LESSONS WE ALL NEED: FROM PAGE 17 Japanese poetry and screens enabled me
see that "The Advantages of Floating in d
"Interesting Words" for the Sondheim Society
magazine. The object was to identify a song
title from one key word "caftans," "amelio-
rate" or "reticule." I eventually produced a list
of 60 words but was surprised to discover that
the majority were sourced from shows of the
1960s and '70s. This set me wondering wheth-
er Sondheim's lyrics had become sparer and
his musie subsequently tauter. Of course, this
paring-down process is not unique to musical
theatre: One thinks of Stravinsky and Copland
who were producing
leaner scores such
as Threni and Con-
notations in later
life. Perhaps for all
three composers,
the early days of
lush orchestration
and big ensemble
numbers were
replaced by a more
austere musical
landscape where, as
Sondheim reminds
us in Finishing the
Hat, "Less Is More."
Stephen Sondheim's own Finishing the Hat takes cen-
ter stage among a collection of books about him.
B. J. Sedlock
(Defiance, Ohio)
I was delighted to read Sondheim's com-
ment about "The Road You Didn't Take": "The
last two lines make me glow with self-satisfac-
tion": "The Ben I'll never be,/Who remembers
him?" Deservedly. Who else can compact such
a large, complex idea into two brief lines?
What did happen to our future selves, who fell
by the wayside after we deviated from planned
life paths? Psychologists could explore the
idea at book length, but Sondheim uses only
eight words to get listeners thinking about
their own lost lives. Compare the ending of
his song "Finishing the Hat": "Look, I made a
hat/Where there never was a hat." I hope that
in his second volume he will be equally proud
of that lyric. Forests have been decimated to
print volumes discussing "What is art?" Here,
in a mere 11 words, listeners instantly under-
stand why artists are driven to create.
Steven Roth (Weston, Mass.)
Pacific Overtures is one of my favorite
Sondheim musicals, although the composi-
tionally and lyrically captivating numbers, in-
cluding "Someone in a Tree," "Please Hello,"
and "Chrysanthemum Tea," haven't received
their deserved popular acclaim. Finishing
the Hat enabled me to savor what Sondheim
terms the "leaner" style in which he crafted
Pacific Overtures. His description gave me
deeper appreciation for the "Less Is More"
qualities of "There Is No Other Way," "Poems"
and "A Bowler Hat." And his comments about
18 The Sondheim Review
PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor
Middle of the Sea" has all the ingredient!
what Oscar Hammerstein described to Si
hcim as the recipe for a perfect opening m
It "introduces the story, lays down the ejm
rules for the audience and sets the tone."
Patrick Conlan (Sydney)
Pages of yellow-pad workings, multitnJ
photographs, insightful comments on fell
songwriters, frank observations of his m
compositions and a comprehensive appeal
Fascinating an-car- !
dotes take <
party and how i
clinky xylophoi
accompanime^
"The Little Thi
You Do Toget^H
came about a
"Another Hund
People" was w
stopped the sfa
at the first prei
in Boston, was
dropped and d
restored
unwitting con
tion of "ehoppi
in Sweeney Tod
among many ~p*
ting on a show" tales. I agree when SonJ
proffers his favorite song of his own for T
ambition, its attempt to collapse past, f
and future into one packaged song form.1
graciously acknowledges his collaborate*
its invention by means of a five-pasK - - -
a fine example of his process of thea
writing. Sondheim has an exciting "oneI
word," as Pseudolus says at the end of A
Forum it's "Intermission" and a proa
more!
Andrew Milner (Philadelphia)
Musicals, Sondheim writes, "are the a
public art form reviewed mostly by ignoc
muses." By the end of the tour deforce 1
is Finishing the Hat, there is little ths .
ignoramus can do except raise a white fl
Much has been made of Sondheim usini
ishing the Hat to settle scores in the tba
eal community, but Broadway gets off \4
compared to higher education. His disc*
of the 1974 Yale production of The Fruff
to an attack on academic pretension ("
teaching of art, especially theater, tenth
be hidebound and stultifying as schola
and dangerously fulfilling to the teacberf
as an exercise in aesthetics") that can*
dismissed as mere philistinism or Tea R
rhetoric. With so much to be grateful i
main thing to be sorry about Finis/iru n
is that it took this long for Sondheim
his first book. |TSR|
The rest of the tale
A look at making Sweeney film, and the back-story
ans of Tim Burton's epic version of
F Siceeney Todd who enjoy reading will find
two tie-in books, both titled Sweeney
Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and
with the identical film poster image of a men-
acing Johnny Depp on the cover.
