Happy Birthday, SONDHEIM & LLOYD WEBBER!

Happy Birthday to the Kings of Musical Theatre

Stephen Sondheim & Andrew Lloyd Webber!!!

Today kind of seems like Christmas for the musical theatre community.

My life (especially the junior high years) & iTunes have been infintely improved by these two men,

so their birthdays are certainly worth the celebrating.

I vote that next year, they should do a birthday concert at Royal Albert Hall.

[my boyfriends singing a tribute to Cameron Mackintosh]

[A side note on birthdays & Sondheim: I met Stephen Sondheim with my sister on her 25^th birthday. We were at the Lincoln Center in NYC to see a concert performance of Sweeney Todd  & got to the theatre obscenely early. There was a bar on the empty lobby of the mezzanine & there were 2 people at the bar with their backs to us. Jenny thought one of them was Sir Sondheim, but we couldn’t be sure. Then the lady he was with turned around & we recognized her as Maria Friedman, which meant the man was with her was probably Sondheim. So we approached, using our status as Friedman-fans as the catalyst. And then we met the man himself, breathed his air, & exchanged words. I remember nothing anyone said except his affirmation that my sister looked like Johanna. Talk about a happy birthday.]

DreamCast: SWEENEY TODD

I've been on a SONDHEIM kick lately.

Philip Seymour Hoffman as Sweeney Todd

He is just an amazing actor. He especially excels at
conquering shadowy title-characters like Capote,
with confidence, color, & a slightly arrogant intention.
His physicality is perfect & always intentionally executed,
and it would be exciting to see him
reimagine one of the most imaginative title characters out there.

Felicity Huffman as Mrs. Nellie Lovett

She is a tough, cool, complicated actress that displays

the roughened edges that dark humor demands.

She displayed in Transamerica that she can unfold a character

as the text presents new information, which is a necessity for Mrs. Lovett.

Most importantly, she exhibits the strength & skill to play a woman

who has spent years withholding her love towards a man.

Allison Harvard as Johanna 
I know she is not an actress, but she is the perfect caged-bird.  

She has the crazy curious eyes, gothic look, & detached personality

that would result from living in an isolated world.

Johanna is a caricature more than a character,

so a creepy, Tim-Burton-esque-model seems like the perfect fit.

 

Christopher Walken as Judge Turpin

He is a master intimidator who inherently demands

the respect of both other actors & the audience.

His subtle nuances & intense energy would ensure

that Turpin was not performed as a blank, sinister villain.

Michael Cera as Anthony Hope

He could play the earnest, eager moments of

the first falling-into-love of a sweet young man,

While still making the audience fall in love with him,

He provided the same tone in

Juno, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, Superbad,

Arrested Development, & Paper Heart.

Catherine Keener as Beggar Woman

She is so beautiful, but it’s an innate beauty

that is not immediately overwhelming.

She could play the Beggar Woman,

while still revealing who Lucy Barker used to be.

T.R. Knight as Tobias Ragg
On Grey’s Anatomy, he created a character who exhibited
blind devotion to his loved ones.
That character trait is the backbone of Toby,
except Toby takes this dedication to a
heightened, slightly crazy level,
which would be a cool challenge for T.R.K. as an actor.

Michael Emerson as Beadle Bamford

His performance as Benjamin Linus on Lost has eternally solidified

my love for him as the wacked-out pseudo-villain.

It would be cool to see him as the

sinister assistant rather than the sinister ringmaster.

 

Michael C. Hall as Adolfo Pirelli

I first fell in love with this man when he played

the Emcee in the Broadway Revival of Cabaret.

He performed the role with a perfect accent while

equally accentuating the campy & intrinsically creepy facets

of his seemingly simple character.

DreamCast: PASSION

Passion is not the type of musical I usually gravitate towards. Upon first glance, it seems emotionally intense & potentially boring. Apparently, I'm not alone because it is the shortest-running musical to win the Tony for Best Musical. But this musical is Stephen Sondheim at his best & the quality of musical production outweighs the seemingly simple plotline. The writing & music lives up to the title: the music is brilliant & beautiful and I love the acknowledgement of the power of writing letters, especially love letters.

