I Know Things Now: Thoughts on Into the Woods

Two lyrics struck me as particularly apt in summing up my reactions to the the film adaptation of Into the Woods.

Wishes come true / Not free

Any adaptation is going to involve changes, including cuts.  Into the Woods is not at the top of my list of Sondheim’s stuff, so I’m less offended by omissions than would be people who like it more… But can anyone really argue with cutting the farewell song to the cow?  Jack still has a really great song later.  “Ever After” leads up to a non-existent intermission, so I understand why it needed to go.

The only song I actually missed was “No More,” which normally I don’t appreciate because it’s part of that long, kind of boring stretch of ballads that goes on and on in the second act.  But replacing it with the Baker just sitting down and crying breaks one of the rules of the genre:  You don’t cry, you sing what you’re crying about.  (I realize this technically contradicts what I just said about “I Guess This Is Goodbye,” but we already understand Jack’s attachment.  The hug really does tell us enough.)  And the cut “No More” is actually symptomatic of the larger problem of rethinking the  Narrator/Baker’s father, which is discussed thoroughly here.

A few changes I particularly liked:

• Casting Jack as an actual kid was great (and necessary for a movie).  Contrast that to the much weirder effect of casting Tobias as an actual kid in Sweeney Todd.  He is a good little singer and held his own in his scenes with Tracey Ullman or James Corden.
• Re-setting Cinderella’s song on the steps of the palace works, too.  This movie made me realize how much of the story is told through characters’ songs after the fact.  The songs that incorporated visual flashbacks were less effective, and “I Know Things Now” teetered between creepy and dumb.
• “Your Fault” seemed slowed down a little.  Maybe this takes away from its effectiveness as a representation of an argument, but I understood lyrics here that I never caught before.

Is it always “or”? / Is it never “and”?

Film adaptations aren’t meant to replace live productions, and there’s already a filmed version of the staged Into the Woods, so I’m fine with the movie being what it is:  an almost uniformly strong cast bringing to a wide audience a work that has a pretty fun (but not that deep) first act and a not-that-fun (but attempting to be deep) second act.  I’m glad I saw it, but I’d probably watch the video of the original cast before watching the movie again.

Sondheim’s Company on Screen: Grateful-Sorry

The New York Philharmonic’s concert version of Company, Sondheim’s 1970 musical set at a perpetual bachelor’s 35^th birthday, played in New York City over the weekend that just happened to contain my 35^th birthday. Unlike Bobby, I don’t have several pairs of wealthy friends, so no one sent me to see it as a gift.

Instead, through the magic of HD digital technology, I saw a filmed version of it at the Beverly last night. Aside from issues related to the presentation being via film (ridiculously frequent angle shifts, occasionally muffled sound), I enjoyed the concert quite a bit and was reminded why its score occupies a spot in my Sondheim “top three”—beneath Sweeney Todd but alongside A Little Night Music.

Highlights include:

Getting so much of the book scenes in the concert…and left in the film I’ve seen the show three times, but I listen to the cast album much more frequently. It’s amazing how much you forget about the connecting scenes between (and interspersed within) the songs. Stephen Colbert was especially strong in his drink-mixing scene before “The Little Things You Do Together.”

Seeing Martha Plimpton and Kate Finnernan perform Both of these actresses have been getting lots of raves of late, and I’ve never seen either. Plimpton’s work against Colbert (against is an apt preposition—“Uncle, my ass!”) was strong, and Finneran’s pre-wedding scene (including “Not Getting Married to Day”) was as funny as I’ve seen. At times, she resembled Catherine O’Hara in her maniac-with-heart portrayal of Amy. I consider that a compliment.

Inclusion of the Tick-Tock dance sequence I won’t lie, sitting next to my seven-year-old as I realized that song underscoring the sex scene between Bobby and April was not cut (it usually is) was a little unsettling. But once I was assured of its PG-13-ness, it was cool to hear the see and hear the NYPhil with dancers perform this song.

Christina Hendricks’ April Ditzy and dumb do not begin to describe the odd vapidity of this character. Hendricks’ reaction to Bobby’s apartment, her delivery of the “butterfly story,” and response to the “champagne and baby oil” story mined every bit of comedy out a character that I imagine is very difficult to play.

Disappointments:

Stephen Colbert’s rendering of “Sorry-Grateful” I completely understand why Colbert was involved in this project. His affection and respect for Sondheim are well-documented and his popular appeal certainly widened the audience for the concert (particularly the cinematic release, which one must suspect was in the works when the TV-personality-heavy cast was assembled). The strength of his book scenes made his awkward and self-aware transition into song quite embarrassing.

