You mean he got old? How dare he!
No, I agree that, for me, Road Show lacks something - but I think it is the basic idea, not the score that arose from it; or rather, the idea couldn't quite generate the depth and the levity we associate with him.
I think that the notion of making it like "Road to" movie (Hope and Crosby) from the start never quite matched the actual sordid nature of much of the material. Crosby and Hope at one level don't matter - they don't harm real people because the whole idea of their movies was that they were fantasy. But Willie Mizner comes across as borderline evil, and his brother comes across as peculiarly self-regarding too.
Also, unlike the Hope and Crosby films, the two brothers don't go places together right through - they go to Alaska, then they take divergent paths, then encounter each other in Florida - and I think it's a strange structure, to tell parallel stories which don't grow closer, continuously, towards climax.
In other words, I think it is the notion which led to the less than stellar score - (I think Bounce was more fun, though) - and yes, I know, it was Sondheim's notion, and actually began to stir him back in the 60s, when he was a lot younger.
But I still listen to Bounce and Road Show and marvel. |
