I’ve been re-listening to the Follies in Concert recording from 1985, and I still can’t believe how much that audience loses its goddamn collective mind.  They just wet themselves.

It made me remember what Clive Barnes, in the New York Times, wrote about the show’s score, back in 1971:

Mr. Sondheim’s music comes in two flavors-nostalgic and cinematic. The nostalgic kind is for the pseudo-oldie numbers, and I must say that most of them sound like numbers that you have almost only just forgotten, but with good reason … The cinematic music is a mixture of this and that, chiefly that. I doubt whether anyone will be parodying it in thirty or forty years’ time.

So now that, nearly forty years later, everyone is parodying Sondheim’s style, and bearing in mind that Clive Barnes got it right with other shows, such as A Chorus Line; and with the added consideration that he is no longer alive, having died last November, I still think it can now be said:

You were wrong, Clive.  Very wrong.  And you were a bitch about it. 

Up yours, Clive.

I popped over to the Old Town Hall in Fairfax to photograph Charles at a recital this morning. He was part of the Friday Morning Music Club concert series. All FMMC concerts are free and performed as a public service. The Old Town Hall is a lovely place to photograph with its hardwood floors and original old windows with beautiful natural light. I got a few more images to use in the feature layout of the upcoming January/February 2010 issue of Hearing Loss Magazine.

This morning’s FMMC hour-long program consisted of:

Berbiguier: Trio For Flutes, Op. 51, No. 1 (Mvmts. i-iii); Albéniz (arr. Bill Holcombe): Tango from España (performed by Yvonne Kocur, Lauren Sileo, and Holly Vesilind—flute trio). You can listen to Yvonne Kocur’s graduate flute recital at George Mason University here. Listen to Lauren Sileo in a recording with pianist Bryan Wagorn here.

Albéniz: Selected solos, Charles Mokotoff, guitar. You can hear snippets of Charles’ music on his website here.

Haydn: On Mighty Pens, from The Creation; Bach: Wir eilen mit schwachen, doch emsigen Schritten, from Cantata No. 78 (Nancy MacArthur Smith, soprano; Carolee Gans Pastorius, mezzo soprano (guest); Patricia Parker, piano)

Sondheim: One More Kiss; Porter: So in Love; Weill: What Good Would the Moon Be?; and Rossini: Una voce poco fa (Il Barbiere di Siviglia), Stacie Steinke, soprano. Steinke is the Artistic Director for Make-A-Scene Music and Entertainment.

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

for those of you new to the blog or my facebook fan page,  I shoot the musicals and operas at western kentucky university when called upon by the fabulous Tracey Moore or Dr. Wayne Pope (hehe, daddy…). The fall 09 musical this year, Putting it Together:a Sondheim Revue was directed by the fabulous Tracey Moore (VISIT http://traceymoore.com/ and  http://actingthesong.com/)

I’m so glad i was available to shoot this because i’m not available to shoot Scenes from Great American Opera :/

always a pleasure to be in the theater again. ahh home . To the cast: i laughed, i cried, i laughed again. and my heart was singing along. Great run kiddos.

contact me: caitlindenman.com

The Broadway production of West Side Story, now playing at the Palace Theatre, is electric; the story of Tony and Maria, torn by their opposing ethnic groups, is timeless, and Bernstein’s score has an enduring freshness and vitality. The production has sparked controversy because some of the Puerto Rican characters’ lines are delivered in Spanish; this technique does add authenticity, but my literal mind was sometimes frustrated by not being able to comprehend the exact meaning of passages. Josefina Scaglione shone as the radiant, charming, sweet Maria; her singing was clear and crisp and subtle in dynamics, and her duets with Tony—“Tonight” and  “One Hand, One Heart”—were captivating. “Somewhere”, a dream-like ballad where Tony and Maria sing about their love surviving in a different time and place, was elevated by the youthful voice of Michael Kleeman as Kiddo. The sets are simple and effective—an imposing steel bridge backdrop nicely creates the scene under the highway. The highlights of the production, for me, were the “Dance at the Gym” mambo (fantastically energetic and well-choreographed) and “America”, with its brilliant, infectious lyrics by Sondheim. I never tire of hearing the Shark girls praise the virtues of America (“I like to be in America, Okay by me in America, Everything free in America”) while the boys offer a more cautious outlook (“Everywhere grime in America, Organized crime in America, Terrible time in America”).

Palace Theatre
1564 Broadway
New York NY 10036

West Side Story

Ep4. – Writers who get in the way

If you want to send a message, try Western Union.

The above is usually attributed to Frank Capra, but I suspect it was a pretty common sentiment in 1930s Hollywood; in any case, Capra could get very messagey when it suited him.  Every writer succumbs once in a while, usually in the younger years, because the people, dammit, the people need to hear the truth.

It happens a lot in musicals.  I’m not sure why.  Maybe it’s the lure of a populist art form, with lots of educated, middle-class people sitting still and listening, lulled, sleepy, ready for indoctrination.  That, and writers who, because the musical theatre is such a closed little world, truly believe we are the first to notice how we should all be a bit nicer to each other.

It’s not necessarily bad to get all messagey, but there are accepted ways of going about it.  Here they are.

Tell a kid

This is easy.  Sometimes the kid is part of the storyline, as in Falsettos; when characters need to unburden, and make some of the evening’s points clear, they tell the kid, Jason, in the spirit of educating him.  Jason, of course, wiser than his years, can usually be counted on to say something pert, and teach the grownups a little something about themselves.

Sometimes the kid is the hero’s younger self (see Nine, The Boy From Oz), so he’s useful for early scenes of optimism, and that all-important “What happened to you, man?  What happened to our dreams?” scene, later.

