The Happiest Medium » Stephen Sondheim

Hurry! Hurry! Step Right Up to the Box Offices! Last Chance! A Lot of Shows Are About to Disappear; PBS Specials; On the Record – New Releases

Ellis Nassour — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 22:47:31 +0000

It’s that time of year loyal lovers of theater dread. Shows that have been struggling to make it, will be closing. The light at the end of the tunnel, as is always the case with Broadway, is that new, and some are quite exciting, shows will be taking their place.

The musical Ghost, based on the 1990 smash film, gave up the ghost Saturday [August 17]. The End of the Rainbow, with [whether you believe the arc of the play to be factual or fiction] a commanding performance by Tracie Bennett, heads out to tour soon [and will be adapted for the screen] and, as of Sunday, there’s no Judy, Judy, Judy on Broadway. On August 29, the curtain rings down on glitzy Sister Act.

Closing it’s limited engagement on September 1 is the New York Shakespeare Festival’s revival of Sondheim’s Into the Woods, playing Central Park’s Delacorte Theatre [free admission], and starring Oscar winner Amy Adams and Tony winner Donna Murphy.

September 2 we must say cheerio to one of this season best entertainments, One Man, Two Guvnors, starring 2012 Best Actor, the incomparable James Corden. It’s a laugh riot and should be at the top of your Must See list. Also closing the same day is this year’s Best Play, Bruce Norris’s Clybourne Park, also a Pulitzer Prize honoree and Olivier Award winner.
The acclaimed 2012 Tony-winning revival of George and Ira Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess,starring Audra McDonald

Porgy and Bess (Audra McDonald and Norm Lewis | Photo by Michael J. Lutch)

[except August 21-23], Norm Lewis, and David Alan Grier, has posted September 23 for its final performance. Rumor has it heading to the big screen, directed by Spike Lee.

Off Broadway, you can catch the last performances of the popular farce, Potted Potter, which presents all seven Harry Potter books in 70 minutes.

Still holding strong Off Broadway is Nina Raine’s must-see family drama Tribes, one of the best plays of this or any recent season.

In previews or soon to open are the play Grace, co-starring Paul Rudd and Ed Asner; the musical Chaplin, based on the life of filmdom’s silent era king, the Tramp; one of Broadway’s biggest blockbusters, the Tony-winning Annie; Roundabout Theater Company’s revival of Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac and Rupert Holmes’ Tony-winning The Mystery of Edwin Drood, based on Dickens’ incomplete last novel and co-starring legendary Broadway favorite Chita Rivera; and Chicago’s Steppenwolf’s revival of Edward Albee’s landmark play, the scorching Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf?

Also in the good news department, a brand new edition of Gerard Alessandrini’s wickedly funny send-up Forbidden Broadway, Alive and Kicking! has arrived.

PBS Specials

PBS regularly airs performances of the Metropolitan Opera and a variety of the best in classical and pop concerts. Coming up is a superb example of the former.

Verdi’s La Traviata gets a contemporary design that’s both off-putting and provocative on August 23 at 9 P.M. and August 26 at Noon in Willy Decker’s production that might not satisfy loyalists but breathes new breath into a classic. Celebrated French soprano Natalie Dessay delivers a staggering portrayal of Violetta. Matthew Polenzani is Alfredo, with acclaimed Russian bass Dmitri Hvorostovsky’s magnificent portrayal of Giorgio. The Met’s Fabio Luisi conducts.

Upcoming: Vienna Philharmonic Summer Night Concert, Great Performances, August 31, 9 P.M.; Paul McCartney, Live Kisses, September 7, 9 P.M.

On the Record

Tony winner and two-time Grammy nominee Betty Buckley’s new solo album, Ah, Men! The Boys of Broadway [Palmetto Records] features tunes from her acclaimed 2011 concert, “songs,” she says, “we gals never got to sing. It’s my take on some of the soaring melodies the men got to sing.” The 14 tracks include Irving Berlin’s “My Defenses Are Down,” Annie Get Your Gun; Bernstein/Sondheim’s “Maria,” West Side Story; Frank Loesser’s “Luck Be a Lady,” Guys and Dolls; and a suite from Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd.

Raissa Katon Bennett, cabaret award winner and a later Christine in Andrew Lloyd Webber and Charles Hart’s Phantom of the Opera, has released Another Kind of Light [LML Records]. The 15 tracks include Broadway, pop, and jazz. Among the highlights is “Ordinary Miracles” by Marvin Hamlisch and Alan and Marilyn Bergman, Cole Porter’s “I Concentrate on You,” and the rarely-recorded “How Could I Not?” by Alan Menken and David Spencer from the musical adaptation of The
Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz. Bennett performs songs from the album August 21-25 at Feinstein’s at Loews Regency. To book, click here.

Swing Your Razor Wide, Sweeney

Karen Tortora-Lee — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 15:15:00 +0000

I was half-convinced I’d waken.
Satisfied enough to dream you,
happily I was mistaken ….

– “Johanna” / Sweeney Todd

My obsession with Sweeney Todd has been going on for close to 25 years now … trumped only by my obsession with the wondrous Stephen Sondheim himself which started when I was barely 13.

