My journey with Stephen Sondheim started early. Like most self-professed fans of theater, I had parents that introduced me to the film version of West Side Story (1961). I cannot recall the age, but it always felt like I was there watching the love story of Maria and Tony gallivant through 1950s New York, dropping jazz slang, and doing Jerome Robbins choreography that boggled the mind. How could a human move like that? How could singers do a multiple-part harmony that rarely overlapped? When all you knew otherwise was Disney films, there’s something amazing about the world of West Side Story. It makes the world feel bigger, more full of potential.
I suppose it’s fitting that everything starts here for a myriad of reasons. It was the first production for which, at 27, Sondheim wrote the lyrics. Working with the legend Leonard Bernstein, he created one of the most acclaimed musicals of his career. For years, I’d hear people sing the songs, where even Robert DeNiro and Jack Nicholson would do riffs on “I Feel Pretty.” I’ve even seen five-year-olds do it with a bilingual spin. The show is inescapable to the point that it’s getting a second film adaptation next month from Steven Spielberg. It’s to the original’s credit that many are hesitant about the remake despite the original featuring certain very dated features.
But, on a note that is more prescient, it feels like a metaphorical torch being passed. In the wake of Sondheim’s death on November 26, 2021, many have been quick to call him “The American Shakespeare.” It’s a title that sounds hyperbolic. After all, William Shakespeare was a singular artist. Saying that Sondheim was his heir apparent is no different from saying that Laurence Olivier or Kenneth Branagh simply because West Side Story is an adaptation of Romeo & Juliet. What makes Sondheim capable of being considered in the same timeless pantheon, worthy of endless deconstruction, like The Bard who invented so many components of theater that remained valuable for centuries?
The truth is, nobody currently living will know for sure if Sondheim will hold his appeal for centuries. His oldest work is only 64 years old. Even then, the immediate response is something undeniable. While he may not always be the most commercial artist, he is someone who rewards scrutiny, reflecting something inherent in the theater medium. To understand his work is to often take a scholarly approach, to look at how his use of internal rhyme builds entendre and foreshadowing, finding clever puns, and sometimes quite economically turning five words into the biggest emotional wallop imaginable. Everyone has had access to the English language, but few used words with as much purpose as he did.
What is probably the most impressive thing about Sondheim is that his greatest work wasn’t immediate. While West Side Story and Gypsy were great starting points, his 1960s were honestly a fascinating era of bold experiments that never paid off. On the one hand, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum was a zippy vaudeville tribute, but Anyone Can Whistle was a three-act musical about the counterculture that was in some ways behind the times. The even less memorable Do I Hear a Waltz? ended the era with an uneventful Richard Rodgers collaboration. It wasn’t until the 1970s that he began to produce a string of his greatest work and slowly became immortal.
Between 1970 with Company and 1994 with Passion, he created one of the most impressive bodies of work in anyone’s career. Of the 11 shows, 5 of them are considered among his greatest works with the others serving as more successful creative risks. For whatever faults Merrily We Roll Along had as a stage production, it did feature an amazing songbook that found Sondheim telling the story of a career in reverse by writing music that grew increasingly more and more rudimentary. He would follow it up with his most esoteric work Sunday in the Park with George, where the rhythm was often more indicative of his protagonist dabbing paint on a canvas. It was neurotic, sharp melodies, working as an abstract painting that could only be made by a composer with a strong grasp on melody and lyrics. The whole show ends with admiration for a blank canvas, where ideas are born.
It’s the work that earned him The Pulitzer Prize, in some ways cementing his legacy as more than a composer who wrote cerebral masterpieces like Sweeney Todd. He was someone who continued to pull out surprises, turning Into the Woods from this romping update of The Brothers Grimm into an allegory for why it’s important to be aware of what our stories are saying. The second act tears away the goofier elements in favor of something dark and brooding, even featuring the eviscerating and simple “Children Will Listen.” There is a need for art to entertain, but also to be considered as a place to discuss ideas about humanity.
It may be why his work continues to endure. In 2020, there was a near three-hour tribute on YouTube to celebrate Sondheim’s 90th birthday featuring every possible Broadway star singing (usually) from their living rooms. In rare cases like Mandy Patinkin, he took fun with the project and reprised a song from his defining production of Sunday in the Park with George while standing, fittingly, in the park. The biggest takeaway wasn’t just that he wrote a lot of great music for a lot of great shows, but that they were capable of being adapted to just about any environment. As it stands, an upcoming Broadway production of Company celebrates the show’s 50th anniversary by gender-swapping the leads.
Another thing that was prevalent throughout 2020 was the number of covers of one song in particular: “Being Alive.” It’s a beautiful song that works as a solo, full of deep pain and heart. Despite its somberness, there is a waltzing melody underneath that alludes to some unseen optimism. It plays with self-reflection, looking for meaning in a difficult situation. While it became a trope, there was some truth in turning to the song. Another favorite was the Follies number “I’m Still Here,” which ended the aforementioned YouTube special.