If the main character is already a kid (Annie), give them a dog.  Oliver! is an impressive exception to the rule.

Tell a dead person

These are usually parents or wives and they’re great fun, because your main character, alone onstage, is still addressing someone without breaking the fourth wall. Examples include the lovely ‘Mamma, Mamma’ from The Most Happy Fella, and Sweeney’s part in ‘Johanna (Quartet)’, from Sweeney Todd.  Also Jesus, addressing God (OK, not technically dead, but still up in the sky), in ‘Gethsemane’ from Jesus Christ Superstar.

You can also bring a ghost onstage, and have them tell the characters Great Truths, as dead Billy Bigelow does in Carousel, and glowing white dead Fantine does in Les Miserables.

Put a Hat On a Supporting Character

The characters are discussing the Message of the Play, and wishing they could tell the People Who Need to Hear, who Aren’t Listening.  So they slap a hat on one of their own and - hey presto! - he becomes Officer Krupke.  Number ensues.

Dream Sequence!

These are helpful, if dated.  You can show How Things Could Be (West Side Story), How Things Might Turn Out (Oklahoma!), How Things Used To Be (Follies, On a Clear Day), and – most messagey of all – How Things Truly Are Beneath The Surface (Follies again, and Lady in the Dark).  In fact, Follies used dream sequences so well, it probably put the last nail in their collective coffin.

Have the chorus do it

Probably the least effective technique, but Brecht is usually cited as a precedent, and the chorus come downstage, point fingers and list all the faults we will nevertheless take home intact.  Examples include “Bui Doi”, from Miss Saigon, the end of Sweeney Todd (the stage version), and far too much of Rent.

It’s when these tehniques are not employed that everything can go horribly wrong.  Tim Rice really got it right in Superstar:  Judas sings to Jesus when he wants to make his points. By the time of Evita, Che and Eva are bantering with each other about the way couples use each other (even though Che has no love interest); then, in the first version of Chess, The Russian and Florence sit and analyse their own scene to one another, while quoting Cole Porter.  Awful.

I love Into The Woods, but I don’t need the witch (hot version) telling me at evening’s end how I should be careful the things I say, children will listen. I know, I get it, I was listening myself for the last two hours, and it’s a bit late if I wasn’t.

When my 20 min draft of The Happy Medium appeared at OzMade musicals in 2007, the audience filled in little feed-back slips, most of which, I’m happy to say, were really encouraging.  But writers only remember the criticism: one person observed, accurately, that the show was preaching to the choir, and would probably never become a big, thumping, mainstream success.  Guess what another wrote?  Well, there’s a song in the show called ‘Put it Back’, in which our hero is upbraided by two Brits for making changes to his performance in a Brit show; then our heroine is patronised by two Americans for improving the blocking of a scene in an American show.  “Put it back, put it back, put it back,” they all sing, and this one feed-back slip read:

Where’s the message?

Maybe I should get a ghost to sing it.

Here it comes. The winter. We were all so earnest weren’t we? We all had these joyous feelings about life and liberty and college revelry. It was all this fun carousel ride that kept running in circles while we laughed; oh how we laughed! Then the conductor woke up.

And its cold.

I have the most flimsy clothing ever. I seriously feel cold all the time, even with layers and layers of t-shirts and sweaters and faux-leather jackets and jackets and two pairs of socks. The sock idea I was most proud of. But it doesn’t work. Somehow I still get ill, and somehow i still am chilled. I want one of those woolen ponchos I saw at HAIR on Sunday. They looked great, and warm enough to keep a bare-chested hippie alive, so that says something. Speaking of Broadway – LOVES IT. In hindsight, maybe I should have brought someone along – but I was getting desperate ok? I had been in New York for two months, and still not seen a Broadway show. Me, who plays routinely the soundtrack of every Sondheim musical in existence. This is not right. In the end I just couldn’t bear another friend needing to ’study’ so I just went, and it was brilliant. And by brilliant, I mean whatever adjective exists that is the superlative of an indescribable modifier for mind-blowing, sensual, youthful, spontaneous, gorgeous, sexy, topical excellence. I’m going again with a friend in a few weeks time. And will be going many times more in the future. I like to let the sunshine in, especially in weather like this.

I also have midterms, what? Yeah, one each day starting tomorrow. Hm.

I’m greatly looking forward to Halloween. I don’t even care if I could have phrased that better E.B. White. I am elated about Sunday. Sunday will be the first time I’ve properly celebrated Halloween in over six years. I’m going as the Mad Hatter. Uh huh. My friend Julia and I will be representing the anti-conformist, slightly sexied up Disney loving teenagers of tomorrow at the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade, and proud of it. Post marching along the streets, proclaiming our rights to pretend to be someone we’re not for the purposes of obtaining confectionary – I’m going to take Julia to a good old Rocky Horror Picture Show rumpus in Chelsea, and then SLEEP. Sleep for two days straight. And I’m not even going to take a Tylenol Pm (that stuff f*s you up by the by, do not ever think about taking one to ‘feel better’ if you intend on being anywhere in the following 18 hours). I’m just going to catch up on all the rest I’ve shelved with plays, Model UN conferences, late-night laughs, and good old tea and biscuits. I’ll let the spiderweb sitars lull me to peace, so that for Semester 1: Part 2, I might still be a fully functional human being. Or whatever. I’m reading Kurt Vonnegut, and what is a human being anyway?

In West Side Story, Tony and Maria meet, dance the cha-cha, and fall in love.  Tony, being a well-raised Polish-American former gang founder, makes an immediate booty call to Maria’s balcony.  They chat a little more, smooch, sing, and make a date to meet at a bridal shop.  There they enact a sort-of-wedding ceremony, making it OK when, later, they have sort-of-sex.  In the famous Act One quintet, anticipating this bout of post-rumble love, they sing:

Tonight, tonight,
Won’t be just any night.
Tonight there will be no morning star.

