Sondheim Puzzle

THEATRE Copyright Lighting &Sound America June 2010 http://www.lightingandsoundamerica.com/LSA.html THE SONDHEIM PUZZLE Assembling the pieces of Sondheim on Sondheim was a brain-teasing task By: David Barbour know what we’ll do/We’ll do a life and examining the pains, Stephen Sondheim was at the revue.” Show fans will recognize pleasures, and problems of writing for forefront of artists who reinvented the these lines from “Opening Doors,” the musical theatre. It’s filled with musical with a modernist sensibility. “Iin the Stephen Sondheim/George stimulating and/or revelatory nuggets What Picasso and cubism were to Furth musical Merrily We Roll Along . of information. A sequence combining painting, Sondheim is to the musical. They’re words that theatre people three totally different opening Sondheim on Sondheim helps to have taken to heart; ever since 1977’s numbers written for A Funny Thing explain why. Side by Side by Sondheim , revues Happened on the Way to the Forum Onstage, Sondheim on Sondheim based on the songwriter’s catalog opens a window on that show’s unfolds with such elegant simplicity have proliferated. Some, like Opening troubled out-of-town tryout. The that one might not guess that its Doors, are linked to events in juxtaposition of two closing numbers creation proved to be a brain-teasing Sondheim’s life; others, like Putting it from Company reveals how Sondheim challenge for the members of its Together and Marry Me a Little , place adjusted his work to fit changes in design team. In essence, they weren’t the songs in a loose narrative the show’s libretto. And even hard- just putting together a show; they context. In addition, many benefit core fans may not have heard “Smile, were inventing a new format. performances, beginning with 1973’s Girls,” which lasted one night only Sondheim: A Musical Tribute , have during Gypsy ’s Philadelphia tryout. Defining the format been recorded. The interviews also examine key “We started out not really knowing Given these—and given the fact aspects of Sondheim’s personal life, what we were doing,” says the that not a season goes by without a including his chilly, unloving mother; show’s scenic designer, Beowulf major Sondheim revival—one might his close relationship with Oscar Boritt, who worked with director wonder about the necessity of a new Hammerstein II; and the confession Lapine and Peter Flaherty, the Sondheim revue. The question that he first fell in love only in his 60s. video/projection designer, to figure seemed particularly urgent this year, He shies away from very little, offering out the basic components of when his 80th birthday triggered an a ribald account of Ethel Merman’s Sondheim on Sondheim . “We knew it unprecedented number of musical filthy mouth, brusquely dismissing Do would be video clips and songs,” salutes. Thanks to the Encores! at I Hear a Waltz? as the only show he Boritt adds, “but we didn’t know what City Center program of concert regrets, and spoofing his own godlike the songs were, and we didn’t have productions of musical shows, New status among musical-theatre fans. the video. There was no structure, Yorkers even got to see the rarely The juxtaposition of these video just a basic idea; the possibilities seen 1964 flop, Anyone Can Whistle . sequences with first-rate perform - were wide open, which made it hard Really, what more was there to say? ances of Sondheim’s songs by the to design.” As a result, “We went But Sondheim on Sondheim , as likes of Vanessa Williams, Tom through three or four months of idea conceived and directed by James Wopat, and the great Barbara Cook after idea.” Lapine and presented by the results in a kind of dramatic tension Eventually, recalls Boritt, “I came Roundabout Theatre Company at that makes Sondheim on Sondheim up with the idea of a structural Studio 54, sheds new light on the unique. The contrast between this revolve with RP screen placed behind s u c r subject. Originally titled iSondheim , blunt, funny, analytical man and his it.” But this proved impractical; at the a M n the program of songs is linked to a songs, which overflow with feeling, is time, the production was to be a o J : series of video interviews with fascinating—and, arguably, more staged at the Alliance Theatre in o t o h Sondheim, tracing the events of his revealing than anyone intended. Atlanta, with a national tour after - P 56 • June 2010 • Lighting &Sound America In an especially witty stage look, the video wall, bearing