Mark Salisbury's hardcover "making-of-the-
movie book" (Tian Books) is well produced and
cleverly designed, with telltale red splotches on
many of the pages. The history of the legend is
relegated to a brief prologue, which mentions
Sondheim's 1979 Broadway version but doesn't
have any photos of the original or revival casts.
It would have been nice to compare, say,
George Hearn and Angela Lansbury from the
1982 made-for-cable presentation of the
national tour with Johnny Depp and Helena
Bonham Garter.
Of primary interest to TSR readers will
probably be Salisbury's 14-page "Making
Music" chapter, illustrating the soundtrack
recording sessions in London, with Sondheim
in attendance. (The account includes some of
the first-ever photographs of the composer
wearing reading glasses). The illustrations
include a two-page spread of Victorian-era
drawings and photographs of costume inspira-
tions, photographs of the lavish set design
(much of which was computer generated) and
Tim Burton's distinctive watercolor caricatures
of Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett, familiar to any-
body who has seen The Nightmare Before
'Christmas.
The film's actors, as they too often do in
this genre of boo^s, frequently lapse into syco-
phancy. Timothy Spall, who plays the Beadle,
says, ''Stephen Sondheim has a huge reputa-
tion as a brilliant composer and lyricist. To
have to sing in front of him was a bit like doing
Hamlet in front of Shakespeare, really." And
there's one glaring if hilarious malapropism:
Sondheim's "most useful character note to
[Bonham Garter] was, she says, to think of
Stella Dallas from A Streetcar Named Desire."
Nevertheless, the performers make a num-
ber of interesting observations about the pro-
duction. Alan Rickman (Judge Turpin)
describes the difficulty in lip-synching "Pretty
Women" with Depp while sitting in the barber
chair: "Can't look at him because he's behind.
Haven't sung with him, so you haven't heard
the two of you singing together. Plus you've got
your face covered with shaving cream. He's got
to work out how not to get it in my mouth, and
you have to work out, technically, how to
stretch your lips because it's not going to be
great if you've got sha\ing foam going on in
vour teeth.'"
REVIEWS BY ANDREW MILNER
The book concludes with a condensed
"Illustrated Story" version of the screenplay,
which includes musical scenes not in the final
movie, such as the Beggar Woman's proposi-
tioning of Anthony before the first "Johanna"
and the choral section of "God, That's Good!"
The synopsis is also bracketed by "The
Ballad of Sweeney Todd," which
Burton famously excised from the
film.
Robert L. Mack's Sweeney Todd:
The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
(Oxford University Press) reprints the
original 1847 serialized novel (original-
ly titled The String of Pearls), which
spawned the Sweeney legend. In his
lengthy introduction Mack dispatches
the idea of Sweeney ha\ing actually
lived: "It cannot be emphasized too
strongly that those accounts that insist,
even today, on the historical 'truth'
behind Todd's story arc not only wrong-
headed, but more often than not grossly
and purposefully misleading."
Though the original 1847 stage pro-
duction is credited to George Dibdin Pitt,
Mack attributes the original serialized
novel to a series of writers, most notably
George Macfarren and Thomas Peckett
Prest. "Whoever it was that wrote the ear-
liest version of the story," Mack insists,
"he was strongly under the influence of
Charles Dickens at the time." The serial-
ized Sweeney, if no masterpiece of the
"make 'em cry, make 'em laugh, make
'em wait" genre of Victorian sensation
stories, indeed owes much to The Old
Curiosity Shop and Martin Chuzzlewit,
with the revelation of the special ingre-
dient of the meat pie reserved for the
final chapter.
Devotees of the Sondheim version will be
surprised to learn that Mrs. Lovett's first name
in the original story is Margery, not Xellie. And
considering how much of the musical turns on
the fact that Johanna has blonde hair, it's even
more unsettling to read that the original
Johanna's "hair was of a glossy blackness."
Intentionally or not. one of the original charac-
ters in a story about cannibalism has the last
name "Ingestric."
\\Tiile neither book deals enough with the
Broadway musical production to be an essential
read for Sondheim fans, each is worth checking
out. ITSRI
ANDREW MILNER reviews books and CDs for the
Philadelphia City Paper.