Stephen Sondheim has been openly critical of his lyrics in this score, but has reserved most of his disdain for such lines as I Feel Pretty’s  ”It’s alarming how charming I feel”.  I’ve never seen him pick on the lines above, but consider:

Of course there will be no morning star tonight.  If it appeared tonight, it would be the evening star.  By definition, Venus can’t appear both tonight and tomorrow morning.  The planet precedes or follows the sun, and cannot do both.

OK, so I’m being a pedant.  Tony and Maria are saying that tonight is a special night, not like those normal nights, that it will never end, and so there will be no morning star.  I’m not heartless; I get it.  But there are large chunks of the year where Venus, occupied with its duties as an evening star, makes no appearance as a morning star, and so those nights are not particularly special.  There are many of them, and they all end.

Granted, this is not the sort of thing I expect a Puerto Rican arriviste and a drugstore stockboy to know, especially while they’re singing.  But I do expect Sondheim, even in his late 20s, to know.  So what’s the young fox lyricist up to?

Here’s my theory.  These characters are toast, and they don’t know it.  How can we tell?  Well, they’re singing about how tonight is so special, and it will never end, but what will really happen is:

• One of them’s gonna die, so for him the night will never end, technically.
• The other’s going to see her lover get shot, so the night will be very, very special, but in all the wrong ways.

I know what you’re thinking.  If this lyric were by, say, Tim Rice, I would dump upon it from a mighty height, then go my merry way.  But because it’s a Sondheim lyric, I’ve been obliged to twist this logic pretzel and eat it, in order to maintain my grovelling obeisance to my Dark Lyric Lord, my Lucifer, my morning star.

True.

This is the time of the year when applicants start wondering, asking, calling, and e-mailing about different deadlines and dates.  “When is the deadline for…? When will I find out if I got in?  What office should I send this to?  How many letters of recommendation do I need?”  Below I have provided a basic overview of important dates, deadlines, and facts about applying and receiving admissions decisions.

Deadlines for Applying (and dates of notification)

The Early Action deadline of Nov. 1 (11/1/09) is only a month away.  Applicants who submit all of their materials (postmarked) by this date, will receive notification of our decision by the end of December.

The Regular Decision deadline is Feb. 1 (2/1/10).  For applicants who are still gathering materials for the application or who plan to take the SAT or ACT again, please note that we will consider all available scores when reviewing an application.  If a current test score or GPA is hurting an applicant’s chances of admission, we will hold for any pending test scores or grade reports (to be submitted with an official test score report or an official mid-year transcript before Feb. 1) before making our decision.  Please do be sure to fill out the appropriate portion on the application to note all SATs or ACTs that you have already taken, or will take in the future. Applicants who apply by the Regular Decision deadline should receive word of our decision by the spring of 2010.

Honors College Application Deadline and Information

Admission to the Honors College is separate from admission to the University.  For full consideration for admission and scholarships from the Honors College, the Honors College application must be completed by January 15th. Applications received after January 15th will be reviewed on a space-available basis; however, no consideration will be given for The Honors College scholarships.

It is important to note that the materials for the Honors College Application should not be sent to the Office of Undergraduate Admissions but the Honors College.   The Honors College application, writing sample, and answers to questions on the application should be sent to:

Application Deadlines for Six Scholars Programs

Center for Women and Information Technology (CWIT) Scholars Program
Humanities Scholars Program
Linehan Artist Scholars Program
Meyerhoff Scholars Program
Sherman Teacher Education Scholars Program
Sondheim Public Affairs Scholars

These scholarship programs require students to fill out applications that are separate from the undergraduate application to the University.  The Meyerhoff Program also requires students to be nominated prior to their application (the deadline for nominations was Oct. 1).  The deadline for applying for the following programs is Jan. 15, 2010, unless otherwise noted.

Also, as is stated in the application for each scholarship, please be aware that students should have their Undergraduate Application for UMBC submitted to the Office of Undergraduate Admissions before the deadline of their respective scholarship program application (listed above). All who apply should also pay close attention to the mailing address of each separate scholarship program (listed in the application).

————————————————–

Recommendation Letters

For Admission to UMBC

One letter of recommendation will suffice for applying to UMBC (though it is not required), and we will accept up to three letters from each applicant.

For Admission to the Honors College

Letters of recommendation are not required.

For Admission to Six Scholarship Programs

Each program has their own recommendation policies listed on their respective application.

When you drain the blood out of Sweeney Todd (the current musical at Encore Musical Theatre Company) you drain the emotion out of the piece as well. When the emotion is gone, there isn’t much to this Sondheim masterpiece.

Walter O’Neil (Sweeney Todd) and Sarah Litzsinger (Mrs. Lovett) “By the Sea”

Steve DeBruyne (Anthony) and Thalia Schramm (Johanna) — “Kiss Me”

There are some fine things going on this production, but suspense is not one of them. Perhaps the three people in the audience who have never seen this musical, nor the movie adaptation, might find some surprise in the clever book and lyrics, but those of us who know this show backwards and forwards certainly will not.

Entering the theatre, you are at once surrounded by Dan Walkers’s marvelous set. Appropriately subdued and surprisingly colorful when needed, this is a wonderful approach to the set in this blackbox setting. And Kudos to Encore for making everything look great! I loved that the air conditioning vent has now been painted black, and that it looks more like a “theatre” with every visit!

