not enough Sondheim

[calimac]

Into the Woods at Ashland wasn't enough Sondheim for us, so we attended the TheatreWorks production of Marry Me A Little, a revue formed of a collection of old Sondheim trunk songs and other miscellanea, mostly from Follies and some other shows of that period.  They're sung by a man (A.J. Shively) and a woman (Sharon Rietkerk) with piano accompaniment (William Liberatore).  There's a very loose premise, accompanied by a large, elaborate set but no libretto, of the two singers being lonely singles living in vertically adjoining apartments.  As if this were Alan Ayckbourn's Taking Steps (though not nearly as funny), the two apartments are depicted on stage as occupying the same space, so the singers can sit or stand or even lie on the bed next to each other as they sing duets while each pretends to be oblivious to the other's existence, a conceit mostly, but not entirely, maintained.  Clunking sounds generated by the two messing around in the kitchen are incorporated as percussion punctuation in one song.

I wasn't familiar with most of the songs, though B. was.  Musically they were as intriguing as Sondheim always is, and very well performed, and the lyrics took that anguished introspective view of the difficulty of relationships that so marks his work.  One song for the man, "Happily Ever After," seemed Larkinesque in its bleak view of the prospect of a continuing relationship.  And the imagery of its title, and that of another song framed as a fairy tale, demonstrated that the fairy-tale imagery and phrasing of Into the Woods is not a one-off, but integral to Sondheim's mind and thought.

It lasted about 90 minutes (no intermission).  It was rewarding musically.  Almost everyone at the Sunday matinee was considerably older than us.

Comments

[desperance.livejournal.com]

One song for the man, "Happily Ever After," seemed Larkinesque in its bleak view of the prospect of a continuing relationship.

What intrigued me was the way that song shared half its lyrics with "Being Alive", the song which replaced it as the closer for Company - and yet the two songs have almost diametrically opposed views about the value of relationships. ("Steve baby, you need to be more positive - but hey, these lines are great, don't lose the lines...")

I'm not sure if young people go to Sondheim. (I almost said, "I'm not sure if young people get Sondheim" - but I was eighteen when I first heard Side by Side, and that was love at first contact. I don't think it's age-related. It may be cultural. I'm not sure young people go to musicals at all, unless they have celebrities in 'em.)

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen quite such an elderly audience at the theatre before. It may have been Sunday matinee; I don't know. Weekday matinees at the symphony are almost like this. There were certainly a good number of younger people at Into the Woods in Ashland, including the two young women immediately behind us who were probably drunk and definitely screeching at anything vaguely funny.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

My first encounter with Sondheim was the lyrics to West Side Story. I thought them awfully clever, especially the multiple rhymes in "I Feel Pretty", and it seemed peculiar that Sondheim later regretted this, feeling they were too clever to fit the characters.

I'd also heard and seen Forum, but my real awareness of Sondheim's quiddity dates from Into the Woods, which B. and I saw in one of the first local productions in the early 90s and instantly absorbed into our store of personal references.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Into the Woods is almost - almost! - too late for me. The people I hung out with at the end of the '70s introduced me to all the Sondheim then available, back when Sweeney Todd was new. That sort of defined the canon in my head, especially as I've never had the chance to see anything that came later, except as filmed productions (Sunday in the Park with George, and - phew! - Into the Woods). I haven't even heard anything since Assassins. I suppose I should do something about that...