I have no clue what drugs they were on at the time, but somewhere down the line The Maestro got together with screenwriter/librettist James Lapine (with whom he worked on Sunday in the Park With George) and together they conjured up - erm - a mash-up of Little Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Beanstalk, Rapunzel and Cinderella, with parodic lyrics and a plethora of rollicking tunes, that could be interpreted as a parable about AIDS at the height of that deadly pandemic! Gulp.
Yet. It. Works.
Here are just some of the marvellous, sometimes sinister - and often very funny - numbers from the show...
The "weepie"...
[see also Cleo Laine's version]We went to see this masterpiece in the perfect surroundings of the wind-swept Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park, surrounded by nature's own addition to the plot, trees, way back in 2010. With a cast that featured Hannah Waddingham (as above), Michael Xavier, Jenna Russell, and a giant voiced by Dame Judi Dench, needless to say it was utterly stunning - and won a well-deserved Olivier Award. We never bothered to go and see the film with Meryl Streep and Johnny Depp, however - maybe one day...
All about Into the Woods at The Guide to Musical theatre.
In contrast to Into The Woods, Sondheim's third collaboration with librettist John Weidman (after Pacific Overtures and Assassins), Road Show is a far more pragmatic affair, if (typically) not-as-straightforward-as-it-first-appears. It also had a long and painful gestation - The Maestro first sketched some ideas for a musical based upon the (glamourised) lives of a real-life pair of pioneering brothers Addison and Wilson Mizner, whose multiple busness ventures and adventures in early 20th century America had been captured in two best-selling (and partly fictitious) books by Cleveland Amory and Alva Johnston, in the early 1950s. The ideas didn't even begin to take shape properly, however, until 1999, when it first premiered as Wise Guys. It was re-written and appeared re-titled as Bounce in 2003, then finally (again tweaked) as Road Show in 2008.
The first of Sondheim's musicals to feature a homosexual relationship at the core of the story, the plot was summed up by Mark Shenton in Playbill thus: "...the boom-and-bust true story of ... "two of the most colourful and outrageous fortune-seekers in American history.” From panning for gold in Alaska to building the city of Boca Raton in Florida, both were driven by the need to succeed – at whatever cost. Unfortunately, this left them with a trail of debts, disastrous relationships (including their own as brothers) and unfulfilled dreams." We went to see it at its UK premiere, starring David Bedella, Michael Jibson and Jon Robyns, at The Menier Chocolate Factory (again) in 2011 - and loved it. I still have (somewhere) one of the prop "dollar bills" that "the brothers" ostentatiously scattered all over the theatre at the end! Here are just some of the show's great numbers:
I adore that song...
RIP, Stephen Joshua Sondheim (22nd March 1930 – 26th November 2021)
[One of a series of tributes I will be posting to Mr Sondheim this week.]
Previous "Sondheim of the Day" entries:
It is just amazing how much one man contributed.
ReplyDeleteI think that's the main reason I embarked on this odyssey this week - to highlight the sheer range and variety of Sondheim's contribution to the world of musical theatre.
DeleteJust about everyone who followed owes him a huge debt... Jx
I wonder...maybe in another near-century people will be lauding another giant of his/her time...
ReplyDeleteI can't imagine who, exactly (Andrew Lloyd-Webber and his lyricists excepted, of course). Lin-Manuel Miranda's a bit of a "one-trick-pony" [I guess if you like hip-hop, which I don't, he might be seen as good]. Gary Barlow's only done one musical (Calendar Girls), and from what I have heard it is rather unimpressive. Maybe Robert Lopez (hardly a household name, yet wrote the choons for Avenue Q, Book of Mormon and Frozen)? Or Stiles and Drewe (Honk!, Mary Poppins, Half a Sixpence, Betty Blue Eyes)?
DeleteNone of them, Lloyd-Webber included, come anywhere near close to the sheer creativity, and enduring critical praise, of Mr Sondheim. Jx
Exactly! But maybe, when we have gone to the great wherever...a new star will rise?
DeleteWe live in hope. However, I doubt there will ever be another Sondheim. Jx
DeleteLove 'Into The Woods'.
ReplyDeleteNever mind 'White Christmas' This show should be the annual festive TV offering.
"It's the last midnight,
DeleteIt's the boom-
Splat!
Nothing but a vast midnight.
Everybody smashed flat!"
Nothing could be more festive. Jx