The Sondheim Review 45
 Roots, Sondhelm-style
Swayne explores the influences of
Sondheim's musical genius
riting a book of musical analysis for the
W general public is risky business. Do you
patronize your readers by breathlessly
declaring, as Martin Gottfried did in his chatty cof-
fee-table book Sandheim (1993). that "a song is
made up of music and lyrics"? Or do you resort to
academic jargon in the manner of Stephen Banfield
in his massive Sondheim 's Broadway Musicals
(1993), which virtually requires a master's degree
in musicology? Steven Swayne has found the mid-
dle way in Hcne Sondheim Found His Sound
(University of Michigan Press, 2005) with his exam-
ination of the primary influences on Sondheim's
music, offering academic references in a manner
that even a musical neophyte can appreciate.
An associate professor of music at Dartmouth
College, Swayne devotes the first part of his book
to Sondheim's collegiate beginnings, writing the
famous "apprentice" musicals under Oscar
Hammerstein IPs mentoring while studying music
at Williams College under Robert Barrow.
Sondheim, Swayne asserts, "learned how to write
music mainly from Barrow. He learned how to cre-
ate a character mainly from Hammerstein. He
learned how to structure a scene mainly from film."
Swayne cites Hammerstein's no-nonsense men-
toring about Sondheim's post-college musical,
Climb High: "I want you to say, 'Can I interest an
audience in this to the extent that I am interested
in it?'" Swayne adds that Hammerstein "presented
Sondheim with three main characteristics of solid
writing. 'I know that the smallest kind of story can
be made to be earthshaking if the characters are
examined closely enough, and if the choice of inci-
dent is ingenious enough, and if the narrative of
the incident is told with enough depth and human
observation.' That Sondheim met these three con-
ditions in all his mature shows reveals the extent of
his indebtedness to Hammerstein's tutelage."
Swayne also examines the impact Harold Arlen's
composing had on Sondheim's songwriting.
Sondheim told Swayne that Arlen's "harmonic
structures and his harmonies are, to me, endlessly
rich, inventive and fascinating, and I never tire of
his music." Swayne contends that "What Can "Vbu
Lose?" from Dick Tracy (which he analyzes in
detail) echoes Arlen's harmonics and song struc-
ture.
Swayne's book also studies Sondheim's movie
influences, particularly the films of Alain Resnais,
whose Stavisky was scored by Sondheim. Swayne
observes, "When the complexities of the Sondheim
musicals of the seventies and beyond are bracketed
by the French New Wave on one side and by
Sondheim's own comments about the nom-elle
vague on the other, the influence of the French
New Wave upon Sondheim virtually establishes
= E . -..: -.-
itself. Sondheim trafficked in a popular medium
and yet brought it to an intellectual severity, a poli-
tique d'auteur and even a manner of visualization
that resemble Resnais' films in particular."
The book's 69-page centerpiece of the book is
Swayne's masterful dissection of "Putting It
Together" from Sunday in the Park isAth George:
"What better song, then, in which to examine
Sondheim's amalgamations and his 'bit by bit'
manner of construction than the song that most
closely scrutinizes the art of making art?" It's a
wonderful section, with copious musical quotations
displaying the parallels between "Putting It
Together" and its first-act antecedents "The Day
Off" and "Finishing the Hat." Swayne analyzes the
song's cinematic techniques. " [A] look at the
vocal score quickly reveals the song's structural
complexity and similarity to a composite cinematic
scene," where 17 different characters engage in
conversation with musical equivalents of freeze-
frame cuts and camera pans. Swayne concludes
that the song "is unapologetically collaborative,
and it shows what can result from successful collab-
oration. On this level, it is at the vanguard of musi-
cal theater writing."
For all the examination of the composing influ-
ences, Swayne offers little insight into Sondheim's
lyric-writing influences. It would have been useful
to compare and contrast Sondheim's early lyrics
with those of Hammerstein, Frank Loesser and
Dorothy Fields. And while we're treated to snippets
of Sondheim-written dialogue from his collegiate
work, Swayne does not study the mature scripts for
The Last of Sheila or Getting Away With Murder.
Svvayne closes his "Sondheim the Tunesmith" chap-
ter with a Sondhcimesque verse: "It's no sin that
Berlin Sondheim only pastiches/Like Porter, his
forte's in the words he unleashes ..." His verse
comes off as too clever by half.