The Sweeney Orchestra is the finest I have heard at the Encore! Congratulations! The 9-piece ensemble plays in-tune, and sounds wonderful — oh that Sondheim music. I did miss the factory whistle in the score, and the production was plagued with the now-typical problem of actors being unable to hear the orchestra, and entrances not being together as they can’t see the conductor. I have to compliment both musical director Tyler Driskill and his entire cast for the best diction I have ever heard in a production of Sweeney (and trust me, I’ve seen dozens of them – professional, amateur, and even high school).

Sarah Litzsinger makes a fine Mrs. Lovett; Walter O’Neil a fine Sweeney. Their scenes together are fun. Mind you, not creepy, but fun. Sue Booth performs wonderful work as The Beggar Woman — how wonderful to see her singing on stage again! Steve DeBruyne proves that there is nothing he can do wrong playing almost any role you might throw at him, including nicely acted Anthony here, and Thalia Schramm is a pretty (if very healthy and not-at-all pale) Johanna.  Paul Hopper turns in an appropriately dry Judge, but Jeff Steinhauer struggles with the difficult score and is generally too nice as the Beadle.

Uneven performances are turned in by others. Scott Longpre at times is just fine at Tobias, at others, not so much. The same can be said of John Sartor’s Pirelli which is over the top, but uneven throughout. I did enjoy his scene in Sweeney’s parlor, though. And Longpre turns in a lovely “Not While I’m Around”.

The ensemble is similar to Okalahoma’s — generally too young, not all of the cast members up to the difficult Sondheim score, and generally of community theatre quality. So far, I have been unimpressed by Encore’s aim to integrate the “best” community based actors with the professionals on stage. In just about every performance I have seen there, the professionals and community ensemble do not mesh well together, and there are large gaps in quality between them.

So that brings me to other issues with the show: this production is one in which the average age of the Londoners seems to be about 15. There are not enough adult men. Most of the visitors to Sweeney’s barber chair are too young to have sprouted whiskers themselves. The show is female-heavy, forcing the few men in the ensemble to play multiple roles – even when they follow one scene to the next: in the most glaring instance, a cast-member just killed on the barber chair is suddenly alive and talking in the very next scene on stage. The entire non-professional cast suffers from pitch problems.

Then there are the costumes. I don’t know what the production team was thinking in mixing modern-day clothing with period pieces, but it doesn’t work. I’ve directed dozens of musicals myself, and partaken in many shows where this “out of time” costuming works — Sweeney Todd is not one of them. Tobias wears t-shirts that announce “Pirelli’s Miracle Elixor” and later “Mrs. Lovett’s Meat Pies”.  The Ensemble is dressed in costumes that look like leftovers from the chorus of Carrie, the Musical. Sweeney looks like a Pirate. Later he wears sunglasses.

Particularly jarring are Johanna’s costumes — lines don’t even make sense the way she is dressed. Playing her own mother earlier in the show, she wears a daydress. Huh? Later, as Johanna, she wears a prep school uniform. If she’s wearing a prep school uniform, it’s implied she is going to school. If she is going to prep school, she is leaving the house — something that Johanna would never be permitted to do by the Judge.

This leads to a greater problem: There is no sense that Johanna is “trapped” in her life with the Judge — in fact, she sings “Green Finch and Linnet Bird” in front of a staircase that would easily take her away from the abusive Judge. Later, instead of Anthony climbing upstairs to see her on her balcony, she uses those same stairs to walk down to the street to meet him. At another point in the production, the Judge’s house moves mysteriously from stage left to stage right. Huh?

My favorite moment? The physical comedy of Sarah Litzsinger’s “By the Sea’ and the wonderfully funny little surprise on her “Oh that was lovely” line just after. Precious comedy that.

But finally — it all boils down to the strange artistic direction choices made in the show. The directing here is uneven — better in intimate moments, but utterly baffling in others. Cast members singing counterpoint in the trio holding choir folders? Exits and entrances from directions that don’t make sense?

And that brings me to the blood. Or lack of blood. Or any creepiness factor at all. This is the G-rated version of Sweeney. Seriously, I’ve seen high school productions of this show that were creepier and scarier. I’m not sure what the problem here is. Is Encore afraid of alienating their Dexter-based audience? Do they not trust that we can handle this show as an audience? If not, why do a show that involves murder, and killing people with a razor knife? Murders are bloodless and clean. Actors stand up and walk away from the chair rather than falling through the trap in the floor. Sweeney’s knife never once glistens with blood.

And Mrs.Lovett never once contemplates strangling Tobias with the knitted muffler she places around his neck.

Without the suspense, the drama is sapped out of the show. That leaves you with an unemotional ending, one in which the audience doesn’t care who has lived and who has died, because we have not been asked to share in the journey — we haven’t cringed at Sweeney’s dark humor as the show progresses, and we haven’t felt Mrs. Lovett’s guilt. Somewhere under that makeup, we need to see that she is trapped in her own big lie, and ultimately feel her humanness and frailty in the final moments. Otherwise, there’s just an oven.

Whether the blood is real (like in the original Broadway production – which went through buckets of red dyed corn syrup every night) or implied in it’s creepy simplicity (one bucket being poured into the other in the recent Broadway revival) there needs to be something. Anything. Make me feel some level of discomfort. Let me wonder how they did it. Let me see the glimmer of red blood as Sweeney flicks his knife through the air. Let me hear the blood pouring from bucket to bucket as the audience goes “yuck” in unison. Anything.

Sweeney Todd continues at the Encore Theatre through October 18th. Tickets an be purchased at www.theencoretheatre.org or by calling 734-268-6200. The box office is at 3126 Broad Street in Dexter. Call for box office hours.

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On a related note — I want nothing but success for the Encore. Sorry if some of the reviews sound harsh, but when you set out to achieve a lofty goal of professional musical theatre, you shouldn’t need to be judged by community theatre standards.

