AMERICAN THEATRE: Don’t meet your heroes, goes a popular axiom. In the case of Stephen Sondheim, the composer/lyricist who redefined the possibilities if not the sound of American musical theatre, the wisdom of that advice might depend on when you caught him: in his early years, when he was learning at the feet of Oscar Hammerstein II while cannily maneuvering among peers and collaborators and chafing at the era’s, and his medium’s, restraints; in his ascendant 1970s period, when his struggle to assert his unique voice gave him a short-tempered, even manic aspect; or in his later éminence grise phase, when he mellowed into a kind of encouraging father figure for younger generations.
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I found this article to be very interesting, because while I’m obviously aware of and familiar with the work of Sondhiem (because who isn’t), I really don’t know that much about the guy himself. The article title caught my attention because it’s a lyric from company, and I am on company right now, and the music is always stuck in my head. One thing that particularly stuck out to me in this article was them bringing up how Sondhiem definitely had a significant issue with his drug and alcohol consumption. I find this funny because on more than one occasion I have absolutely heard people complain while they were trying to rehearse something by Sondheim and have said “now what was he on when he wrote this!!” as it turns out the answer to that is a lot of things, including cocaine, apparently. I didn’t get a chance to see putting it together, but now I’m kind of wishing I had, because it seems like a cool show.
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