For the American musical theater, Stephen Sondheim, who died last year, has been unquestionably the most significant composer-lyricist of our time. Among many titles, he wrote the lyrics for Gypsy and West Side Story and the music and lyrics for Company, Follies, A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd and Sunday in the Park with George. Eighteen shows in all. A remarkable career.
He captured the interest of this column because he insisted that he was not a poet and did not write poetry, while I submit that he was and he did, at least in a broad definition. If you weren’t aware there was music for this following piece from Company you could easily consider it as a fine contemporary poem of the sort that T.S. Eliot might have written.
Another hundred people just got off of the train
And came up through the ground
While another hundred people just got off of the bus
And are looking around
At another hundred people who got off of the plane
And are looking at us
Who got off of the train
And the plane, and the bus
Maybe yesterday
It’s a city of strangers
Some come to work, some to play
A city of strangers
Some come to stare, some to stay
And every day
The ones who stay
Can find each other in the crowded streets
and the guarded parks
By the rusty fountains and the dusty trees
with the battered barks
And they walk together past the postered walls
with the crude remarks
And they meet at parties through the friends-of-friends,
who they never know
“Will you pick me up, or do I meet you there,
or shall we let it go?
Did you get my message? ‘Cause I looked in vain
Can we see each other Tuesday if it doesn’t rain?
Look, I’ll call you in the morning, or my service’ll explain.”
And another hundred people just got off of the train.
* * *
Sondheim’s rationale for not being considered a poet was that the material he wrote was not complete until it was joined to a melody. Poetry would stand alone. But Sondheim knew everything there was to know about the poetic craft, and more than a little of his work can very happily be read without music. Let me make a comparison.
Here are character description verses by the esteemed Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
Under a spreading chestnut-tree
The village smithy stands;
The smith, a mighty man is he,
With large and sinewy hands,
And the muscles of his brawny arms
Are strong as iron bands.
Week in, week out, from morn till night,
You can hear his bellows blow;
You can hear him swing his heavy sledge,
With measured beat and slow,
Like a sexton ringing the village bell,
When the evening sun is low.
Now, here is character descriptive writing from Stephen Sondheim, a lyric that is equally poetic albeit with a very contemporary feel.
Here’s to the ladies who lunch.
Everybody laugh.
Lounging in their caftans and planning a brunch.
On their own behalf.
Off to the gym, then to a fitting.
Claiming they’re fat and looking grim
Cause they’ve been sitting choosing a hat.
Does anyone still wear a hat?
I’ll drink to that.
And here’s to the girls who play smart–
Aren’t they a gas?
Rushing to their classes in optical art,
Wishing it would pass.
Another long exhausting day,
Another thousand dollars.
A matinee, a Pinter play,
Perhaps a piece of Mahler’s.
I’ll drink to that.
And one for Mahler!
And here’s to the girls who play wife —
Aren’t they too much?
Keeping house but clutching a copy of LIFE,
Just to keep in touch.
The ones who follow the rules,
And meet themselves at the schools,
Too busy to know that they’re fools,
Aren’t they a gem?
I’ll drink to them.
Let’s all drink to them.
* * *
Sondheim was not reluctant to voice his opinions of other poets and lyricists, and he would willingly praise his comrades. He said that couplets don’t come any better than this one by E.Y. Harburg:
Even the rabbits
Inhibit their habits
On Sunday in Cicero Falls.
And he delighted in a lyric by Howard Dietz who described “Hamlet” as a play
Where a ghost and a prince meet
And everyone ends as mincemeat.
Sondheim himself took a back seat to no one in his adroit use of language. I relish the wordplay in this verse about how life in the movies can’t be applied to real life.
If a person treads the path of sin
So her daughter can eat quail,
In the movies she’s a heroine,
But in Brooklyn she’d go to jail.
In the movies, life is finer,
Life is cleaner.
But in Brooklyn, it’s a minor
Misdemeanor.
* * *
So we should note that while people know and treasure the complex and often emotionally-challenging side of Sondheim’s writing, (See video) there was a humorous side as well. Let me take you back to 1974 and a Sondheim production very few people saw . . . I was one of the lucky ones. It took place in the swimming pool at Yale and was an update of a classical play by Aristophanes called “The Frogs.” Right from the start you knew you were in for something special when Dionysos and his slave, Xanthias, gave an Invocation with Instructions to the Audience:
Dionysos: (to the heavens) Gods of the theater, smile on us.
Xanthias: You who sit up there in judgment,
Smile on us.
Dionysos: You who look down on actors . . .
Xanthias: And who doesn’t?
Both: Bless this yearly festival and smile on us.
Xanthias: (to the audience) You who sit out there stern in judgment, smile on us. We offer you song and dance,
Dionysos: Yes, but first, some do’s and don’ts, Mostly don’ts.
Please don’t cough,
It tends to throw the actors off.
Have some respect for Aristophanes
And please,
Don’t cough.
Please don’t swim –
The theater is a temple, not a gym.
Apart from being perilous to life and limb
We may be in the middle of a sacred hymn,
So please,
Don’t swim.
Don’t say “What?”
To every line you think you haven’t got.
And if you’re in a snit
Because you’ve missed the plot,
(Of which I must admit
There’s not an awful lot),
Still don’t say “What?”
Xanthias: What?
Dionysos: If we are crude, please,
Don’t sit and brood, please.
Let’s not be too straitlaced —
The author’s reputation isn’t based
On taste.
So please don’t fart.
There’s very little air and this is art.
And should we get offensive, don’t lose heart,
Pretend it’s just the playwright being smart.
And now
(A roll of thunder from the gods)
Both: We start!
* * *
And by the way, among the Frogs in that production were Sigourney Weaver and Meryl Streep. And I didn’t know they could swim!
In 2004 “Frogs” had a brief revival on dry land at Lincoln Center.
* * *
To be amused can be quite grand in the moment. To be deeply moved can be a lifetime experience. It has happened to me only rarely, and never more so than at the end of the first act of “Sunday in the Park with George.” As the live characters join the figures in the Seurat painting, the chorus sings:
People strolling through the trees
Of a small suburban park
On an island in the river
On an ordinary Sunday.
Sunday.
The music swells and this heart is overwhelmed. At a tribute concert to Sondheim, nearly half a thousand young performers sang this stanza.
* * *
Personal Note: Once upon a time I was all set to enroll at Williams College when, at the last minute, I accepted an invitation from Harvard. They had a name-above-title music faculty, but Williams had a brilliant young undergrad named Stephen Sondheim, and looking back now, sharing his musical classes and experiences could have been wildly rewarding. And I might have met the gods and goddesses that had taken him on.
* * *
VIDEO. In the history of American musical theatre, no one has written more movingly and effectively for women than Stephen Sondheim. Here from an 80th birthday celebration are two of the great Sondheim ladies. Bernadette Peters sings “Not a Day Goes By” from “Merrily We Roll Along,” and the indomitable Elaine Stritch, at age eighty-five, sings “I’m Still Here” from “Follies. We close with a quote from Alice Roosevelt.
CLICK ON THIS LINK FOR VIDEO: SUNDAY IN THE EDGE WITH STEVE