That being said — the theatre is in need of several things. First — adult men! Please audition for future shows at the Encore! I know you’re out there — I’ve cast you in my musicals. Drag your butt to Dexter and audition.

Second, the theatre can use some donations: black paint (lots of things on walls still need to be painted). Black heavy-duty power extension cords for lighting (black only please, not orange, not green, not blue). A tv monitor system: this includes a tv for the house so that the cast can see the conductor, and cameras at the back of the house so the conductor can see the cast, and cameras in the pit, so that the actors can see the conductor. I’m sure they could use some other things as well — give the theatre a call and see how you can pitch in! Let’s make this work; it’s a gem in the making, and let’s see what we can do to make it even better!

On a final note to the Encore: I will not be reviewing ANNIE, your next production. I’ve seen enough (and directed enough) community theatre productions of this show to last me a lifetime. I am sure it will bring you a bucket load of money from your audiences, and will keep the family-friendly audiences in Dexter happy. But count me out. The professional tours of the show come through Detroit every couple years. That’s the only versions of Annie I am willing to watch anymore. Good luck with your production, see you at 25th Annual Putnum County Spelling Bee!

And that’s the view from Ann Arbor today…

Frank Loesser
Was unable to repress a
Desire to mentor in later life.
A shame about the wife.

Lord Lloyd Webber,
A hack? Nay, nebber!
Near the start of Superstar
Is one very good bar.

Oscar Hammerstein II
Is forever under-reckoned.
But he revolutionised
Without becoming douchenised.

Wildhorn, Frank:
His melodies stank
Of Cheez Whiz and sherbet;
A less butch Victor Herbert.

And, last of all …

Thanks a lot, Steve,
For the legacy you leave.
We’ll escape it
By writing shit.

It’s a busy time for Katy and me, with schedules that do anything but align.  We have had time to work in some music, however.  Tonight, we are going to a performance of “Into The Woods” at the Kansas City Repertory Theater.  Tomorrow morning, I will put up my art show, “Them Changes: An Examination of Jazz & Soul Album Artwork of the 70s,” at Benetti’s that explores early 70s soul, funk and jazz album covers.  (More on that in a bit.)  Wednesday, we are going to see Denison Witmer break our hearts at The Record Bar.

“Them Changes” explores soul, funk and jazz album artwork from the early 70s.  In planning this show, I have strived to discuss context.  For example, why did the black man suddenly become an icon on soul albums?  What’s with the whole blaxploitation soundtrack thing?  I could go on and on and should probably write a thesis on the subject.

I am aware I have chosen some big names and omitted some others, but I don’t think the show will suffer much.  Isaac Hayes and Curtis Mayfield were tremendously important, so it’s not bad that I focus on them.  I didn’t include any George Clinton-related stuff because of the type of place Benetti’s is.  (I assume that old ladies might get a little freaked out with covers to Free Your Mind and Your Ass Will Follow or Cosmic Slop staring at them as they drink their morning coffees.)

Okay, I’m done.

When I decided to change the focus of this blog from strictly Balkan related “Blogging Balkanistan” to the Balkans and whatever else I felt like writing about “other eccentricities”, it was pretty much designed for a moment like this. On August 14th, Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme was released from prison. For those not familiar with Squeaky Fromme, this excerpt in the New Yorker is a pretty good summary:

Squeaky Fromme is out of jail, which either means that the dramas of the seventies have finally been played out or that the decade is back and here to stay. Fromme, whose real name was Lynette, pointed a loaded gun at President Gerald Ford while wearing a red robe, before being wrestled away by Secret Service agents. As a child, she was a member of a dance troupe that appeared on the Lawrence Welk show. Later, she became a follower of Charles Manson, and, though not one of the Sharon Tate killers, she made a spectacle of herself at his trial. Later still, in 1987, she broke out of jail and wandered in the West Virginia woods for a couple of days. She is only sixty now.

And while Fromme never took part in the Tate-LaBianca murders, few “family” members (with the obvious exception of Manson himself) have had such an indelible, if ill-deserved place in Ameican pop-culture.  Arguably her biggest moment of pop-culture fame outside her connection with the Manson group, came courtesy of Stephen Sondheim and his musical “Assassins“, about assassins and attempted assassins of U.S. presidents. And if that sounds like an odd concept for a musical, than it is probably no stranger than a performer from the Lawrence Welk Show becoming one of Charles Manson’s most devout followers.

“Assassins” features, among other things, Charles Guiteau doing a cakewalk up the gallows and Leon Czolgosz accompanied by a hoe-down. As for Fromme herself, in the musical she sings a duet with Sara Jane Moore (also an attempted Ford assassin), but her big number is her duet with John Hinckley, as the LA Times blog describes  it:

Hinckley, who was obsessed with impressing actress Jodie Foster, sings to “Jodie darlin’ ” and Fromme to “Charlie darlin’.” Consider these snippets of the lyrics. Hinckley begins:

I am nothing
You are wind and water and sky, Jodie.
Tell me, Jodie
How I can earn your love.

 A bit later, Fromme sings:

I am nothing
You are wind and devil and God, Charlie
Take my blood and my body
For your love.
Let me feel fire,
Let me drink poison

Somehow the desire for approval leads to murderous thoughts. After swapping lyrics back and forth, the two finally sing in unison:

Let me prove worthy of your love.
I’ll find a way to earn your love, Wait and see.
Then you will turn your love to me

Confounding and pathetic? Certainly. Beyond understanding? Indeed. And that, perhaps, is the point. Except to the assassin, or would-be assassin, the attacks and killings on our presidents have never made sense.

The song is “Finishing the Hat” from Sunday in the Park With George.  Most musical tragics adore it, because it’s about the impossibility of reconciling your artistic desires with a happy love life; and we all like to think we’re as talented as George Seurat, that any failures in our love lives are due to our uncompromising vision, that we could be dumped by a babe like Bernadette Peters.

