Happy Birthday, Stephen Sondheim

Sondheim's Other Favorite. Beyond Heyward and Loesser, there's Sheldon Harnick. Mr. Harnick is still alive; he is ninety-five! He once wrote a little show called "Fiddler on the Roof."

Harnick's great subject was love. In song after song, he looked at new facets of love, weird facets, suspenseful facets, comic facets. "When Did I Fall in Love?" has Audra McDonald (famously) asking when her sense of respect for some guy grew into a bigger feeling. ("Where was the blinding flash? Where was the crashing chord?")

"Will He Like Me?" simply, directly describes how it feels to await a first date: "Will the shy and quiet girl he's going to see... be the girl that he's imagined me to be?"

We all tend to be a bit foolish--and love exposes that, as well. In "Vanilla Ice Cream," a woman, unfamiliar with her own heart, tries to feel enthusiasm for the wrong guy (while continuously veering back toward a speech about the *right* guy). And, in "Matchmaker, Matchmaker," young ladies mock the idea of a professional set-up: "You've heard he has a temper...He'll beat you every night....But only when he's sober....So you're all right!"

Sondheim likes Harnick's ability to write vividly for specific characters, and you can see this in my favorite Harnick love song, "Do You Love Me?" A wife--half of an arranged marriage--must let her husband know how she feels. The question makes her uncomfortable, and so she seems to turn to God, even though her spouse is right next to her: "Twenty-five years I've lived with him, fought with him, starved with him....Twenty-five years, my bed is his...If that's not love, what is?"

Love, then? "I suppose," says the wife, bluntly, anticlimactically. It's the language she *would* use. Harnick was really, carefully considering character (while giving the appearance of effortlessness).

So--three cheers for Harnick, and for Sondheim! And Happy Birthday to SS, once again.

Comments

How to Host a Baby

-You have assumed responsibility for a mewling, puking ball of life, a yellow-lab pup. He will spit his half-digested kibble all over your shoes, all over your hard-cover edition of Jennifer Haigh's novel Faith . He will eat your tables, your chairs, your "I {Heart] Montessori" magnet, placed too low on the fridge. When you try to watch Bette Davis in Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte , on your TV, your dog will bark through the murder-prologue, for no apparent reason. He will whimper through Lena Dunham's Girls , such that you have to rewind several times to catch every nuance of Andrew Rannells's ad-libbing--and, still, you'll have a nagging suspicion you've missed something. Your dog will poop on the kitchen floor, in the hallway, between the tiny bars of his crate. He'll announce his wakefulness at 5 AM, 2 AM, or while you and another human are mid-coitus. All this, and you get outside, and it's: "Don't let him pee on my tulips!" When...

Joshie

When I was growing up, a class birthday involved Hostess cupcakes. Often, the cupcakes would come in a shoebox, so you could taste a leathery residue (during the party). Times change. You can't bring a treat into a public school, in 2024, because heaven knows what kind of allergies might lurk, in unseen corners, in the classroom. But Joshua's teacher will allow: a dance party, a pajama day, or a guest reader. I chose to bring a story for Joshua's birthday (observed), but I didn't think through the role that anxiety might play in this interaction. We talk, in this house, quite a bit about anxiety; one game-changer, for J, has been a daily list of activities, so that he knows exactly what to expect. He gets a look of profound satisfaction when he sees the agenda; it doesn't really matter what the specific events happen to be. It's just about knowing, "I can anticipate X, Y, and Z." Joshua struggled with his celebration. He wore his nervousness on his f...

Josh at Five

Joshie's project is "flexibility"; the goal is to see that a plan is just an idea, not a gospel, not a guarantee. This is difficult. Yesterday, we went to a restaurant--billed as "open," with unlocked doors--and the owner informed us of an "error in advertising." But Joshie couldn't accept the word "closed." He threw himself on the floor, then climbed on the furniture. I felt for the owner, until he nervously made a reference to "the glass windows." He imagined that my child might toss himself through a sealed window, like Mary Katherine Gallagher, or like Bruce Willis, in "Die Hard." Then--thank the Lord!--I was able to laugh. The thing that really has therapeutic value for Joshie is: a firetruck. If we are out in public, and he spots a parked truck, he wants to climb on each surface. He breathlessly alludes to the wheels, the door, the windows. If an actual fire station ("fire ocean," in Joshie's parla...

Liars and Saints

Search This Blog