Anika Noni Rose’s rendering of “Another Hundred People” Unlike “Sorry-Grateful” (a song that I love), I tend not to like “Another Hundred People,” but I’ve learned to like it. Her performance was certainly more professional and self-assured than Colbert’s, but was still among the weakest of the show.

I found a lot of other elements solid, but not particularly remarkable. I mostly liked Neil Patrick Harris as Bobby, preferring “Marry Me a Little” over “Being Alive” and thought Patti LuPone was good, but a little confused. I don’t usually think of Joanne as so “rough around the edges,” but I guess that comes with the territory.

I also forgot how awkward the opening scenes of the two acts are, in combination with the concluding scene (all versions of the birthday party). I get that this is a “concept musical,” a non-linear collection of scenes, but the birthday party three ways just doesn’t work for me.

Even given those weaknesses (and the two month belatedness), it’s a pretty good gift.

Sunday on the blog with Sondheim, #5

Guest blogger Laurie Nobilette entertains us with a look at a song that represents Sondheim’s knack for making a “turn of phrase” more than just an amusing word trick.

The first time I experienced Sondheim live was during the summer of 1996. Eager to keep me entertained during our weeklong visit, my grandmother took me to her local theater company’s production of Gypsy, which she intuited was my favorite movie at the moment.

Despite my loyalty to the Natalie Wood/Rosalind Russell version, there was something about live-action Sondheim that the movie did not deliver, e.g. Madame Rose belting out “Everything’s Coming Up Roses” with such intensity that the reverb shook the theater. It brought the house down.

Considering Sondheim’s subsequent collaborations, his involvement in the sordid tale of Gypsy seems logical. It tells the story of burlesque queen Gypsy Rose Lee, focusing on the years leading up to her superstardom, particularly the relationship between Louise (Gyspy) and her overbearing mother, commonly referred to as the “Patsy Ramsey of Vaudeville.”

Despite being a nasty, cutthroat stage mom whose blind ambition eventually severs her every relational tie, she’s the real star of this show. Hence, the role requires a booming voice and personality. Just look at the women who’ve portrayed Rose over the years: they don’t take no malarkey. You know, the kind of women who make you say, “that woman must have testicles” (especially Ethel Merman).

Sondheim sums up all the drama, the turmoil, the psychological complexities present within this dysfunctional stage family. Song one, Dainty June takes the stage, all ribbons and ruffles and baby blue. Cartwheel, high kick, baton twirl. In all her sugary cuteness, she entices the crowd with a simple request:

Let me entertain you, let me make you smile.
Let me do a few tricks, some old and some new tricks.
I’m very versatile.

Then out comes Louise as the ass end of a cow. She doesn’t even get to moo.

Sunday on the blog with Sondheim, #4

In Act 1 of Sunday in the Park with George, art critic Jules mocks the work of painter Georges Seurat, accusing it of displaying “…density / without intensity.”

Many of the issues ascribed to the artists in Sondheim’s work (whether their medium is visual, musical, or other) seem in some way autobiographical.  In this case, critics have sometimes noted that Sondheim’s lyrics can become so dense — both in terms of richness of meaning and in sheer number of words and language tricks — that they take the audience out of the moment and become about him as lyricist, rather than the character’s dramatic and emotional expression.

In this entry I’ll offer two examples of Sondheim at his wordy best and challenge anyone to be unable to appreciate the intensity that comes with the verbal density of these lyrics.

The first is the classic example: Amy’s  pre-wedding jitter song, “Not Getting Married Today” from Company.  Amy and Paul’s wedding vocalist has sung the opening strains of a slow, hymn-like tribute to marriage; Paul joins in with a similarly reverent verse, ending with “Today is for Amy, / my happily soon to be wife.”

Then the song takes off as Amy sings:

Pardon me, is everybody here? Because if everybody’s here,
I want to thank you all for coming to the wedding,
I’d appreciate your going even more, I mean you must have
lots of better things to do, and not a word of this to Paul,
remember Paul, you know, the man I’m gonna marry, but I’m not,
because I wouldn’t ruin anyone as wonderful as he is–
Thank you all
For the gifts and the flowers,
Thank you all,
Now it’s back to the showers,
Don’t tell Paul,
But I’m not getting married today.

