One great gift of my most recent job has been Stephen Sondheim's "Hat Box."
This is two volumes: "Finishing the Hat" and "Look, I Made a Hat." Sondheim had intended to cram all his thoughts into one volume, but he realized, midway, this endeavor would be preposterous.
It's a tremendous joy to watch Sondheim savoring his own crankiness. He takes down so many false idols: his own mentor, Oscar Hammerstein (!), Noel Coward, Lerner, Gilbert and Sullivan, Lorenz Hart, Ira Gershwin. Sondheim says, "We're often told, don't speak ill of the dead. But I think: DO speak ill of the dead. BECAUSE they can't defend themselves. And because you can't hurt the dead. Stay away from the living." (It's nice, too, to see Sondheim subtly "throwing shade" here and there. He makes reference to trailblazing contemporaries--Kander and Ebb, Bock and Harnick, Adam Guettel--again and again. Conspicuously missing from that list, always: Andrew Lloyd Webber, Stephen Schwartz, Jerry Herman. Also: "I wrote these new lyrics just for Barbra (Streisand), but I did not provide the militant feminism. She provided that on her own." I assume Sondheim has no quarrel with feminism--just with hammy, less-than-subtle sermons within songs. These clunky sermons are something Streisand is regularly insistent on.)
The gay librarian at my school handed me "Hat Box," not because he suspected this would enrich our professional environment (I think). I imagine he spotted a bored, kindred spirit, and he felt he could help me out. That has been the story of my career in education: I befriend the eccentric librarian, and he, or she, purchases books for me, under the guise of professional development. "I really think today's teenagers could use a library copy of Ruth Franklin's recent biography of Shirley Jackson. I just think that will go over really well." "Do you know what the ninth graders are really talking about? It's Edna O'Brien's novel about the ethnic strife in Bosnia. Let's order that--stat."
The library at my school has so many dated, currently unpopular volumes, and they have given me such pleasure. John Cheever's "The World of Apples." Philip Roth's "My Life as a Man." John Updike's "Pigeon Feathers." You might pass by this odd collection-for-adolescents and think, no one has handled these items in a trillion years. And you would be wrong!
Anyway, Sondheim once had to give a talk, and he didn't have a topic, so he just made fifty note cards with things that interested him jotted down: "What was Ethel Merman really like?" "What makes Hart's lyrics inexcusably sloppy and lazy?" "Which is better--Judi Dench's 'Send in the Clowns' or Glynis Johns's 'Send in the Clowns'?" And then he went ahead and gossiped for fifty minutes. He spilled the tea. This is what it's like to read "Hat Box." We learn that Loesser is among Sondheim's poetic idols, because Loesser could write lyrics that seemed like conversation. (We're talking about "Guys and Dolls.") We learn that Sondheim feels Lerner's lyrics are "undistinguished," but, even so, "MY FAIR LADY is the most entertaining show I've ever seen." And: Hermione Gingold removed her wig to reveal her own bald head during her audition for "A Little Night Music." (And she lied about her age.) And Donna Murphy was more or less offered the lead role in "Passion" thirty seconds after she completed her audition. And Sondheim really can't tolerate this chestnut: "Your looks are laughable, un-photograph-able." Because, he observes, all people can be photographed. He says the word Hart wants is "un-photogenic." But that, there, is trickier to pair with a rhyme.
Sondheim plucked me from the depths of despair. I was an alienated gay kid in high school. I attended a bad high school production of "Into the Woods," and I was hooked. From there: almost daily viewings of Bernadette Peters's concert at the Royal Albert Hall ("Sondheim, Etc.") And constant reassessments of Georges's struggles in "Sunday in the Park." Throughout my freshman year of college, I didn't really talk to people, but I *did* march around campus with "Sweeney Todd" in my ears. The breathtaking nihilism was especially attractive for a moody, adolescent brain. (I think this is also why certain melodramatic James Baldwin essays have great appeal for teenagers.) I would return from math class to my lower bunk, and while others attended frat parties and practiced basic social skills, I would read, and re-read, Meryle Secrest's dishy account of Sondheim's semi-orphaned childhood, or her revelations about the mildly scandalous dating life Sondheim invented for himself somewhere around his sixtieth birthday. Lorrie Moore says, with certain writers, you pick up the book and it's as if you're immediately right at the door of that person's innermost private house. There's no gap to bridge. With other writers, you have to work a bit harder. There wasn't ever much of a gap, for Steve and me. Even when I didn't apprehend the literal meaning of his words, I sensed the presence of a fellow weirdo, someone both kind and grouchy who had been over rocky terrain, and who could offer some explanations.
Sondheim is now approaching his ninetieth birthday, and it's unlikely we'll see that David Ives farce-adaptation he has been muttering about for half a century. Still, major revivals of his work happen every other day. You can see "Sweeney Todd" off-Broadway right now, in an immersive you-are-really-there experience (I have the pie-shop mug to prove it.) Heather Headley slowly crept back to musical theater, recently, through a new interpretation of the Witch in "Into the Woods." There are murmurings about a Barbra Streisand filmed version of "Gypsy," and these murmurings don't seem to go away. Meanwhile, my obsession hasn't really died. I'm on firmer ground now than I was at age twenty, and I'm certain that's partly because of the solace I received from a murderous freakazoid barber/butcher, dreamed up once by Mr. Sondheim. It's important to have sources of wonder, in this life. My gratitude knows no bounds.
