Skip to main content

Sondheim at Ninety (Cont'd, Cont'd.)

Sondheim's Contemporaries.

 (1) Lin-Manuel Miranda. My favorite Miranda moments are tiny, quiet scenes where character is revealed through word-choice. (Miranda has praised Howard Ashman, who is the king of matching words to characters).

In Miranda's world, a cocky Hamilton interrupts an overly-tactful George Washington: "Do you want me to run the Treasury, or should I be the Secretary of State?" A verbose Hamilton can't really manage a courtroom, and he learns from a far-more-circumspect Burr: "Ladies and Gentlemen, my client is innocent. That's all you need to say." An extremely nervous young man--startled when his love brings him champagne--can't really pay attention to the romance of the moment. He interrupts his friend: "How do you get this gold shit off?"

(2) Tony Kushner. People don't really think of Tony Kushner as a lyricist, but indeed he is.

I appreciate the supreme weirdness of "Caroline, or Change." We normally expect a protagonist to learn and grow--but Caroline doesn't really "deliver," in a conventional way. We expect some dazzle and excitement at the climax of a show; Kushner gives us a depressed woman by a laundry machine, singing, "Murder me, God....down in the basement...." We don't expect a statue to talk, or to sing. But Kushner says, Why not? And he gives us a talking statue, as well.

(3) William Finn. This guy's great talent is for surprise. In a potentially sappy number, friends exclaim, "We don't know what life has in store!" And the bitchy protagonist, nearby, dying of AIDS, sings quietly, "I've a clue...."

A bereaved man thinks about his dead boyfriend, and offers this startling observation: "All too soon, I'll remember your faults....Meanwhile, though, it's tears and schmaltz..."

One of my favorite Finn inventions: Why not pay close attention to a small child, and why not *refuse* to make that child merely cute or predictable? In "Falsettos," a kid can't cope with the knowledge that his friend will die, and so he acts out by cancelling his own bar mitzvah. He wields power in the one way he can: No bar mitzvah. This is such a strange thing to highlight in a musical. It seems to come directly from actual life. I love that.

These are the greats.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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...
3 comments
Read more

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...
2 comments
Read more

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...
Post a Comment
Read more