Considered a technical tour de force for a singing actress, the song contains several more of these lyric outbursts, each intensifying the manic state of fear in which Amy finds herself.  The nervous energy expressed through this song provides a clear parallel to main character Bobby’s own trepidation about marriage, indicating that even (or especially) those on the verge of lifelong commitment can find themselves more than a little jittery.

Sunday on the blog with Sondheim, #3

Musicals can be divided roughly into two categories: traditional book musicals, in which dialogue and songs exist separately, with the lyrics developing character and plot to varying degrees; and “sung through” musicals, in which there’s very little dialogue and everything is conveyed through song.

I mentioned in last week’s entry that one of the finer qualities of Sondheim’s lyrics is that he can hybridize those forms with lyrics that are themselves conversation and dialogue, so the dramatic movement of the play continues with the song.

This isn’t to say that he musicalizes the banal (a valid criticism of some sung-through musicals); his conversations set to music still tend to touch on topics that are song-worthy, suggesting emotion beyond what we expect in dialogue.  But he can blend the “conversational” with the “lyrical” in ways that are engaging and satisfying.

Consider, for example, the moment in A Little Night Music (1973) when Frederick, a former lover of the actress Desiree Armfeldt, meets back up with her and insists “You Must Meet My Wife.” At this point, he has revealed that he and his new wife have yet to consummate their relationship, and she responds:

Frederick	Desiree
	She’s monstrous
She’s frightened.
	Unfeeling.
Unversed.
She’d strike you as unenlightened.
	No, I’d strike her first.
Her reticence, her apprehension —
	Her crust!
You must meet my wife…
	Let me get my hat and my knife!
(spoken) What was that?
	I must meet your wife.
Yes, you must.	Yes, I must.

The give and take of this lyrical conversation is certainly part of its appeal, as the two characters are in sync with each other enough to finish each other’s sentences, even if their responses are contradictory or ironic.

“My Friends,” from Sweeney Todd (1979) is a “conversation” with a different twist.  Todd is talking to his razor blades, which Mrs. Lovett has stored for him during his banishment, and she is singing to him.  Their feelings of joy at reunion and admiration of beauty are similar, but they’re not focused mutually.  Sondheim constructs this bizarre triangle to chilling effect when their lines overlap, as in this moment:

Todd	Lovett
You there, my friend
Come, let me hold you.	I’m your friend, too, Mr. Todd.
	If you only knew, Mr. Todd.
Now, with a sigh.	Ooh, Mr. Todd.
You grow warm	You’re warm
In my hand,	In my hand.
My friend,	You’ve come home.
My clever friend.	Always had a fondness for you, I did.
Rest now, my friends,
Soon I’ll unfold you.	Never you fear, Mr. Todd.
Soon you’ll know splendors	You can move in here, Mr. Todd.
You never have dreamed	Splendors you never have dreamed
All your days,	All your days
My lucky friends.	Will be yours.

The example from Sweeney differs significantly from the first example because it really is more of a non-duet.  The two characters are singing together, but not exactly with much awareness of what the other is saying, even when their ideas are similar enough to be expressed by the same lyrics.

Of course, the real genius of this song is that under its sweeping melodic beauty, the lyrics suggest the dark inner core of the piece.  Todd truly does love his razors for the revenge they’ll allow him to exact, at the expense of all humanity; Mrs. Lovett will ignore anything and participate in everything in order to keep Todd around.

Earlier this week, I posted an entry on lyrics and the revision process that starts to touch on Sondheim’s wordplay (evident in this entry, for example, with his double use of “strike” in “You Must Meet My Wife”).  Next week, I’ll start digging into those great elements like unexpected rhymes and sheer density of words that set Sondheim’s lyrics apart.

Visions and revisions

I’m happy to have found a way to bring my professional interest in writing and the writing process together with a hobby of studying the lyrics of Stephen Sondheim.  The recent release of the new cast recording of Gypsy (for which he wrote the lyrics, but not the music) includes several songs cut from the score, and I’ve been digging into the cut songs from Follies for research on my Sunday on the blog with Sondheim series.  Both sources provide some insight into the creative process, particularly as it relates to revision — finding different alternatives to fix what doesn’t quite work.

The cut songs from Gypsy illustrate one of the most difficult parts of the writing process.  Sometimes your work, no matter how labor intensive, clever, or close to your heart it may be just has to be eliminated because it doesn’t serve the good of the piece overall.   These examples show the benefits of liberal trimming.

“Nice She Ain’t,” in which Herbie expresses his mixed feelings toward Rose’s gruff manner, seems like a good idea: He doesn’t have much material to sing, and because there are more reasons to leave Rose than to stay with her, it’s interesting to hear Herbie’s thoughts on her.