There is something to be said for the way that Sondheim brought these perspectives together, passionately celebrating the idea of art as a great communicator. He found order in chaos, looking for truths in complicated subject matters. Even in the murderous opera Sweeney Todd, he concluded that there was no proper way to get revenge. He wasn’t afraid to deal with the difficult subject matter, such as Assassins that explored presidential assassins as an allegory for The American Dream. There was darkness to him, but it never felt cynical. There was the search for meaning. In some ways, he wanted to find something pure and relatable inside everything. With endless research and effort, he adapted his approach to different musical styles, managing to make it all more than novelty each time around.
It’s why he could go from writing A Little Night Music in waltz-measure to Pacific Overtures as a tribute to Japanese kabuki theater. He challenged the audience and what’s amazing is that his ability to do so without too much significant compromise made him a unique force. He was the connective tissue to a different era of Broadway, which seemed more designed as entertainment. He would play with concepts, even going metaphysical in Follies with an eagerness to see the limitations of stories set on a stage. His mind was limitless, and it helped that he was as talented with a pen as he was plinking keys on a piano, doing everything he could to make the melody just as important as what’s being said.
Even as he won Tony Awards and gained further acclaim, he never took full credit for his work. To watch his acceptance speeches is to notice deep gratitude to his composer Jonathan Tunick. He would highlight the actors that he felt did exceptional work. In later years he would do interviews and documentaries about his craft, hoping to leave behind some clue as to his brilliance. While nobody could write like him, having access to seeing how he constructed Assassins or Into the Woods proved to be invaluable. His belief that artists should share their craft – even publishing multiple books outlining his process for writing every song – gave him a timelessness even as his new work became less frequent. There was no pretentiousness to him as an artist, choosing to criticize his own work when he believed that he could be doing better.
If Sondheim was in fact The American Shakespeare, he arguably did much more. Maybe it’s just the accessibility and mass-production of media, but his ability to preserve every original cast recording, to have endless records of him laying out his craft, and to support future generations only shows how much he was in love with theater. Many would envy having a career half as good as Sondheim. In fact, that’s part of the appeal of the recent Netflix film tick, tick… BOOM!, which features Bradley Whitford playing him in a memorable supporting role along with a final voice cameo where he tells Andrew Garfield’s Jonathan Larson to keep following his dreams.
It’s a message that feels like the perfect way to end a career that spanned over half a century and will likely influence generations to come.
While I love West Side Story to this day, I have discovered so much more to love from Sondheim in the decades since. I love Company, A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd, Merrily We Roll Along, Sunday in the Park with George, and Assassins. I respect Pacific Overtures and hope that it continues to grow on me. My favorite changes by the day, but one thing is true. I’ve greatly admired what he does for the musical form. He changed the medium for the better, inspiring art to be intellectual and entertaining, taking abstract concepts and making them profound statements of the self. He was the bridge that was necessary to take audiences from the days of Rodgers & Hammerstein to The Late-20th Century. While it’s arguable how accessible his work is cumulatively, there is something alluring about it that keeps me going back.
It's because I look at Sondheim as more than a lyricist. As a writer, I see his work as components of a story. The way that he uses language astounds me. Turns of phrases have the power to convey something deeper about character. His songs were at times conversations, able to ping pong from character to character in such an entertaining fashion. I wanted my prose to feel as alive, full of these intricate personalities clashing in a harmony that shouldn’t work but does. Even his search for truth within them makes me want to find my own version of that.
But, most importantly, the thing that makes Sondheim endlessly inspirational to me is how he never felt comfortable with the form. From the beginning, he took West Side Story as this radical departure from what musicals were from an anti-opening number dance to contemporary slang and a violent intermission. He was experimental, asking the very medium to be constantly reconsidered. While I doubt that I will personally make a work as impactful as Company, I hope to find some personal truth in what I write, staying true to my themes while hopefully finding an audience.
It is difficult to write about Sondheim because his work meant so much to everyone. I’m sure many artists felt that his ability to open doors and challenge what constituted a Broadway show gave them the confidence to follow their dreams. Art is better for having Sondheim in it, and thankfully he passed at a time when his work was having a significant revival on stage and in film. Even the news that he was working on another show felt like an exciting promise, his first since Road Show in 2008. Whatever comes of his legacy, he leaves behind enough invaluable resources for us to peruse his work and understand who he was as an artist. Nobody wrote music like him, but thankfully he was compassionate enough to share a few of his secrets before he left. That way theater lives on, and I’m sure that’s what his greatest legacy will be going forward. Thanks for everything. It definitely has made my life and millions of others much better for having you in it.
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