an image of the young Sondheim, splits to reveal part of the cast. www.lightingandsoundamerica.com • June 2010 • 57 THEATRE Above left: Vanessa Williams, in a wash of saturated colors, smolders in the number “Ah, But Underneath.” Above, right: Images of Ethel Merman in “Smile, Girls.” This is the broken-tile look that, Flaherty says, “offered so much compositional fun.” what the set the work of Boris Aronson, scenic should be. We designer for such Sondheim works as went into more Company , Follies , and Pacific meetings with Overtures ; the design of Sondheim on Peter, making a Sondheim does allude to Aronson’s series of 1/4" highly sculptural approach.) models and “I was always interested in starting considering how with a box that we would shatter—a we would stage simple rectilinear space that is broken the show on it. into pieces,” says Boritt, who notes At the end, we that the idea is a reflection of the way had the thing we Sondheim “took an established have on stage.” format and remade it.” Also, he says, That “thing” the set design allows for extra visual consists of a variety. “The lead actor in the show is A sketch by Boritt shows the broken-tile look, with the video wall t t i r also in a fragmented state. five-wide-by- Sondheim, and the scenery and video o B f l seven-high wall have to represent him. Just popping u w o e wards; working with Sam Ellis, of of LCD screens, which can break him onto a normal ratio screen would B f o Hudson Scenic Studio, Boritt says, apart in various ways, offering various be dreadfully dull. This way, we can y s e t r “We realized that, on a normal shapes and configurations. Behind keep changing how you see him.” u o C : Broadway touring schedule, there the wall is a turntable. From the front, And it’s true that Boritt and s o t o wasn’t time to get four or five it provides a second level for the Flaherty have an almost infinite h p m o projectors focused on bizarre shapes performers; it also spins around to number of ways to use their t t o during an eight-hour load-in. We were reveal two staircases and more LCD scenic/video concept. (The design’s b d n a four or five months out from screens—a slightly askew pair of puzzle-like aspects are all too appro - t h g i r production, and we had to rethink it.” columns of screens plus screens priate for a show about Sondheim, p o T ; It was at this point that “the idea of scattered about in apparently random who is famously addicted to puzzles e n i m r LCD screens came up,” says Boritt. fashion, like so many broken tiles. It and games of all kinds.) One of the e T d r “James was doing the first workshop looks rather like a ruin, and, indeed, production’s wittiest images features a h c i of the show. I was watching a Boritt says it was partly inspired by a black-and-white photo of the young R : o t performance, and it was one of the , a painting by Casper Sondheim, looking every inch the o The Sea of Ice h p t f e few times in my life when I’ve had a David Friedrich depicting a shipwreck cocky Broadway comer, with a l p o ‘Eureka’ moment; I suddenly knew in the arctic. (He adds that he studied cigarette dangling between his lips. It T 58 • June 2010 • Lighting &Sound America is broken in half, along jagged lines; charting of the show.” carpenter, in making it all work. sitting between the two halves of the Next, he says, “One of my assis - The rest of the set includes an image are four members of the cast. tants built a virtual model of the set, upstage drop with a semi-circular For “The Gun Song,” from Assassins , and I started churning out story - swoop cut out to reveal the band the wall assembles behind the cast, boards, which were turned into a members sitting on platforms. Behind as each screen reveals the likes of PowerPoint file by one of James’ the band is a white cyc with a John Kennedy, Abraham Lincoln, assistants. That became our visual blackout drop in front of it. There’s a Malcolm X, John David Hinckley, and script; it was about 100 slides long— painted scrim that comes in directly Benazir Bhutto. Sondheim’s parents but, each day, there would be a behind the turntable for certain are seen in two vertical photos, change, and we’d have to adjust. The numbers, like “Smile, Girls.” It’s trans - separated by blackness to reflect the paperwork was exhausting; every parent and makes a good surface for end of their marriage. “Epiphany,” the change in a number would mean a lighting effects.

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