But there are big problems with the song.  

Sunday on the blog with Sondheim, #2

I started this series last week with the very broad notion that Sondheim’s lyrics excel at conveying contradiction, tension, and complexity.

For this entry, I’m going to remain at that broad level, still not delving into the specifics of language yet, and argue that his writing is exceptional for its inherent sense of the dramatic. By that I mean that his lyrics don’t merely enhance or contribute to a work’s plot, characterization, and thematic significance; rather, they are central to the construction such meaning. In fact, his songs can oftentimes stand alone as dramatic pieces themselves.

Arguably the most oft-cited example of such inherent drama in his lyrics is “The Ladies Who Lunch,” from Company.

In this song near the close of the show, the acerbic character Joanne proposes a drunken toast in scornful reproach of the trendy (younger) women she sees around her, offering the following:

Here’s to the ladies who lunch–
Everybody laugh.
Lounging in their caftans 
And planning a brunch
On their own behalf.

The song shifts from external commentary to accidental introspection as Joanne continues:

And here’s to the girls who just watch–
Aren’t they the best?
When they get depressed,
It’s a bottle of Scotch,
Plus a little jest.
Another chance to disapprove,
Another brilliant zinger,
Another reason not to move,
Another vodka stinger.

The lyric culminates with the sorrowful and angry realization of mortality that underscores the show’s central message: for all of the difficulty of being together, its preferable to facing reality, and our eventual common end, alone.

So here’s to the girls on the go–
Everybody tries.
Look into their eyes,
And you’ll see what they know:
Everybody dies.

The richness of the lyric lies in its structure, beginning as a song in which a wealthy middle-aged woman mocks the superficiality of those around her and eventually folding in on itself as she realizes her own attention to such matters makes her little better. 

Similarly, George’s “Finishing the Hat” from Sunday in the Park with George (1984) begins with the lyric focused on his confusion of Dot’s departure (“Yes, she looks for me. Good. / Let her look for me to tell me why she left me”) but his attention soon shifts to his art, specifically:

Top Three Live Performance Events

In no particular order:

The Kenny Barron Trio, Village Vanguard NYC March 2005

Though I’d dabbled in jazz for a while, I was a very casual listener until my evening at the Vanguard.  My jazz exposure was limited a couple major discs by Miles Davis and John Coltrane and a few random things I’d picked up from friends. 

After a trip on the 1 Train down to the West Village, I found myself in the presence of an art form that I’ve grown to love:  the jazz piano trio.  Kenny Barron’s smart playing–neither too spare nor too showy in ornament and improvisation–was certainly the highlight of the experience, but I found myself appreciating the truly collaborative effort of playing in a jazz combo.  I was too new to the scene to remember what they played, but the evening was an important one, opening my awareness to great jazz pianists like McCoy Tyner, Cedar Walton, Thelonious Monk, Bill Evans, Ahmad Jamal, Phineas Newborn, Jr., …and all of their collaborators. 

Sweeney Todd, Eugene O’Neill Theater NYC March 2005

John Doyle’s actor-musician production of Sweeney Todd  brought the act and art of storytelling to the fore and managed to make Patti LuPone back into an ensemble member.   People unfamilar with score and story claim the plot and characterization may have been muddled in the process of the stripping the revenge tale to its core, but I didn’t find this to be the case.  In fact, the doubling of character and instrument actually enriched the experience for me.  I’d never had much interest in the young love/Anthony and Johanna story before, but the sonic and physical gravity lent by their twin cellos strengthened their presence.  (It also helped that Doyle stifled any audience response through applause until after the first rendering of “Johanna”).  There was so much to appreciate in this production–between the strength of the score and story themselves, the performances, and the “work” of the show being produced right in front of you–that I actually saw this twice.

Twelfth Night, The New Globe Bankside London July 2002

While I enjoyed all aspects of this original practices production at the Globe (meaning all casting, costuming, and music/effects choices must adhere to the practices of the Elizabethan theater), the experience was definitely made by Mark Rylance as Olivia.    Though there is much to call artificial about his performance, the rendering of Olivia’s sorrow that eventually turns to comic love was completely effective.  I remember his movements around the stage seeming as if the character were floating around instead of walking.  The cast erupting into a ridiculously festive dance after the performance added to the atmospheric perfection of the experience.  Being footsteps from the Thames in an open-air reconstruction of the Globe didn’t hurt, either.