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As the lights
come up, the company enters one by one singing COMEDY TONIGHT. In this
popular song from A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum, the
casts tells the audience what they can and cannot expect in the
performance to come. This song segues immediately into LOVE IS IN THE
AIR, which the show’s narrator later informs the audience, was
originally written as the opening number to Forum. He adds that the song
(as well as the show) initially flopped until Jerome Robbins was brought
on board and Sondheim conceived COMEDY TONIGHT. (The cast then finishes
the song).
The narrator
welcomes the audience and prepares them for the type of evening they are
about to share. He informs them that there is very little plot in the
show, and that its main purpose is to celebrate the music and lyrics of
Stephen Sondheim.
The narrator
notes that Sondheim’s lyrics have certain reoccurring themes and that
one of them is marriage. The songs in this section all explore this
theme. He introduces a song from Gypsy, IF MOMMA WAS MARRIED, in which
two young girls, the daughters of an overbearing showbiz mother,
speculate how wonderful it would be if their mother married. This song
is followed by YOU MUST MEET MY WIFE from A Little Night Music, which is
about a man who has just married an 18-year-old-virgin, who is hanging
on to it. A not-so-newlywed couple then sings about THE LITTLE THINGS
YOU DO TOGETHER. This song discusses the long littlenesses of married
life, which range from daily pleasures to destructive arguments. Giving
this some thought, the cast joins in singing GETTING MARRIED TODAY which
deals with the nerves of a young bride on the big day.
The common
thread that holds together the next set of songs is that they are
relatively unknown. The narrator introduces CAN THAT BOY FOX TROT, which
was cut from the Boston preview of Follies, and I REMEMBER SKY from a
1966 television musical named Evening Primrose. This show aired only one
evening and concerned “a mystical night society of hermits fleeing from
the pressures of the outside world in a department store.”
After telling
the audience a little bit about Sondheim’s childhood and early ventures
into musical theatre, including his relationship with Oscar Hammerstein,
the narrator then introduces the next selection of songs, all from the
musical Company. Company is based on a series of one-act plays by George
Furth. The medley begins with COMPANY and segues into ANOTHER HUNDRED
PEOPLE, a song for a young woman who has just arrived in New York and is
still open-eyes with wonder at the whole town; at the “city of
strangers.” BARCELONA is a sung scene between April, an airline
stewardess, and the man that she just woke up with after a one-night
stand. Their exchange is cautious, kind, awkward and very real. When
April agrees to stay, the man is not quite sure what he got himself into
--a perfect segue into MARRY ME A LITTLE. This song was originally
intended for Company, but Harold Prince didn’t think that the mood was
right for the piece. Sondheim finished it and gave it to Mrs. Prince,
who loved the song, as a Christmas present.
The narrator
sets up the next song I NEVER DO ANYTHING TWICE by telling the audience
a little bit about its history and a little bit (fictitious) about the
woman who is going to sing it. The song was commissioned for a film
called The Seven Percent Solution, but not much of it survived the final
cuts. It is sung by the madam of a brothel and is full of saucy double
entendre.
The final set
of songs in Act I, is from Follies. The narrator tells the audience that
while Sondheim is known and will always be remembered for challenging
the conventions of musical theatre, he is most certainly aware of and
influenced by the history upon which the art form is built. The selected
songs from Follies show his ability to draw from such classic musical
styles as Irving Berlin (BEAUTIFUL GIRLS), French song writing (AH,
PAREE!) , Vaudeville (BUDDY’S BLUES), and the unforgettable songs of
DeSylva, Brown and Henderson (BROADWAY BABY). Act I is brought to a
close by a trio of girls who sing YOU COULD DRIVE A PERSON CRAZY about
the behavior of a certain man in their lives.
Act II opens
with the entire ensemble singing EVERYBODY SAYS DON’T from Anyone Can
Whistle. After the narrator relates a few behind the scene anecdotes
about Sondheim, he introduces two of Sondheim’s most simple and subtle
songs ANYONE CAN WHISTLE and SEND IN THE CLOWNS.
These moments
of quiet reflection are followed by a conversation between man and wife.
In WE’RE GONNA BE ALL RIGHT, they admit to one another that their own
marriage isn’t going very well, but that judging by the mess their
friends are in, they’re doing just fine. That song, and the two that
follow it, are songs with lyrics by Sondheim, and music by different
composers. Richard Rodgers wrote WE’RE GONNA BE ALRIGHT, and Leonard
Bernstein composed A BOY LIKE THAT and I HAVE A LOVE. The last of these
songs was written by Mary Rodgers for a New York revue called The Mad
Show and is entitled THE BOY FROM… Although Sondheim wrote the lyrics,
he signed them under the pen name Esteban Ria Nido!
The narrator
then talks at length about the creation, intention, and performance of
Pacific Overtures. This is followed by the performance of PRETTY LADY by
three of the men. This song is sung by a group of English sailors
looking in at a Japanese girl whom they mistake for a geisha.#The show
moves from geishas to strippers, as the narrator sets up the blockbuster
number YOU GOTTA GET A GIMMICK from Gypsy. This song, with music by Jule
Styne, is a tribute to the “genuine good old days of real burlesque and
strip-tease.”
Bringing the
mood down several notches, the narrator describes “three soliloquies
packed with emotion and imagery.” They are LOSING MY MIND, which
explores the desperation one feels when he/she is in love, COULD I LEAVE
YOU about a woman in a loveless marriage who doesn’t really wonder if
she could leave her husband, but what would she leave her husband after
their split, and finally I’M STILL HERE, a social history of America
from the 30’s right through the 60’s.
The revue
ends with a “medley” of Sondheim songs, literally sung in one-line
intervals, and entitled A CONVERSATION PIECE. |