These minor flaws aside, Swayne has put togeth-
er a well-researched, coherent look at where it all
began for Sondheim. For trivia buffs. Swayne lists
the English and drama courses Sondheim took at
Williams, as well as a cross-section of the com-
posers in Sondheim's mammoth record collection
(Chopin, Hindemith and Prokofiev are each d
represented). Hem- Sondheim Found Hit
could become a standard text for iotmdbna
lege musical theatre courses and sfandd eufcfafc
Svvayne as a prominent theatre I
ies of "What Can You Lost -
Together" are so on the i
he would bring his;
an entire Sondheim score. I
::; -: -r
Phaadclphia Oty Paper.
The Sondheim Review 49
 THE POWER OF SONDHEIM: FROM PAGE 9
wasn't as melodic and the people were so un-
happy. Teenage rebellion struck, and I decided
all Rodgers must be bad and all Sondheim must
be good. Thankfully, with age, I've come to
realize that there can be just as much pith in a
Rodgers and Hart or Rodgers and Hammcrstein
song. Similarly, my dad's come to appreciate
Sondhcim's work, most notably Sweeney Todd.
He'll watch the video of the original Hal Prince
production at the drop of a hat and swears it's
one of the best musicals ever. Andy Propst,
New York City
Because I played instruments. I had been
invited to audition for the understudy roles of
Pirelli and The Beggar Woman in John Doyle's
Broadway production of Sweeney Todd. so I
thought I should see it rirst. Since I was a flute
and voice major in college. I will admit to being
jaded about what I was going to see. I imag-
ined that the acting would be superior and the
music would be just so-so. I spent the entire
first act with my jaw dropped. They all acted,
sang and played in the best version of Sweeney
I had ever seen. The musicianship was amazing,
and I heard things I had never heard before in
relation to the characters and the instruments
being "one." It was so gritty and real that I
left thinking "Oh my gosh, I can't understudy
that, it's too complex!" I didn't need to worry; I
wasn't cast. A bit later I was dhlled in for Doyle's
Company and learned, from the ground up.
how to dive into a Sondheim musical with both
feet ... and fingers. Kristin Huffman, Milford, physical prizes were
Conn., who played the role of Sarah (plus flute, sax
and piccolo) in the Tony Award-winning revival of
musical that shocked Broadway!" I had heard of
Sondheim from reading theatre re\iews in news
magazines, but had never seen any of his shows.
From the first viewing of Sweeney I was hooked.
I borrowed a VCR, taped the show next time it
was on and watched it over and over, sometimes
multiple times in one day. Near obsession fol-
lowed, and I read all I could about the creators
and performers. That started me down the path
of eventually writing occasional pieces for TSR.
B.J. Sedlock, Defiance, Ohio
Although I adored the original Broadway ver-
sion oilnto the Woods, my favorite production
was one for which I served as musical director
at the Black River Playhouse in Chester. X.J..
an old church converted into a theatre-in-the-
round. Aside from an excellent cast, what made
this production so marvelous was the intimate
space the theatre scats no more than 100
people with actors
literally walking around
the theatre and forc-
ing the audience to
join the characters in
their journeys through
the woods. The circu-
lar nature of the space
illustrated how these
individuals were not
merely embarking on a
linear journey to reach
some unobtainable
object (especially when
they realize that their
useless), but rather they
were spiraling deep into TflOrtHS iSKfWD

Company their psyches toward the

epiphany that no one
Believe it or not, during my senior year in is truly alone. With our
high school in the late '70s I began studying director's expert staging, this charming theatre-
(ireek! Later that year I was cast in a produc- in-thc-round enhanced the frustrated journeys
tion of The Boy Friend, in which I was a featured of the main characters, while their relentlessly
dancer in a tango number. One night on TV a circular movements were obsessively in sync
promo appeared for an upcoming episode of with Sondhcim's score, \\ith its repeated musi-
The Dick Cuvett Show with Elaine Stritch as a cal motives and lyrical phrases. Patrick Koran.
guest. As it happened, she is a distant relative of Bloomfield, N.J.
my best friend, who called and told me I had to
watch. Elaine sang "Anyone Can Whistle," and I first discovered Stephen Soadhein
you can imagine the moment when I heard the when I was about seven and saw a rera
lyric "I can dance a tango, I can read Greek." It episode of The Brady Bunch. ~
was a definite "stop moment." Never mind that, Go On?" Carol Brady (Florence
as so many Sondheim fans often report, the rest and Marcia (Maureen McCora
of the song spoke to me on very specific and at a school talent show
intimate levels. That was the night that Stephen boes. they sang 'Togethec.