I’m as guilty of that as anyone, but the older I get the more I come to admire the words in the middle of a line.  Not the flashy rhyming ones at the end, like “paradoxical” or “isthmus”, but the unprepossessing ones that get the song there.  And I feel particular reverence for the words which are not unusual, but ordinary words being used in an uncommon way.  It’s what fine poets do pretty regularly, but songwriters have the additional burden of being understood aurally, so they have to be careful.

George is singing about how he can score the chicks but they never stick around, on account of all his painting and lack of people skills:

Mapping out a sky.
What you feel like, planning a sky.
What you feel when voices that come through the window go
Until they ______ and die,
Until there’s nothing but sky

The missing word needs to have the same rhythm as “finish”, which occupies this spot in the preceding verse, and “nothing” which has the same notes and rhythm in the following line.

And the winner is … “distance”.  I love it.  I love it because it’s so singable (go on, say the word “distance”.  Doesn’t that just feel good in your mouth?).  I love it because it’s an ordinary word, nothing special, but when was the last time you heard it as a verb?  “Go until they distance and die”.  Lightly alliterative, too, but not flashy.

I could go on, like noting its French origins, in a musical about a French painter, but that would be too much.

(Also has a working title of: “A Classic Broadway Musical: Oh Darn…)

I love musicals…probably too much.  I grew up watching Disney animated classics, and old school musicals.  Movies without singing and dancing were “abnormal” to me until I got a little older.  So I will do my absolute best not to go insane with praise for this.  I know this soundtrack, and I already know I love it, BUT as promised I will approach it as a newcomer and critic and maybe I’ll find a few flaws in it.

For those of you who do not know the plot of West Side Story, take the story of Romeo and Juliet, stick it in NYC during the 1950’s and turn the Montague’s and the Capulet’s into street gangs known as The Jets and The Sharks.

The song “Maria” is amazing, and its SO hard to sing.  Larry Kert from the original Broadway cast does such a great job. And Carol Lawrence, also from the OBC does the same thing with “Tonight.”  Theres a reason this musical is considered a classic.  Also there is something very special about hearing the original Broadway cast (which is what Tom Moon suggested in his book).

“America” is such a memorable song.  You can’t listen to it without smiling.  Alot of people don’t even know that this is where the song came from.

“Cool” requires no explanation….its one of the most recognized scenes from the entire musical. (A bunch of guys strutting around and snapping their fingers and dancing…..okay the description doesn’t sound that cool, but it totally is, I promise)

Okay okay, “I Feel Pretty” is giggle worthy.  Even her voice sounds a little silly…

Okay….surprise surprise…I love this.  This soundtrack is amazing, but its even more amazing with the original Broadway cast singing it for me.  I definitely recommend this to anybody who is interested or loves musical theater.

Thanks to bluebeat.com and to Tom Moon for 1000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die.

Stuck in my head for days.

“Where you going?”

“Barcelona.“

Two Tony Award winners in one night; almost more than a show queen can handle – ‘almost’ I said.

Diva #1: Patti LuPone, Tony Award winner; for Evita (1987) and Mamma Rose in Gypsy (2009). This ‘broad’ is a tough act; tough on herself and tough on her audience. She has immense discipline and her performance is totally focused but she demands respect and attention in return, and does not suffer fools gladly. She has been known to stop a show, in more ways than one: most famously during her run in Gypsy on Broadway, to demand that the person taking photographs of her be removed from the audience. The poor fan was ushered out while enduring a withering tirade, the entire event was of course recorded, naturally enough, on a ‘cell’ phone and immediately posted on Youtube. LuPone has spent over thirty years perfecting her craft, appearing on stage, TV and in the movies, gathering critical and popular acclaim along the way.

Divo #2: Mandy Patinkin, Tony Award winner for Che Guevara in Evita (1987) opposite La LuPone, is… a tough act. His career has spanned four decades; appearing on Broadway, in film and on television, this guy has the chops to give ‘she who must not be photographed’ a run for her money.

This was not La LuPone’s first visit to Sydney, having taken over the role of Eva Peron in 1981 for the Australian production of Evita, from Jennifer Murphy, and then again appearing during the Sydney Festival in 1999. Mr. Patinkin has performed here twice before in a Yiddish concert and also a Broadway compendium show.

On the bare stage of The State Theatre, save for a piano, bass and thirty one ghost lights standing like sentinels across the stage, two plain wooden chairs and a side table for water, this is the sum total of the set dressing. You are left with the impression that this is going to be a bare bones master class in the art of musical theatre and not just the usual cabaret show, where the performers revel in glories of shows past, singing their hits and telling backstage anecdotes. This is a ‘theatrical piece’ according to LuPone, a show about relationships; between a man and a woman. LuPone and Patinkin devote a lot of time to build mood and create an experience, it’s as if you have crept into the rehearsal room to watch them act out scenes from some of the great (and not so great) shows of American theatre.

The show builds on the theme that no matter how hard we try we can never really escape from ourself or our need for love. Each song chosen, nicely feeds into the next and builds the story; even ‘Don’t cry For Me Argentina’ somehow fits.

Patinkin is an extremely mannered performer and he seemed at times to be channelling Al Jolson; however when you match this persona with the right song then a lot is forgiven. He really hit his stride in ‘The God Why Don’t You Love Me Blues’ from Follies and ‘Franklin Shepard, Inc’ from Merrily We Roll Along. It’s as if Patinkin is struggling to suppress his own personality and at times his body is contorted in a kind of vaudevillian marionette. His vocal range also seems to have become even more mannered in the last few years and when he travels from chest into head voice, again it’s as if some caricature has taken over.