I can still remember that moment that froze me, made me stand still in the middle of that black and white checkered floor in my parent’s basement, where I’d lip-synced my way through the Rogers and Hammerstein canon. I’d just gotten the album “Hooked on Broadway” (Part of the successful “Hooked On …” series) and was listening to it for the first time. There was a Sondheim/Gershwin tribute and I was a Gershwin fan ever since I heard Rhapsody in Blue so was paying particular attention. Who this Sondheim fella was, I hadn’t a clue. Oh, but I was about to find out … and nothing would ever be the same again.

In the middle of the medley, a phrase rang out – two notes, really, but two notes in the middle of a phrase that was already so lush – and I just couldn’t believe that music could sound like that, that this unexpected note could pop up and suddenly give the whole phrase an undertone of darkness. That something so heavy with beauty could turn ugly in just two notes and then rebound to the glorious fullness from where it came — this was a concept that was astonishing to me. I had come from the old school world of musical theatre; dissonance had never played a part in any of my favorites before. The liner notes of the album told me that the two notes were from the song “Johanna” … the musical was Sweeney Todd. The phrase was the one I quoted above.

Once I found out about Sondheim, I couldn’t stop. I collected everything I could lay my hands on.

Company, Sweeney Todd, A Little Night Music, Follies, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Merrily We Roll Along, Anyone Can Whistle … like someone who can tell Coke from Pepsi blindfolded and in one sip, I could spot a Sondheim internal rhyme with both hands tied behind my back by the time I was 14. I became a purist and a completist … I own records of works of his that never were produced, retrospectives, tributes. I could name that tune in 2 notes.

I even gave up my starry-eyed notion of love so instilled in me by Rogers and Hammerstein for the more jaded (realistic) attitude of Sondheim. And years later, when I took pen to paper to write the Great American Novel, it was a tragedy only partially less grim than Sweeney Todd. Tragic death, mistaken guilt, a lifetime of revenge, pawns who suffer needlessly and never understand why; yes, it was all there.

I was in high school when PBS started airing the live version starring George Hearn and Angela Lansbury and I became so obsessed that it made all my previous obsessions look like casual dabblings. I taped it off the TV and raced home from school every day to watch it and memorize it so that, when called upon, I could play Mrs. Lovitt at a moment’s notice. When I wasn’t watching it, I was singing it over and over again to myself. When I wasn’t singing it, I was dragging friends over to my house to watch it. When I wasn’t dragging friends over to watch it, I was listening to the album, making mental notes of who was the better Sweeney. (Album = Len Cariou, PBS = George Hearn. George won, hands down.) I taught Sweeney Todd 101 to anyone who ventured over our doorstep, devoting an entire evening to the differences between each actor’s interpretation of “at last my arm is complete again!”

Eventually I weaned myself from Sweeney since I really had to … it was wean or be a complete social outcast. Still, he was never far from my heart.

Fast forward to present day, and see me last night at the City Cinemas Village East Theatre, packed in like sardines and holding our breath as the new Sweeney Todd flickered on the screen before us.

Sweeney Todd, the movie, could have gone horribly wrong in so many ways. But it didn’t. No, every breathtaking moment of Sweeney Todd was done so remarkably right that it did the impossible — it eclipsed the PBS version I had held as the Holy Grail for over half my life.

Of course I’d heard the buzz long before I’d seen even one preview — and I couldn’t quite tell if I was ready to embrace it or dismiss it. Although, from the onset it was genius. Who but Tim Burton could direct this Gothic tale of madness, revenge and obsession? And, while I’d never before thought of Johnny Depp as Sweeney Todd, when Sweeney raises his razor and speaks “at last … my arm is complete again” … it was like Edward Scissorhands embracing his shining silver blades in a moment that had come full circle.

Cinematography was dark, brooding, spectacular, perfect.
Music was perfectly chosen, artfully executed, breathtaking, shockingly layered.
Casting was brilliant. Aside from Johnny Depp’s ability to play absolutely anything and anyone, there was Alan Rickman oozing out of Judge Turpin’s skin with all the evil of Severus Snape coupled with a perversion that no Harry Potter film would ever allow him to expose.
And Sacha Baron Cohen seemed a bit of stunt casting until he actually delivered the goods and (I’m sure, if Friday’s audience was any indication) brought in a whole slew of Borat fans who hadn’t really heard of Sondheim or cared about this musical enough to see it otherwise.

Helena Bonham-Carter is, of course, sleeping with the director (and spittin’ out progeny) but she does have that thing going on that makes her

a pretty good Mrs. Lovitt in the “I’m a bit daft myself and therefore have no problem being in love with a mad man who bears no resemblance to the Benjamin Barker I loved 15 years ago” way. I do love the was she can pull off those corpse-bride eye circles. And I will say that she brought something totally unexpected and therefore enjoyable to the role. So, reedy voice and all, she gets my thumbs up. Of course, having been preparing for the role since 16 I was a little disturbed that “The Worst Pies In London” wasn’t a half step faster (the way it was meant to be done) since one of my most enviable talents is being able to sing every word of Sondheim’s lyrics as quickly as he wrote them to be sung. My “Not Getting Married Today” from Company blurs right past you. Anyway, it all was fine in the end.

Favorite unexpected joy: “By the Sea” which I didn’t see coming and which left me with a wide smile and tears of joy and a heart that beat a mile a minute.
Oh, and that little boy who played Toby was outstanding.