Sondheim's art entered my world. John Bell, I instantly found the
Center Valley, Pa. musically superior BO d
on that siuoai l~k's a
When I took the plunge and first subscribed -
to cable TV in the early '80s, I was determined
to get my money's worth by watching everything
on the pay channel. Showtime used a clever
marketing ploy to promote its presentation of
the national tour of S-ii-eenev Todd: "This is tt
COMmilES ON MGE 12

PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor
I THE POWER OF SONDHEIM: FROM PAGE 11
that particular episode has been rerun over the
last 35 years in hundreds of markets around the
world to tens of millions of viewers, it just might
be Sondheim's most widely heard lyric.
Andrew Milner, Bryn Mawr, Pa.
Is there any show in American musical
theatre more graceful than A Little Night Music?
Any examination of what went wrong with the
American Dream more incisive than Assassins?
(Well, may-
be Road
Show.)
Any medi-
tation on
evil more
chilling-
yet-exhila-
rating than
Sweeney
Todd?
What
makes
Sond-
heim's
scores the
most pen-
etrating in
the canon
is their in-
tegrity, in
the sense
of whole-
ness, of
being com-
plete and
undivided.
Those crit-
ics who in-
sist that ''Sondheim can't write melody" clearly
haven't been listening to the soaring "Kiss Me"
or the long, sustained orchestral line underlying
the frantic New York patter in "Another Hundred
People." Instead, they've been hearing the words
and little wonder. Sondheim's lyries are the
quirkiest, the edgiest, the most literate; they are
bearers of emotional truth. "Which comes first
generally the words or the music?" that clue-
less interviewer asks Charley Kringas in
"Franklin Shepard, Inc." In Sondheim, the words
and the music are one. \bu can pick them apart,
but they're as intertwined as a double helix of
DNA. That's the quality that makes a Sondheim
musical a "Sondheim Musical" to the extent
that casual observers tend to forget the Hugh
Wheelers and the James Lapincs and the John
Weidmans of this world and assume Sondheim
wrote, in the words of Buddy Plummer, "the
whole show." They provide the book, but he sup-
plies the soul. Diane Nottle, New York City
The bold jacket to the original cast LP, still
looking groovy after all these years, proudly
12 --_ 5:--- -._ ;
PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor
proclaims Company: A Musical Coined*.
glance at what quickly became a "desert!
disc" for me, I thought it might have boi
ironic moniker. Hadn't Sondheim abaafl
"pure" musical comedy as he pushed tbc
forward with this landmark concept shoi
wrong I was. Sondheim and Furth's Cat
takes all the elements of musical corned
book! the score! the choreography! thefj
tion numbers! and puts them in serviJ
an acute, incisive look at relationships ua
is still raw and truthful today. The charaa
arc so identifiable, so familiar that it's a
sible to leave the theatre without looking!
ourselves and those good and crazy peof
friends. And Sondheim's score? Itfinds
everyday life and yet sounds like no othej
"Thrilling" and "pulsating" come to mind.
It's edgy and rhythmic, like the city that
its DNA. Moreover, Company lends itself
staggering variety of interpretations by (
tors and performers. Every new product
adventure. The orchestration, the settin
tone might change, will change, but I :
provoked, intrigued, laughing, crying.
it's simply the best that musical theatre)
musical comedy can offer. Company is
It remains the most affecting show for i
Sondheim's entire canon. Joe Marches
Clark, N.J.
The original production of Follies wa>
Instead of being told in a typical clear na
style, the show had a dreamlike atmospheJ
going from scenes with the lead characters!
vignette with a minor one, from present to
and then having the past and present inter^
ing. Things that could seem unreal or pret^B
tious worked and seemed natural. And wheJ
on a dark, almost bare stage, in the middle^
the quarreling characters, Loveland suddeJ
appeared out of nowhere, filling the the;;:-.
light and music the effect was incredible. I
Financial reasons would probably keep anyd
on that level from being done today unf<:i
natcly, because part of the point of Follies isd
contrast between the lavishness of the "Foil*
and the reality of the lead characters' lives. 1
original performers supplied unforgettable
mcnts: Gene Nelson's dance to "The Right G
the way, at the end, when Buddy is telling Sal
they will deal with things tomorrow, Dorothy-
Collins looked out into the empty theatre ana I
said, "Dear God, this is tomorrow." Greg Da- I
rak, Trumbull, Conn.