 

Jennifer Ehle as Clara
I loved her in Possession, Sunshine, and
(of course) Pride & Prejudice.
Clara is a part that could easily become
the over-simplified, period, lovestruck blond,
but I've never seen Jennifer Ehle create a shallow character.
In my mind, she is the plays the quintessential
female oppressed by the constraints of a different era.

Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Giorgio

I loved him on Grey's Anatomy & in Vicky Cristina Barcelona.

Those two roles are quite dissimilar from each other,
but both incorporate elements applicable to Giorgio's character.

This role would be great for him as an actor

because it would allow him to play the role of a

weaker man that those in which he's usually cast.

Also, he's hot.

Charlotte Gainsbourg as Fosca

She played my favorite movie-version of Jane Eyre,

which is a role that shares some of
the reactionary traits that Fosca must display:

dealing with being pigeonholed due to gender,

the result of being openly judged due to appearance,

and the effect of isolation on one's person.

Fosca is a similar character to Jane Eyre, except that she is

physically ill, slightly crazy, & more emotionally aggressive.

Just another love story, that's what they would claim.

Another simple love story. Aren't all of them the same?

Unhappiness can be seductive. How quickly pity turns to love.

ARTonNews: Sondheim Wins Tribune's Literary Prize

This was the second time I have been in the presence of the great Stephen Sondheim. My first was on March 24, 2004, my sister’s 25^th birthday. She & I attended a limited-engagement production of Sweeney Todd at the Met. We got to the theatre a little too early so decided to walk around. Standing near the second balcony’s bar, we saw a grey-haired familiar face talking to a blond-haired familiar face. We were confident the blondie was Marie Friedman; so, we decided the best course of action was to go confirm this was Friedman, which confirmed that we had stumbled upon the presence of Sir Sondheim himself. My sister and I talked to him for about 3-5 minutes. It was amazing, but I have no recollection what any of us said. So this time I tried to take better notes.

 

His Partners: Prince V. Lapine

The dynamics of his relationships with his artistic partners was the first conversational point of note. He expressed an open detachment towards the musicals he worked on before collaborating with James Lapine on Sunday in the Park with George. Prior to working with Lapine, Sondheim collaborated with Hal Prince whose writing had a Brechtian influence-base & was less emotionally substantial than Sondheim required. He found a resonance with Lapine’s emotional openness. Sunday in the Park with George was his first musical to premiere at an Off-Broadway venue, which exhibited to Sondheim the difference in attentiveness & intention of the Broadway & Off-Broadway audiences. He discussed how the dissatisfied Broadway audience member will leave at intermission, whereas the Off-Broadway theatre-goer pursues productions with a more appreciative & open mentality (I couldn’t agree more).

Children Will Listen

Sondheim said this song from Into The Woods was originally a segment of an original, longer The Second Midnight & its’ purpose was to clearly state that this is a musical about parent/child relations. In cutting The Second Midnight down, Children Will Listen couldn’t be left on the cutting room floor & had to become its’ own number. Sondheim has consistently stated that children & art are the only legacies worth leaving on earth; in a parallel statement, Sondheim acknowledged the necessity of honoring one’s parent(s) in the face of their loss, both in their mistakes & the honorable legacies left behind. I was surprised at Chris Jones boldness in asking Sondheim outright about his notoriously dysfunctional relationship with his mother. That topic led to the natural inquiry as to Oscar Hammerstein’s influence as an adopted parental figure. Sondheim said that he absorbed liberal training through parentally through osmosis but that Oscar Hammerstein served much more as tutor than pseudo-father-figure.

 

His Most Difficult Lyrics

Maria from West Side Story, Tony’s soaring love ballad that he sings moments after meeting Maria. He discussed the difficulty in expressing simplicity without appearing dull and/or trite; the older writer has written more and trusts that simplicity is ok because it is a result of careful crafting & editing of the text. As with all writing, sweat is what makes it work. As with cooking, reduction takes time. The goal is for the text to contain nothing distracting or extraneous, which all adds up to the necessity of editing. In regard to the conversational tendency of his lyrics, Sondheim acknowledged how the natural rhythm of the dialogue influenced the melody.

