Early Sondheim and Artless Art

It's been very moving to read all the tributes over the last couple of months to the late Stephen Sondheim. 

A tweet from actor Alex Young particularly caught my attention:

"Do you think that all the normal people know that basically Shakespeare has died?"

She went on to clarify that she didn't mean anything superior-sounding by talking about "normal people" but it does make the point. Amongst musical theatre people, Sondheim is regularly compared to Shakespeare or God (I'm never sure which is meant as the higher compliment). Yet for Joe Public, he's mostly the fella who had a hit with West Side Story and "Send in the Clowns".

Now, despite being a musical theatre fan, I have a lingering affinity for normal people and I've always wondered about this issue. Is it that Sondheim is simply too good for the average man? Too sophisticated, too complex, too intellectual? Is it that he was too ahead of his time and the general public will eventually catch up? Maybe the merchandise just wasn't as good and those Pacific Overtures tote bags couldn't complete with the Cats hoodies. Who knows?

To be honest, I don't. But when I think about my own love of Sondheim's work, there may be a clue. 

In truth, I am something of a topsy-turvy Sondheim fan. My impression is that many Sondheim-ites treat the early, popular, lyrics-only efforts (West Side Story and Gypsy) as something of an overture. The true Sondheim canon only really gets going with Company. And yet, for me, it's those early efforts that I find fascinating. I'm a bit like that alien in the Woody Allen movie who comes down to earth only to inform the great actor-writer-director: "we enjoy your films, particularly the early funny ones".

So, if I had to choose a favourite Sondheim lyric, I'd be tempted to pick this from West Side Story:

"Maria! Maria! Maria! Maria!

Maria! Maria! Maria!"

That is a nothing lyric. No cleverness or craft. No sophistication, no deep thought. Yet it tells us everything we need to know about a young man who is besotted with the girl he's just met. And it takes a certain kind of courage to put aside all your lyric-writing sophistication (and Sondheim probably had more of that than anyone) and write something so simple and direct.  

Then again, I could also choose any lyric from Gypsy which, to my ears, probably has the best set of lyrics of any Broadway show. And, if you really pushed me on the picking favourites front, I'd have to plump for "All I Need Now is the Girl":

"Got my striped tie

Got my hopes high

Got the time and the place and I got rhythm

Now all I need's a girl to go with 'em"

That sudden change in the melody on "Got the time...", from a smooth chromaticism into a bouncy syncopation, along with fresh "rhythm/with 'em" rhyme, is so unexpected, yet so easy-going. 

And that's not even my favourite bit of the song. That comes when the young hoofer, Tulsa, is enthusiastically showing off his choreography to Louise and starts shouting out his own commentary:

"Astaire bit!"

Then he starts humming:

"Ya-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-dah"

Did Sondheim write that? Perhaps it was the book writer Arthur Laurents or director Jerome Robbins or maybe it was just the actor ad-libbing in rehearsals. Who knows? Who cares? It's one of those beautiful moments when all the theatrical elements of a musical blur into each other so that you simply can't tell them apart. And it's so natural, it doesn't even feel like it's been written. More like a spontaneous outburst.

This is the kind of artless art in musicals that I find astonishing. Moments that feel so natural, so unself-conscious, and yet are, in fact, complicated and highly contrived bits of a theatre. And I wonder if it is this feeling of artlessness that gives these early shows more popular appeal than later Sondheim works. 

To be honest, I'm not sure.

But sometimes it's worth listening to the normal people.