For every artist, there is one moment in yw
life when something clicks within you and thra(
just make sense. For me, I will always rernem- I
ber the moment I saw Sunday in the Park \cidi \
George for the first time. It was a period of titaj
when I wasn't sure of my path. I was uncertain j
what I should do with my life. As "Sunday"
finished the first act, I found tears pouring dam
my face. Not tears of sadness, but rather joy. m

Resurrecting the echoes
Follies' revival cast recording captures
more material than any previous version
The image for Follies' revival
production was designed by
Frank "Fraver" Verlizzo. It's used
as the cover for the new cast
recording.
46The Sondheim Review
W e are now 40 years removed from the
1971 Broadway opening of Follies, as
distant as that show was from the actual
Ziegfeld productions that inspired it. The 2011
Broadway revival is not only summoning the
spirits of the Broadway era of George Gershwin,
Irving Berlin and Cole Porter, but the memories
of director Harold Prince and
choreographer Michael Ben-
nett's staging of the original
Follies. PS Classics has done
an excellent job resurrect-
ing those echoes in its cast
recording of the Broadway-
revival, released in late No-
vember 2011.
Clocking in at one hour
and 46 minutes on two CDs,
this recording (produced by
Tommy Krasker and Philip
Chaffin) includes more of
James Goldman's libretto
than any previous Follies al-
bum. It relegates most of the
speeches to separate tracks
while wisely keeping the
underscoring of the onstage
pit band throughout much of
the show. Most significantly,
almost all of the dialogue of
the "ghosts" of the four main
characters (Lorra Lee Gayer
as Sally, Christian Delcroix as
Buddy, Kirsten Scott as Phyl-
lis and Nick Verina as Ben)
has been retained, and they
have a much stronger presence here than on
earlier Fogies recordings. While recent Broadway
audiences have grown accustomed to pared-
down pit accompaniment, Follies is one show
that requires a larger-than-life sound, and Jona-
than Tunick's orchestrations for the 28-piece
orchestra have never sounded clearer or, in the
cases of "Losing My Mind" and "One More Kiss,"
more poignant.
The 2011 album generally displays the musi-
cal's four central protagonists to their best
advantage. Bernadette Peters, who since the
mid-1980s has become the premier Sondheim
interpreter, brings a genuine vulnerability to the
role of Sally. During the "Prelude" she intro-
duces herself as "Sally Durant ... Plummer,"
and that pause before her married name speaks
volumes about her disillusionment over what her
life has become. If Barbara Cook's renditions of
"In Buddy's Eyes" and "Losing My Mind" on the
1985 Avery Fisher Hall recording remain two of
Reviews
REVIEW BY ANDREW MILNER
the best performances of Sondheim material,
Peters does a better job in these songs of captur-
ing Sally's self-delusions.
Jan Maxwell handles her numbers skillfully
while embodying the reserve of Phyllis, although
she goes emotionally overboard at the climax of
"Could I Leave You?" It might have been better
to keep cool throughout that entire song to
contrast with the unleashing of "The Story of
Lucy and Jessie." (This recording, unlike the
1971 original cast album and the 1985 Avery
Fisher Hall live recording, includes the dance
break.) Ron Raines draws out Ben's vulnerability
during the dialogue sections and "The Road You
Didn't Take." Danny Burstein clearly conveys
Buddy's exasperation, from his attempt to tell a
corny joke during the "Overture" through "The
Right Girl" and "The-God-Why-Don't-You-Love-
Me Blues."
The rest of the ensemble comes off equally
brilliantly. Elaine Paige understands the world-
weariness of Carlotta. and her "I'm Still Here"
builds in confidence and defiance, rivaling
Yvonne De Carlo's original performance as the
definitive version of this standard. Terri White
brings more personality to the role of Stella
Deems than earlier performers, with an especial-
ly vivid lead on "Who's That Woman?" Rosalind
Elias and Leah Horowitz perform an exquisite
"One More Kiss," the nod to operetta that could
serve as the theme to the entire musical.