The Promise of The First Line

One pressure he discussed (and directly credited as a Hammerstein influence) was the promise that a musical’s first line demands. He dissected the opening line of Sweeney Todd [“Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd”] as an example as a line over which he labored. His explanation for this specific phrasing communicated 3 imperative aspects of the impending musical:

1. “Attend the tale…” immediately indicates an invitation to experience a period piece.
2. The fact that it is referred to as A Tale indicates a sense of dissonance from reality. This is a story & the audience needs be prepared for a tall tale, not the expected serious plot-line a period piece infers.
3. Alliteration of the T sound subconsciously prepares the audience for a bouncy rhythmic evening.

The Porgy & Bess NY Times Letter

Sondheim recently wrote a letter to the New York Times in response to an article revealing plans to revamp the classic 1935 opera into a Broadway hit called The Gershwins' Porgy & Bess. Plans for the contemporary production include manufacturing a backstory for Bess and an altered ending. Chris Jones asked Sondheim where the harm was in experimentation. His quick & impassioned response was that they changed the story; there is merit in re-examining the text, but not in rewriting the story. It expresses a condescension towards the piece if the director feels the text is inadequate & requires alterations in order to produce it. He referred to Richard Jones’ London production of Into the Woods that both he & Lapine loved because it had nothing to do with their original production. It was a completely re-imagined Into the Woods, but one that adhered to and respected the text.

DreamCast: Into the Woods

The man defines dapper & I would gladly listen to any story he had to tell. Plus, Mr. Grey is nothing if not mysterious.


I first thought of Kate Walsh for the Baker's Wife because my attention span lights up everytime she comes onto the Grey's set. She also is a contemporary physical reinterpretation of what The Baker's Wife has become. Originally for the The Baker (so difficult because the possibilities are endless), I thought of Matthew Fox and was dead-set. But then I considered him with Ms. Walsh & the chemistry seemed impossible. Then I realized Patrick Dempsey has that sincere effort muddled with uncertainty, and those 2 have already established in my mind the marital chemistry/history necessary for the casting of these 2 parts. And I would rather see an amazing duo repeat the similiar setting of coupling than risk some inauthentic chemistry. Plus, bakers and surgeons have a lot in common.


Kimberly Paisley-Williams was a belle in Father of the Bride and would be a sweet, strong, sassy belle as Cinderella. In playing the Wolf & Cinderella's Prince, Clive Owen could handle both the sexually predatory Wolf & charasmatic, faux genteel Prince with comlplexity & charm.


First of all, LOST alumni are perfect & will be forever.
Emilie de Ravin is actually a great actress who brought meat to a potentially bland blonde role on LOST. She would do the same thing to Rapunzel. From her brilliant time on the brilliant LOST, she tackled all the acting requirements for an ideal/pretend Rapunzel: perfecting the blood-curdling scream, pulling off a pretend pregnancy without it seeming like a joke, & the ability to channel the blonde & green-finch caged-bird. She could really light the part up.


Something about Californication and True Blood seem to draw upon the same acting skill sets. They both are set in settings that seem so close to being possible, even though they are clearly contemporary fairy tales. In playing Little Red and Jack, Madeleine Martin & Ryan Kwanten could bring bright, thick, & youthful portrayals of their respective roles.


Estelle Parsons has a voice that was cater-created for Jack's Mother. I am not ashamed to say that I love Roseanne & think it is TV show that was stocked with great actors, E.P. being one of them. She is a great actress in terms of subtle humor, comedic timing, & understanding of one's opportunity as an actor to personalize the comedy written in the subtext of great text.
Susan Sarandon has proven she can play a Stepmother. And, in playing Janet in Rocky Horror, she has solidified herself a role in musical theatre history, which must be respected.

And,
Finally,
Our Glorious Queen...
For only the most obvious reasons.
Who else would have the creative competancy, respect for the work, & visionary chops to reign as one of Captain Sondheim's most beloved lady-part creations?
I think Ms. Peters would approve.

I wish!