when I heard the news" idea, given that of course people of a certain generation absolutely identify with November 22, 1963 - though the song is also meant to represent all eras of Americans at the time of one of these tragedies. Sondheim wanted to have a song that would speak to the grief of the nation, to the opinion of the average person. The accompaniment in the song features the wordless "lamentation" theme also heard at the start of "Another National Anthem," and also the sound of muffled military drums. A very touching, moving song - and though I've always quibbled with where the song goes in the order of the show (to me it interrupts the original flow of the ending sequence), I realize that it's an absolutely crucial song.

 

I also saw Robert Kennedy in person, but I do not remember if he is included in the musical.

 

Sirhan Sirhan is given a quick mention in the Book Depository scene. But, Robert himself is portrayed in the satirical song "Bobby And Jackie And Jack" by the character of Charley Kringas in Merrily We Roll Along.

 

(Sirhan gets mentioned along with Arthur Bremer, who attempted to shoot George Wallace, and MLK assassin James Earl Ray.)

 

Personal note - I was born in 1964, so I was not alive for the JFK assassination. But I do remember the day Bobby Kennedy was shot. I had just turned 4, and was still too young to really understand what had happened, but I do have a very vivid memory of an already planned family gathering at my grandmother's house, and people saying as they came in, "did you hear about Kennedy? Did you hear about Kennedy?"

 

Something had just broken, indeed.

 

The creepiness of "Unworthy Of Your Love" made me shiver when I first saw the show

 

And, adding to William's comment that he had seen JFK in person, etc - one of the truly sobering things about "Unworthy of Your Love" is that, aside from the presidents, Reagan and Ford (and of course victim James Brady), the other 4 people directly involved in this song (the would-be assassins and their love interests) are very much still with us. Creepy indeed.

 

But, I still say that doesn't mean it can't be vibrant, exciting theatre. I wouldn't expect Jodie Foster to agree, but hasn't, for instance, the Klinghoffer family also been very outspoken against the John Adams opera? That's to be expected, absolutely. Likewise, if Assassins is a more difficult show for some one like William to face, because he actually knew the Kennedys, that's completely understandable. And I don't want to seem unsympathetic to that.

 

But for that matter, I can't imagine that Squeaky Fromme or John Hinckley (both of them now released from prison) would think much of the show either.

[N13]

Unfortunately, my viewing and subsequent loathing of "Assassins" is a long time in the past. Perhaps in the spirit of understanding other viewpoints I should revisit the show.

I would rather step aside then have to do that.

[+ WilliamM]

I was born in 1964, so I was not alive for the JFK assassination

 

I was born in 1943. That explains a lot. I now understand why experiences I had (like seeing Judy Garland in person) would be difficult for you to completely understand. I apologize for being so obtuse.

[bostonman]

I was born in 1943. That explains a lot. I now understand why experiences I had (like seeing Judy Garland in person) would be difficult for you to completely understand. I apologize for being so obtuse.

 

You are NOT obtuse. Stop that. [insert gentle slap on the wrist emoticon here, lol]

 

And I'm NOT about to get into a debate about Judy, except for the fact that I don't think seeing her in person or not makes any difference in context of that awful conversation. And we WILL leave it at that. Period. Full stop. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. Onward and upward.

[edjames]

Enjoyed the Encores production of Assassins very much. Really enjoyed an almost unrecognizable Victoria Clark in her role as . Perhaps not the most perfect of Sondheim's shows, but entertaining none the less. The audience roared it's approval when in the opening number the cast sings "Wouldn't you like to shoot the president?"

Now to name drop a little. The maestro himself was seated in the center orchestra Saturday night, not four rows away from me. Couldn't help notice the attractive arm candy that Steve had with him! Sly old dog! Josh Grogban was nearby, too, looking as if he no longer needs the body suit to help him add weight for his Great Comet role! (I beleive he has ended his run in the show...and he was dateless, and definitely needs a to shave that beard off.

NYPost reported this in today's PageSix:

 

Don’t expect Stephen Sondheim to give you an autograph

By Mara Siegler

 

July 17, 2017 | 9:32pm

 

The “West Side Story” lyricist was spotted in the audience during a special performance of his 1990 musical “Assassins” at New York City Center this weekend and was approached by a fan who ran around the auditorium and asked for an autograph while he was on his way out.

 

But a stiff Sondheim said, “ ‘No, I don’t do that kind of thing,’ and he looked the other way and just walked by,” says a spy.

 

Sondheim has inked his signature in the past.

 

EBay is full of signed memorabilia, including a poster from a 2002 Kennedy Center celebration that is going for a whopping $6,595.

[+ WilliamM]

"EBay is full of signed memorabilia, including a poster from a 2002 Kennedy Center celebration that is going for a whopping $6,595."