The booklet features the complete lyrics and
many full-color photos from the Marquis Theatre
production. Patrick Pacheco of the Los Angeles
Times has also contributed a slightly porten-
tous introductory essay, which tries too hard to
draw parallels between the despair of the early
1970s characters and the malaise of the real
world 2011: "America, it would seem, has finally
caught up to Follies. The worth of the Georgian
silver in Phyllis's dining room, the sophisticated
socialite, might have inflated from $30,000 to
$60,000 in the intervening four decades, but it's
the deflated dreams and tarnished hopes now
loosed throughout the land that have brought
American society into such sharp accord with
the harsh and unvarnished truths of Follies."
If recordings of the original Broadway pro-
duction of Follies (official or bootleg) remain the
ultimate standard for many Sondheim fans, PS
Classics has nevertheless added to the public's
understanding of this masterpiece with its vital
cast album. |TSR|
ANDREW MILNER reviews books and CDs for Phila-
delphia's City Paper. He has been a TSR contributor
since 2004.

More insights
from Sondheim
Composer/lyricist is a commentator
on West Side Story Blu-ray release
A
t o n e p o i n t in A Place for Us, a t h o r o u g h
documentary accompanying the new Blu-
r a y release o f t h e 1 9 6 1 m o t i o n p i c t u r e
West Side Story, i t i s n o t e d t h a t w h e n P r e s i d e n t
O b a m a v i s i t e d B u c k i n g h a m Palace i n 2 0 0 9 , h e
presented Queen Elizabeth I I w i t h an iPod con-
taining music f r o m the musical. I n Snmecliing's
Coming, M i s h a B e r s o n ' s West Side Story h i s t o r y ,
she p r o c l a i m s , " I t ' s k i n d o f a w a y o f s a y i n g , 'You
k n o w , t h i s is o u r p o p c u l t u r e , b u t y o u share i t
w i t h u s . ' " B e r n s t e i n protege J o h n M a u c e r i adds,
" T h e fact t h a t West Side Story was a p a r t o f t h a t
is e x a c t l y r i g h t . VVesr Side Story is a n e s s e n t i a l
part of A m e r i c a n c u l t u r e . " A t t h a t fulsome mo-
m e n t , S o n d h e i m h i m s e l f appears o n s c r e e n t o
add s o m e levity. " G u e s s w h a t ? I d i d n ' t k n o w t h a t
u n t i l t h i s m i n u t e . D i d she a b d i c a t e ? T h e i d e a
of h e r w i t h t h e l i t t l e c a r b u d s ... I ' m s o r r y , " h e
chuckles, " i t ' s t o o funny."
A m o n g the o t h e r features o n t h e three-disc
set is S o n d h e i m ' s n e w l y r e c o r d e d song-by-song
a u d i o c o m m e n t a r y , w h i c h takes u p 19 m i n u t e s
of t h e 1 5 3 - m i n u t c m o v i e . (A^Tiile h e says i n h i s
c o m m e n t a r y a b o u t " T h e Dance a t t h e G y m "
t h a t " m y f a v o r i t e m u s i c i n t h e score is t h e d a n c e
m u s i c , " t h e r e is n o S o n d h e i m c o m m e n t a r y f o r
"The R u m b l e " o r "The Taunting.")
Readers o f S o n d h e i m ' s 2 0 1 0 Finishing the Hat
will find m o s t o f his c o m m e n t a r i e s o n the disc
familiar. O f t h e l y r i c s t o " M a r i a , " S o n d h e i m says,
" L e n n y and I disagreed about w h a t poetic lyrics
are. I t w a s n ' t a b i g , v e r b a l d i s a g r e e m e n t ; i t was
an a p p r o a c h . L e n n y w e n t f o r r a t h e r heavy, w h a t
I c a l l ' p u r p l e ' prose. A n d I , h a v i n g b e e n b r o u g h t
u p b y Oscar H a m m c r s t e i n a l t h o u g h O s c a r
has h i s share o f v e r y f r u i t y i m a g e s , t o o I r e a l l y
believe t h a t as m u c h as p o s s i b l e t h e k i d s i n t h i s
show s h o u l d speak v e r y s i m p l y a n d t h e r e f o r e
sing v e r y s i m p l y . ... L e n n y ' s m u s i c i s w h a t m a k e s
the p l a i n K T I C p o e t i c . "
" S o m e t h i n g ' s C o m i n g , " Tony's i n t r o d u c t o r y
song, S o n d h e i m n o t e s , was w r i t t e n i n j u s t t w o
days: " I t has t h a t f e e l i n g o f s p o n t a n e i t y t o i t . I t
doesn't feel so ' w o r k e d o v e r ' t h e way 1 t h i n k so
m a n y o f t h e o t h e r l y r i c s feel. Too o f t e n i n t h e
show y o u c a n feel t h e sweat f r o m t h e l y r i c w r i t e r
in the lyTics, b u t n o t , 1 t h i n k , i n 'Something's
Coming.'"