LuPone on the other hand commands the stage with her stillness. She stands centre stage at the close of the first act to perform ‘Don’t Cry For Me Argentina’ from Evita and with just the smallest of gestures she recreates the power of Eva Peron, but it is in ‘Everything’s Coming Up Roses’ that we see the full range of not only of her voice but her talent as an actress.

This is actually a small show and deserves a much more intimate theatre than The State. The subtlety of some of the performance is easily lost in the towering proscenium arch and three level auditorium. The first act sound was muddied with lyric and dialogue lost in the mixing booth, this was mostly remedied for the second.

The show was directed and co-written by Patinkin with pianist/musical director, Paul Ford, accompanied on bass by Andrew Shaw and choreography by Anne Reinking, nothing is left to distract you from the voices of these two Broadway legends.

Don’t tell anyone but secretly and quietly I really wanted a cabaret show with a bigger brassy band and showstopper after showstopper.

There’s a game we play in my house called “If a Modern Songwriter Wrote”, and it goes like this:

If a modern songwriter wrote “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”, it would be called “I Hate Kansas and I Can’t Wait to Get Out”.

If a modern songwriter wrote “Old Man River”, it would be called “It Sucks Being a Black Slave, But I Seem To Have Perspective On Life”.

You get the drift. There are some exceptions – I like 10CC’s “Im Not In Love” for not betraying its subtext – but one of the least useful legacies of the 1960s and 1970s is that, now that songwriters can say anything they like, they don’t say much. Worst example I can think of is in Boyz II Men’s I’ll Make Love To You, although the title is bad enough:

Throw your clothes on the floor
I’m gonna take my clothes off too

Mmm, beautiful words, guys. Beautiful.

Which is why I like Dorothy Fields.  Dorothy Fields wrote about sex before you were allowed to. Dorothy Fields wrote about female lust. Yes, female lust. And she did it with style and wit, and her lyrics were just plain sexy. Her name ought to be known to more than just the Astaire/Rogers fans and showqueen tragics.

This is from A Fine Romance, music by Jerome Kern:

A fine romance, you won’t nestle
A fine romance, you won’t wrestle
I might as well play bridge
With my old maid aunts
I haven’t got a chance
This is a fine romance

And, later …

A fine romance with no quarrels
With no insults and all morals
I’ve never mussed the crease
In your blue serge pants
I never get the chance
This is a fine romance

Ginger Rogers, in the snow, singing that to me? I’d dance like Astaire too.  Judi Dench singing that to me?  I’d stay in a hokey British sitcom too.

There are plenty of other examples (Big Spender, Remind Me, He Had Refinement), but there’s one very telling example of how good Fields was. When Stephen Sondheim was writing the pastiche numbers in Follies, he adopted the styles of different composers and lyricists from the 1930s and ’40s. For Losing My Mind, he imagined a Gershwin tune with a Dorothy Fields lyric, a collaboration that never occurred in the real world. So, to this day, when Follies fans sing …

I dim the lights
And think about you,
Spend sleepless nights
To think about you.
You said you loved me,
Or were you just being kind?
Or am I losing my mind?

… they’re singing Sondheim doing an imitation of Fields.  Hell of a compliment, that.

God I love Stephen Sondheim. I’m listening to Into The Woods – the OBCR (Original Broadway Cast Recording) with Bernadette Peters and Joanna Gleason. I’ve heard most of the songs several times but I haven’t seen the show. So a lot of the songs even though I understood parts something was missing – it always happen when listening to Broadway. If you’ve seen the show you the think about the scenes/lines that come before/during/after the song that’s not included. If you haven’t seen the show then there’s usually parts you don’t fully understand, or subtext you can’t understand until you see and become family with the show. Anyways through Zip.ca I finally got to watch the TV recording of this show. The really interesting thing is (as far as I’m aware) it was the original cast in this version, albeit 3 years after it’s original run in NYC. That’s pretty rare – usually when musicals move to TV or movie adaptions, the original cast aren’t there. Of course I’m sure seeing it live during it’s original run must have been incredible – but I’m still satisfied with this. It’s as good as it’ll probably get for me. Unless I can find a way to go back in time and head to New York.

My love for Sondheim shows can be traced back to seeing Sweeney Todd (the movie) in the theatre. It was the first time I’d seen a Sondheim show in any capacity. I’d heard of this composer, but really knew nothing about him. Other than seeing a High School production of West Side Story and hearing Krusty The Clown and Sideshow Mel sing “Send In The Clowns” on the Simpsons, I knew nothing of his music. But I wanted to see Sweeney Todd because it was a musical and that’s something I live and breathe – well not literally but figuratively I do love them. I didn’t even really know what it was about – one of the most applauded shows in musical theatre history. My friend gave me a quick idea “it’s about this barber who kills people and his neighbor bakes them into pies.” Sold a musical with a murderous twist – it intrigued me.

Of course to say I became addicted would be an understatement. I’m sure there are others who took it further that I, but I did become obsessed (at least my version of obsessed). The last time I felt this way about a musical was after I saw Rent. I saw this movie in theatre 5 times, a record for me (excluding the times I had to see The Parent Trap while babysitting). I listened to some of the OBCR songs from Sweeney Todd before seeing the movie. Consequently I bought and listened to CD (except the last song, I didn’t want to spoil everthing) before seeing the movie. Then after seeing the movie I listened to the soundtrack constantly. I bought 2 copies of the dvd, including 1 I special ordered from the US because we can’t get it Canada. I even debated buying a prop set of fake razors. I think it was after that I realize I should take it down a notch.

