| re: Sondheim's work | |
| Posted by: Someday 10:41 am EDT 09/30/21 | |
| In reply to: re: Sondheim's work - Dale 08:39 am EDT 09/30/21 | |
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| I’ll offer a friendly dissent, Dale. I think Peter is onto something quite interesting here, certainly worth remarking. Of course, it’s true that Sondheim must collaborate with his book writers, and seems to relish doing so. By most accounts, their collaborations are very organic and two-way — with Sondheim contributing to show structure and other book-related elements, as much as he raids the writer’s speeches for song ideas and exact words and phrases that become lyrics. But more to the point, for many decades, he’s been at a level of stature that he can choose to work on almost any property he wishes. So if he repeatedly works on properties that include the “square one” concept, that means he’s consciously or subconsciously seeking that out — not just passively following scripts he’s been given. Equally notable is that he is then emphasizing the square one concept in his work. For every example like Merrily — where simply choosing a play that runs in reverse meant he would be playing with a return to square one — there are other spots, where he has chosen to double down on the concept when it was not preordained. Often, I think his take is that we end up returning to square one in some area of life (love, work, financial health), but we’ve “learned things now” to inform our journey going forward. To flip it, most writers focus on characters who learn something and have an arc. But Sondheim gravitates to and creates characters who have to learn things the hard way, only after having their life totally collapse and reset in some dimension. This is probably part of creating high stakes, to make the drama most compelling. Anyway, there are many examples. Certainly Red, who has to almost die to learn nice is different than good. Giorgio’s alone and back to square one in the end, but now wrecked by having learned the all-consuming power of an obsessive love he wishes he could forget. Modern George’s cathartic visit from Dot has taught him to move on and keep creating, despite facing square one literally every time he begins a new piece. The more I think about it, this issue is part of why we all had such a hard time discerning whether the new show entitled Square One was synonymous with the Buñuel show, or the marital play that runs backwards. It’s because they both feature a theme of returning to square one. And as Peter has pointed out for us, that’s nothing new! |
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