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The Three Greatest Sondheim Moments

 Thinking--and thinking--and thinking......about Sondheim this week......I put together my three favorite clips. They certainly aren't heretical choices. Here they are.


(3) Bernadette Peters, "Move On." Sondheim himself said that Peters's work here was among the five most-wonderful inventions he'd seen in a theater. (Other winners: Alfred Drake, in "Kismet," John McMartin, in "Follies," Ethel Merman, in "Gypsy," Angela Lansbury, in "Sweeney Todd.") So: you have Peters's charisma. You have Mandy Patinkin's perfect voice. And you have a series of smart lines: "I chose and my world was shaken. So what? The choice may have been mistaken....The choosing was not....." And: "Stop wondering if your vision is new. Let others make that decision. They *usually* do...." And: "Stop worrying where you're going. Move on."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVC4MrUEBRo

(2) Patti LuPone, "Gypsy" at the Tony Awards. I'm moved that Patti is so careful about her diction here; you know that she is trying very, very hard not to be a "flannel mouth." I love Laura Benanti's terror and her rag-doll quality. I love Patti's near-collapse right before the end. And the following sentences are like a Super Bowl win for your hometown team, something you don't forget: "Finished? We're just beginning. AND THERE'S NO STOPPING US THIS TIME......"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXl10a9gJwA

(1) Judi Dench, "Send in the Clowns." One of Sondheim's great achievements within musical comedy was to show how a person can say one thing while clearly meaning something else. Dench helps with this task. Throughout her big number, Dench's face says, "I'm a few seconds away from slitting my own wrists." But her words are in tension with this reality: "Don't you love farce?" "Isn't it rich?" "Isn't it bliss?" This feels like actual life -- because, in actual life, we're always searching for what the person really means, underneath the surface-level breeziness. (Or, we lazily, uncomfortably *accept* the false breeziness...."Well, she said she is fine, so she must be fine.....") Dench has been around the block: She knows that her pain might *one day* seem rich, seem comical. "Well.....maybe next year....."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04E8Y8nDfRQ

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