 

Signing a poster is very different that an autograph, as you know. People who paid top dollar for seats at the 2002 Kennedy Center celebration may have received a free signed posters. Tip: usually there are a few signed posters left over for about $25 - $50.

[+ WilliamM]

 

 

At least Elaine waited until after Ethel Merman passed away.

 

Here is Stritch's version of "Rose's Turn."

[bostonman]

"EBay is full of signed memorabilia, including a poster from a 2002 Kennedy Center celebration that is going for a whopping $6,595."

 

Signing a poster is very different that an autograph, as you know. People who paid top dollar for seats at the 2002 Kennedy Center celebration may have received a free signed posters. Tip: usually there are a few signed posters left over for about $25 - $50.

 

Sondheim's issue, from what I understand, is that even basic autographs (nothing as "formal" as a signed poster) are sold on ebay. He's not interested in signing his name just for someone to sell the autograph. And I can't blame him.

[+ WilliamM]

Sondheim's issue, from what I understand, is that even basic autographs (nothing as "formal" as a signed poster) are sold on ebay. He's not interested in signing his name just for someone to sell the autograph. And I can't blame him.

 

I gave away my one signed poster from a major charity event.

[bostonman]

I gave away my one signed poster from a major charity event.

 

I tend to think that giving away/selling a signed poster is totally ok - because the event the poster represents might often have as much meaning to the recipient as the signatures are - the signatures might just be a perk. What Sondheim seems to object to is that a signature itself can be obtained just to be sold - so that his autographs become a way for someone to make a quick and dishonest buck off of him.

[+ WilliamM]

I have asked three people to sign autographs: Mary Martin signed my LP cover for her recording of "Annie Get Your Gun."

Johnathan Groff was free after an afternoon performance of "Spring Awakening" off-Broadway. When Audra McDonald was playing Billie Holiday, she was happy to sign my playbill to an elderly friend who saw Holiday.

 

Mary Martin enjoyed meeting people as long as the subject was not always "Peter Pan."

[bostonman]

Mary Martin enjoyed meeting people as long as the subject was not always "Peter Pan."

 

Ha! I tend to think a lot of celebrities struggle with things like that - wishing people would remember them for more than just that one big iconic role. (Martin is, obviously, known for other roles, but I tend to think more people have seen her videos of Peter Pan than anything else she did. I would think that for most people, Julie Andrews is more often the star associated with The Sound Of Music, even if they know Martin played the role on stage first.)

[edjames]

Nov 16...Follies from National Theater London simulcast. (NTLive).

 

Check website for detail and ticket sales...

 

http://ntlive.nationaltheatre.org.uk/productions/63102-follies

 

http://d2z302fz6vkyr7.cloudfront.net/images/productions/ntgds_ntlive_ec_follies_digilistings_ntlivewebsiteheader_v2_050717.jpg

Stephen Sondheim’s legendary musical is staged for the first time at the National Theatre and broadcast live to cinemas.

 

New York, 1971. There’s a party on the stage of the Weismann Theatre. Tomorrow the iconic building will be demolished. Thirty years after their final performance, the Follies girls gather to have a few drinks, sing a few songs and lie about themselves.

 

Tracie Bennett, Janie Dee and Imelda Staunton play the magnificent Follies in this dazzling new production. Featuring a cast of 37 and an orchestra of 21, it’s directed by Dominic Cooke (The Comedy of Errors).

[+ WilliamM]

Ha! I tend to think a lot of celebrities struggle with things like that - wishing people would remember them for more than just that one big iconic role

 

My guess is Mary Martin would have rather be known for "South Pacific." In later years, Martin always included at least one song from that musical, but not "The Sound Of Music."

 

Sources: "Together on Broadway" with Merman & Martin (audio only) and "Our Hearts Belong to Mary" One night concerts in Broadway theaters.

 

Note: Hello, Dolly is part of the Merman-Martin concert. Also on stage many famous men. On the audio, one can hear Martin say, "my baby boy" to Larry Hagman. Merman is directing traffic and somehow Jule Styne arrives back at his original spot. Merman is not pleased

 

They opened with "Send in the Clown" backstage and then the two ladies were suddenly on stage.

[bostonman]

My guess is Mary Martin would have rather be known for "South Pacific." In later years, Martin always included at least one song from that musical, but not "The Sound Of Music."

 

I guess then, in reference to her "flying" days, I guess she'd rather wash that Pan right outa her hair?

[LoveNDino]

Sweeney Todd // Live from Lincoln Center (2014)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3KktTNz33c

[foxy]

Brilliant!!! Saw the original production with Angela Lansbury in 1979 I think. Then the one with Patti Lupone. Sondheim is a true musical genius.

[+ WilliamM]

Sondheim is a true musical genius.

 

So were George Gershwin, Richard Rodgers

[N13]

Don't forget Cole Porter and Noel Coward