| I don't know that a "Dick Tracy" musical per se would have worked, but I always thought there was a delightful 1920s, speakeasy, showbiz, gangster musical that could have been created using these songs as a starting point. Sondheim is having a ball writing these tunes, and he doesn't feel the pressure to be "smart" that tilted most of his stage musicals away from populism (which is not to say that the songs aren't intelligent - they are). Clearly, that isn't where he wanted to go with his art in his final decades, and we got a masterpiece in "Passion", but I mourn the missed opportunity. |