Sondheim includes a funny story about t h e
provenance o f B e r n s t e i n ' s m e l o d y f o r " A m e r i c a " :
"Lenny came back from a vacation i n Puerto
Rico a n d said t h a t h e ' d c o m e across a w o n d e r f u l
dance r h y t h m c a l l e d t h e huapungo, and he said,
Reviews
REVIEW BY ANDREW IVIILNER
' A n d I have a n i d e a f o r a t u n e . ' A n d h e w e n t t o
t h e p i a n o a n d h e s t a r t e d g o i n g 'Ya-ta-ta ya-ta-ta
t u m - t u m - t u m ' w i t h t h e i d e a o f a l t e r n a t i n g be-
t w e e n six a n d t h r e e , six a n d t h r e e ... A n d , m a n y
years l a t e r , a f r i e n d o f m i n e f o u n d i n a b o x o f
Lenny's papers a n u n p r o d u c e d ballet he'd w r i t -
t e n c a l l e d Conch Town [ c o m p o s e d i n 1 9 4 1 1 , a n d
t h e f r i e n d said, ' L o o k o n page 1 7 . ' A n d there, o n
p a g e 1 7 , was 'Ya-ta-ta y a - t a - t a t u m - t u m - t u m . ' H e
m a d e u p t h a t w h o l e s t o r y so h e c o u l d use t h a t
o l d tu ne and, of course, I fell for i t . "
T h e h a l f - h o u r A Place for Us d o c u m e n t a r y
f e a t u r e s a n a s s o r t m e n t o f t a l k i n g heads, f r o m
o r i g i n a l Broadway star C h i t a Rivera t o movie
chorus m e m b e r s Jaime Rogers ( L o c o ) a n d
Yvonne Wilder (Consucla); f r o m Debbie A l l e n
( w h o p l a y e d A n i t a i n t h e 1 9 8 0 B r o a d w a y revival)
t o c u r r e n t B r o a d w a y f i g u r e s s u c h as L i n - M a n u e l
M i r a n d a a n d S u s a n S t r o m a n w h o a t t e s t t o West
Side Story's i n f l u e n c e o n t h e i n t e g r a t e d m u s i -
c a l . I t also i n c o r p o r a t e s Family Giiy a n d That
'70s S h o w h o m a g e s . M i k h a i l B a r y s h n i k o v t e l l s o f
w a t c h i n g t h e H i m f o r t h e first t i m e i n J a p a n i n
1969 and immediately r u n n i n g out and purchas-
ing a lavender shirt s i m i l a r t o the one George
C h a k i r i s w o r e as B e r n a r d o .
A m o n g t h e o t h e r d i s c f e a t u r e s a r e West Side
Memories, a 55-minute documentary from 2003
( f r o m a D\T C o l l e c t o r ' s Set r e l e a s e d t h a t y e a r ) ,
w h i c h includes silent h o m e movie footage o f
l o c a t i o n s h o o t i n g o n N e w Y o r k C i t y ' s W e s t Side,
and recordings of Natalie Wood's actual singing
v o i c e i n " A m e r i c a " b e f o r e M a r n i NLxon d u b b e d
h e r vocals. \ b u ' l l also f i n d a b r i e f d o c u m e n t a r y ,
Pow! The Dances of West Side Story a n d a five-
m i n u t e montage of Maurice Zuberano's original
s t o r y b o a r d s c o m p a r e d t o t h e final m o v i e f o o t -
age.
T h e film is a n i d e a l fit f o r B l u - r a y ' s c l a r i t y ,
f r o m t h e o p e n i n g overhead shots of New York
C i t y t o the sheen o f t h e switchblade k n i f e i n t h e
r u m b l e . W i t h t h e B l u - r a y release c o i n c i d i n g w i t h
the 5 0 t h anniversary o f the movie's theatrical
release, t h e i n d e s t r u c t i b l e West Side Story c o n -
q u e r s y e t a n o t h e r m e d i u m . |TSR|
ANDREW MILNER is a contributor to Base Ball: A
Journal of the Early Game and the Philadelphia City
Paper. He has been writing for TSR since 2004.
The Sondheim Review 41