THE LIFE AQUATIC: 20 Years On

2004 happened to be a surprising year at the movies for offbeat comedies. I’m thinking specifically of Jared & Jerusha Hess’ Napoleon Dynamite, David O. Russell’s I Heart Huckabees, and Wes Anderson’s The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. Only one of them was a hit in any kind of way, but all had the quirk factor jacked up to eleven and delighted me in unusual ways from most comedies.

Somehow, Dynamite became a sleeper hit with its lines and “memes” even entering the popular vernacular (I miss “Vote for Pedro” shirts). Huckabees has always been an endlessly fascinating film to me and, yet, I completely understand why most folks give it a pass. It may be the strangest premise for a movie ever—warring existential detectives, questions of metaphysics, a movie that is both free-flowing and driven by the ugliness of many of its characters. The movie never had a prayer. Heck, it took me five views before I even understood the film, but I kept going back because it was just too strange and interesting to ignore. It’s sad Russell now says it’s his least favorite film. I’d rather have ten more Huckabees than another American Hustle.

Zissou was an entirely different matter. Up until that point, Wes Anderson had been kind of the golden boy for offbeat cinema. While Martin Scorcese had been a champion of the rough, early Bottle Rocket, his style (from the wide shots to the out-of-time costumes, to the stately orderliness) really emerged in Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums, the latter probably being his second greatest film following Moonrise Kingdom.

But The Life Aquatic perplexed most. It was not that it was hard to understand (like Huckabees) or that it wasn’t sure of itself as a film, but it showed Anderson, a master of the offbeat, finding humor in darker, more melancholic places. Somehow, in his Jacques Cousteau-inspired film, he found the hidden off-beats within the off-beats. It does not herald itself a classic, like Tenenbaums, but it is a subtler, more probing film—a great film, but far from perfect.

Despite this, I gravitated toward it right away. It had a lot to do with who I was as a person twenty years ago. I was nearing the end of college, feeling on the edge of a precipice that would eventually become what counselors might call a “quarter-life crisis” (which must have been invented for millennials). While Zissou’s exhaustion with the world was based on a long life of losing his way, my malaise was that of a younger person already exhausted by a world I didn’t feel I understood. Zissou was somehow a kindred spirit. I could feel every one of his deep sighs within my bones. I even named my very first blog after one of my favorite of his lines: “Son of a ****, I’m sick of these dolphins.”

But Zissou’s malaise was interpreted by most critics as an artistic malaise for Anderson. Most felt bored by the film, wondering why it wasn’t as funny as it might have been. The band Steely Dan even wrote an open letter to Anderson telling him, with The Life Aquatic, he had lost his way. For all I know, Anderson may have been at a “lost” place at that time and that lost-ness might just be exhibited in his main character. But I also think the film is funnier than one thinks. You just must look between the lines.

Unlike his previous efforts, the dialogue itself is not as funny as the quiet moments. What is funny is the peculiar squishing sound a boat-plane makes landing on the water, the awkward silences between exchanges, the purposefully fake-looking stop-motion creatures. It is highly subtle stuff. Much like wine, it is for those with a specific palette who can pick up on the slightest of scents or nuances of taste.

As is typical of an Anderson film, it has a top-notch, mostly star cast—Bill Murray and Anjelica Huston returning from Tenenbaums, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum, Michael Gambon, and faces of yesteryear that somehow never got the limelight they deserved. I’m thinking here of Bud Cort (Harold and Maude), Noah Taylor (Flirting), and Seymour Cassell, who appeared in many Anderson films before his death. That is not to say it is a perfectly cast film. Most notably, Cate Blanchett sticks out like a sore thumb. Gwyneth Paltrow was the first choice and would have been more than fine in the part. As she is, the character is not very fleshed out and Blanchett’s performance doesn’t seem to gel much with the others. Perhaps if the character was not British, I could see it working a little more, but, somehow, you are never as drawn to her as Steve and his (most likely) son Ned are.

Which brings us to the Owen Wilson problem. Prior to Zissou, Wilson was Anderson’s co-screenwriter. This time, with Wilson’s film career taking off, that honor went to Noah Baumbach (who went onto direct his own offbeat films). But while Wilson’s role is pivotal in the film, like Blanchett, he doesn’t work entirely due to a distracting Kentucky-twinged accent and a performance that seemed to emerge after a melatonin binge. Who would have made a better Ned? I don’t entirely know. But it is as sad to see Wilson play Ned as it was to not have him play the Edward Norton role in Moonrise Kingdom, which seemed more up his alley. Bad casting decisions can make or break a movie but, most significantly, this is Bill Murray’s movie, and he plays the part so effortlessly that I think most people just didn’t see its brilliance.