This is two volumes: "Finishing the Hat" and "Look, I Made a Hat." Sondheim had intended to cram all his thoughts into one volume, but he realized, midway, this endeavor would be preposterous.
It's a tremendous joy to watch Sondheim savoring his own crankiness. He takes down so many false idols: his own mentor, Oscar Hammerstein (!), Noel Coward, Lerner, Gilbert and Sullivan, Lorenz Hart, Ira Gershwin. Sondheim says, "We're often told, don't speak ill of the dead. But I think: DO speak ill of the dead. BECAUSE they can't defend themselves. And because you can't hurt the dead. Stay away from the living." (It's nice, too, to see Sondheim subtly "throwing shade" here and there. He makes reference to trailblazing contemporaries--Kander and Ebb, Bock and Harnick, Adam Guettel--again and again. Conspicuously missing from that list, always: Andrew Lloyd Webber, Stephen Schwartz, Jerry Herman. Also: "I wrote these new lyrics just for Barbra (Streisand), but I did not provide the militant feminism. She provided that on her own." I assume Sondheim has no quarrel with feminism--just with hammy, less-than-subtle sermons within songs. These clunky sermons are something Streisand is regularly insistent on.)
The gay librarian at my school handed me "Hat Box," not because he suspected this would enrich our professional environment (I think). I imagine he spotted a bored, kindred spirit, and he felt he could help me out. That has been the story of my career in education: I befriend the eccentric librarian, and he, or she, purchases books for me, under the guise of professional development. "I really think today's teenagers could use a library copy of Ruth Franklin's recent biography of Shirley Jackson. I just think that will go over really well." "Do you know what the ninth graders are really talking about? It's Edna O'Brien's novel about the ethnic strife in Bosnia. Let's order that--stat."
The library at my school has so many dated, currently unpopular volumes, and they have given me such pleasure. John Cheever's "The World of Apples." Philip Roth's "My Life as a Man." John Updike's "Pigeon Feathers." You might pass by this odd collection-for-adolescents and think, no one has handled these items in a trillion years. And you would be wrong!
Anyway, Sondheim once had to give a talk, and he didn't have a topic, so he just made fifty note cards with things that interested him jotted down: "What was Ethel Merman really like?" "What makes Hart's lyrics inexcusably sloppy and lazy?" "Which is better--Judi Dench's 'Send in the Clowns' or Glynis Johns's 'Send in the Clowns'?" And then he went ahead and gossiped for fifty minutes. He spilled the tea. This is what it's like to read "Hat Box." We learn that Loesser is among Sondheim's poetic idols, because Loesser could write lyrics that seemed like conversation. (We're talking about "Guys and Dolls.") We learn that Sondheim feels Lerner's lyrics are "undistinguished," but, even so, "MY FAIR LADY is the most entertaining show I've ever seen." And: Hermione Gingold removed her wig to reveal her own bald head during her audition for "A Little Night Music." (And she lied about her age.) And Donna Murphy was more or less offered the lead role in "Passion" thirty seconds after she completed her audition. And Sondheim really can't tolerate this chestnut: "Your looks are laughable, un-photograph-able." Because, he observes, all people can be photographed. He says the word Hart wants is "un-photogenic." But that, there, is trickier to pair with a rhyme.
Sondheim plucked me from the depths of despair. I was an alienated gay kid in high school. I attended a bad high school production of "Into the Woods," and I was hooked. From there: almost daily viewings of Bernadette Peters's concert at the Royal Albert Hall ("Sondheim, Etc.") And constant reassessments of Georges's struggles in "Sunday in the Park." Throughout my freshman year of college, I didn't really talk to people, but I *did* march around campus with "Sweeney Todd" in my ears. The breathtaking nihilism was especially attractive for a moody, adolescent brain. (I think this is also why certain melodramatic James Baldwin essays have great appeal for teenagers.) I would return from math class to my lower bunk, and while others attended frat parties and practiced basic social skills, I would read, and re-read, Meryle Secrest's dishy account of Sondheim's semi-orphaned childhood, or her revelations about the mildly scandalous dating life Sondheim invented for himself somewhere around his sixtieth birthday. Lorrie Moore says, with certain writers, you pick up the book and it's as if you're immediately right at the door of that person's innermost private house. There's no gap to bridge. With other writers, you have to work a bit harder. There wasn't ever much of a gap, for Steve and me. Even when I didn't apprehend the literal meaning of his words, I sensed the presence of a fellow weirdo, someone both kind and grouchy who had been over rocky terrain, and who could offer some explanations.
Sondheim is now approaching his ninetieth birthday, and it's unlikely we'll see that David Ives farce-adaptation he has been muttering about for half a century. Still, major revivals of his work happen every other day. You can see "Sweeney Todd" off-Broadway right now, in an immersive you-are-really-there experience (I have the pie-shop mug to prove it.) Heather Headley slowly crept back to musical theater, recently, through a new interpretation of the Witch in "Into the Woods." There are murmurings about a Barbra Streisand filmed version of "Gypsy," and these murmurings don't seem to go away. Meanwhile, my obsession hasn't really died. I'm on firmer ground now than I was at age twenty, and I'm certain that's partly because of the solace I received from a murderous freakazoid barber/butcher, dreamed up once by Mr. Sondheim. It's important to have sources of wonder, in this life. My gratitude knows no bounds.
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