Aside from the addiction Sweeney Todd introduced me to the wonderful world of Stephen Sondheim. After that I watched the PBS special of Company and bought the Revival recording. I’ve seen the TV production of Sunday In The Park With George Into The Woods and Passion. I think Passion is my least favourite, probably because it’s the show I’m least familiar with.

Sondheim is funny, I understand when people don’t get his music. There’s usually a lot to get. And I understand when people defend this because it’s what makes him so unique. I really didn’t get Sweeney Todd the first time I heard it. Actually I thought something was wrong with my computer because ‘Epiphany’ sounded wrong – I’m very aural and I have a tendency (especially with piano) to only hear what sounds right. A lot of times Sondheim doesn’t sound right. And that’s not an insult Epiphany wasn’t supposed to sound right. It was supposed to sound harsh, angry and raw – to portray Sweeney’s anger and resentment at the world. Even the first time I heard Into The Woods – I thought ok. It always takes a couple listens for me to get into Sondheim. So I’m sure if I were to listen to listen to Passion again, it would grow on me. There’s always a lot to get in Sonheim’s music and shows – but it’s always wonderful to do so. It’s like how I finding reading Hunter S. Thompson – there’s always so much more than you original thought about his books and writings. And Sondheim’s the same, it’s like uncovering treasure.

And now for something completely differnent. No not really. It’s just I’m kinda tired no so I’ll be going to bed now. I could probably write for days on end about Sondheim, despite the few shows that I know. But I’d seriously recommend hitting up amazon or itunes to pick up some CDs or DVDs of his shows.

/End blurb

Louise Howlett and Albert Combrink

On 19 July 2009 Louise Howlett and I will be performing in the Kirstenbosch Chamber Music Breakfast Concert Series. Our programme reflects Louise’s trademark milti-genre approach to songs inspired by Moonlight. The programme includes songs by Arnold Schoenberg, Faure, Mozart, Bizet, Dvorak, Michel Legrand, and Stephen Sondheim.

The idea of one singer encompassing styles from Mozart to Bernstein strikes some as unusual, but when one respects song for what they are, instead of evaluating them on a system of classification, one  arrives at some interesting insights. My work in the field of Tango, and the music of Piazzolla in particular, as well as recent excursions into Villa-Lobos, has taught me that the distinctions between the terms “Classical”, “Folk”, “Popular”, “World Music” and even “Jazz” are becoming increasingly blurred. Audiences are no longer judging a piece of music on whether it is a “good” classical or popular interpretaion. The demands of the media has made it possible for music-lovers to search out their own favourites. The record companies – just like the movie-moguls – can no longer predict the hits. A certain snobbery from the classical fraternity towards other music forms such as musical theathre, has also left many musicians high-and-dry. And out of work. Especially in South Africa the opera-world is fighting for survival and young musicians simply have to diversify to make a living.

I found some Youtube clips of Stephen Sondheim in masterclasses on his song “Send in the Clowns”  from “A Little Night Music” which reveals him to be as much a perfectionist as many an opera conductor. Louise and I have recorded this song and have worked hard to create an interpreation as honest and pure as a Brahms or Schubert song, but without some of the over-threatrical musical gestures that can so easily ruin this song.

Here is an interview with Sondheim discussing the song “Send in the clowns”. He comments on the emotional impact of the  shortbreathed phrases in this song of anger and regret. He stresses the need to approach performing the song from the text, from a a point of “No Singing” which arrives at the point of singing only when the emotion dictates it.

Sondheim was also a generous instructor in the performance of his material. Here he is teaching a singing student from the Guildhall School in London. And here he is teaching an acting student, also from Guildhall. His attention to expressive diction is clear. He strikes me as a wonderful man, insistent, persitent but kind.

Links to recorded clips of “Send in the Clowns”

Below I list links to some of the classic interpretations of this song – and the less successful. I hope to show that reaching an opinion of “authenticity” is a futile excercise.

“Send in the clowns” – Barbara Streissand: Streissand has owned this song for many, and she even convinced Sondheim to write her an extra verse. Her insistence truly enhanced the structure of the song, but also made it more successful as a “stand-alone” song outside of the show for which it was originally written.

“Send in the clowns” – Angela Lansbury: There is no longer a voice worth speaking of, but what a heart-felt performance.

“Send in the clowns” – Cleo Laine in which the accompaniment is focussed around sustained strings, and the arpeggiated figures are totally underplayed.

“Send in the clowns” – Elizabeth Taylor - I personally find this version unbearable, but others have commented that it is “theatrically and dramatically appropriate”. Perhaps. But not for my iPod, thanks.

Other songs from “Moonlight Serenade”

Arnold Schoenberg’s “Erwartung” op2.no.1, beautifully sung by a miss Gracova. Its atmospheric piano writing and haunting melodies conjure up the world of Sondheim’s “Night Music”. Schoenberg at one time made a living orchstrating operettas. Since  his Twelve-Tone Technique dominates writings on his work one tends to forget how important melody is to this composer, whether it uses all 12 tones of the scale or not. An interesting documentary on Schoenberg’s life in Vienna before 1900, is most informative.

The film “Yentl” yielded some excellent material, and this song by Michel Legrande is very much in the Sondheim genre.

“Papa can you hear me” - Barbara Streissand

“Papa can you hear me” in the actual scene from the movie “Yentl” – Barbra Streissand

“Papa can you hear me” in an operatic misjudgement by Ewa Lewandowska. This lady has a good voice. However, she sings this song terribly.

“Memory” from Andrew Lloyd-Webber’s “Cats” - Barbara Streissand: Again, along with Elaine Paige’s, this version sold millions of 45rpm vinyl discs long before CD’s were even invented.

“Memory” – Susan Boyle. A talented lady with a dream who deserves her shot at fame. This recording shows perhaps why she did not win.

All in all an eclectic programme then. Let the audience be the judge.