My close friends at the time, however, were all over it. I remember printing out my personalized Team Zissou ID badge from the film’s website, ordering a red cap (but no speedo), and buying the 2-disc Criterion DVD as soon as it came out. This was a film that really captured a moment in my life on film. I had yet to make all the mistakes Steve made, but I was about to go into the adult world and make them and maybe, somehow, I knew it.

Over time, The Life Aquatic has had more admirers—at least more than something like The Darjeeling Limited. Anderson has gone on to make two perfect children’s films—Fantastic Mr. Fox and Isle of Dogs. While I still cannot wrap my head around The Grand Budapest Hotel and what it “means,” I thought The French Dispatch was an exceptional return to form and even more challenging than any of his previous work, particularly in terms of structure.

Zissou is now a cult film. Not a large cult, but sizable enough. Perhaps it’s only made for a handful of people who would pick up on its nuances or, at the very least, welcome the delightful oddness—like Seu Jorge playing Portuguese bossa nova variations on David Bowie classics, the madcap interstitials (“Let me tell you about my boat…), and, of course, Goldblum at his most Golblumian.

If you haven’t seen it, grab a Campari on the rocks and settle in for a movie about malaise and how to get one’s “Zissou” back.

Stephen Sondheim: A Remembrance

Stephen Sondheim is a musical theatre composer and lyricist from New York City, New York. He wrote the scores for the musicals Here We Are (book by David Ives; based upon the films The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie and The Exterminating Angel by Luis Buñuel), Road Show (book by John Weidman), Saturday Night (book by Julius J. Epstein; based upon the play Front Porch in Flatbush by Julius J. Epstein and Phillip G. Epstein), Passion (book by James Lapine; based upon the film Passione d’Amore by Ruggero Maccari and Ettore Scola and the novel Fosca by I. U. Tarchetti), Assassins (book by Weidman; based upon an idea by Charles Gilbert, Jr.), Into the Woods (book by Lapine), Sunday in the Park with George (book by Lapine), Merrily We Roll Along (book by George Furth; based upon the play by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart), Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (book by Hugh Wheeler; based upon the play by Christopher Bond), Pacific Overtures (book by Weidman; additional material by Wheeler), The Frogs (book by Burt Shevelove; additional material by Nathan Lane; based upon the play by Aristophanes), A Little Night Music (book by Wheeler; based upon the film Smiles of a Summer Night by Ingmar Bergman), Follies (book by James Goldman), Company (book by Furth), Anyone Can Whistle (book by Arthur Laurents), and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (book by Shevelove and Larry Gelbart; based upon the plays of Plautus). He wrote the lyrics for the musicals Do I Hear a Waltz? (music by Richard Rodgers; book by Laurents; based upon the play The Time of the Cuckoo by Laurents), Gypsy (music by Jule Styne; book by Laurents, based upon the memoirs of Gypsy Rose Lee), and West Side Story (music by Leonard Bernstein; book by Laurents; based upon a concept by Jerome Robbins). His other work for the musical theatre is compiled in the musical revues Old Friends (continuity by Cameron Mackintosh), Sondheim on Sondheim (continuity by Lapine), Putting It Together (continuity by Sondheim; based upon a concept by Sondheim and Julia McKenzie), You’re Gonna Love Tomorrow (continuity by Paul Lazarus), Marry Me a Little (continuity by Craig Lucas and Norman René), and Side by Side by Sondheim (continuity by Ned Sherrin). He wrote additional music and lyrics for The Mad Show (music by Mary Rodgers; lyrics by Marshall Barer; book by Larry Siegel and Stan Hart; based upon Mad Magazine) and Hot Spot (music and lyrics by M. Rodgers and Marin Charnin; book by Jack Weinstock and Willie Gilbert) as well as additional lyrics for the musicals Candide (music by Bernstein; lyrics by Richard Wilbur; book by Wheeler; additional material by John Caird; additional lyrics by John Latouche, Bernstein, Lillian Hellman, and Dorothy Parker; based upon the novel by Voltaire). He also wrote incidental music for the plays King Lear, The Enclave, Twigs, The World of Jules Feiffer, Invitation to a March, Girls of Summer, A Mighty Man Is He, and I Know My Love. He wrote music and lyrics for the television musical Evening Primrose (teleplay by Goldman; based upon the short story by John Collier) and wrote songs for the films The Birdcage, Dick Tracy, and The Seven Per-cent Solution as well as the scores for Reds (with Dave Grusin) and Stavisky. He co-wrote the play Getting Away with Murder (with Furth), co-wrote the screenplay for The Last of Sheila (with Anthony Perkins), and wrote for the television series Rendezvous, The Last Word, and Topper. He was educated at Williams College. He died in Roxbury, Connecticut.

*****

For many, there is only one composer of the musical theatre. Many have individual favorite musicals by select artists, but no other musical theatre composer has been responsible for a body of work that alone set the standard for what musical theatre could be. From the birthplace of the Broadway musical comedy, Stephen Sondheim emerged onto the scene as an uncanny and talented lyricist and shot into the position of the greatest musical theatre composer of all time, never to be rivaled.

His start was inauspicious, however. After a failed attempt at getting one of his scores on the Great White Way, young Stephen Sondheim was approached to compose a musical based upon the plays of the Roman comic playwright Plautus. Burt Shevelove, a professor of theatre at the Yale School of Drama, and Larry Gelbart (a television writer, who would go on to develop the hit series M*A*S*H) were working on a project called A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Veteran Broadway director George Abbot was going to direct the show, which combined the low comedy of Rome with the pizzazz of the Broadway musical.

The plot consisted of several Plautian tricks, held together by a Prologus who plays a slave named Pseudolus. This role was a vehicle for the star Zero Mostel, who would also originate the role of Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof. The songs, it was decided, would be “breathers” for the cast and audience. While the plot would move at a rapid pace, the songs would slow down the action. Many were unaware this was experimental in that day as Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, II had set the standard for songs to come out of the dramatic moment. These songs, however, would be rests amid much chaos in the plotting.

The show opened on Broadway in 1962 and won the Tony Award for Best Musical of the season though Sondheim’s score went almost completely unmentioned in the reviews. Ironically, the show became Sondheim’s greatest success, running well over nine hundred performances. Vincent Canby, in the New York Times, called the musical “as timeless as comedy itself.” Nowadays, the musical is part of the standard repertoire, having been revived numerous times and a film version—directed by A Hard Day’s Night’s Richard Lester—was produced in 1966 with a screen adaptation by its producer Melvin Frank and British television writer Michael Pertwee. The film, though panned by many, featured performances by many well-known stars including Mostel, silent film legend Buster Keaton, and future British musical theatre actor Michael Crawford.

Sondheim’s next project would be simultaneously his most audacious and his biggest failure. Arthur Laurents, the famous New York playwright and screenwriter, had been making a name for himself as a librettist, having worked with Sondheim on several projects. He and Sondheim began fashioning a Broadway “musical fable” originally called Side Show and The Natives are Restless. Re-christened Anyone Can Whistle, the show told the story of a town on its last legs faking a miracle to bring people in for business. Amidst this, a strange doctor visits the town and begins to sort out the townspeople into groups of sane and insane, putting the local nurse of the insane asylum in jeopardy. The musical would essentially be a satire parodying society itself and many mores of the period.

Laurents decided to direct the show himself, which sent up red flags in the Broadway community and three people not known for their work in the musical theatre were cast in the leads: Angela Lansbury, who would become one of the most important musical theatre actors of her generation, was simply a film actress who had never even been in a musical and Hollywood stars Lee Remick and Harry Guardino were brought into play the doctor and nurse, respectively.

The show opened in 1964, but even with some good reviews, the experimental three-act musical confused virtually every audience member—and some felt offended by the piece. The show closed after eight performances, and it would be six years before another musical theatre piece by Stephen Sondheim would grace the New York stages. Anyone Can Whistle became one of the more famous cult musicals due to its legendary cast recording. Its importance was seconded by Whitney Bolton in the Morning Telegraph, who wrote “If Anyone Can Whistle is a success, the American musical theatre will have advanced itself and prepared the way for further breakdown of now old and worn techniques and points of view.” It was apparent to all that Sondheim would not be writing the standard musical faire. The 1970’s would show this, and his work would blossom into the most fertile Broadway theatre of that decade.

Harold Prince had started his career as a Broadway producer, shepherding The Pajama Game to the New York stages. But it was his direction of musicals and operas that would make him a legend. A New York actor and playwright named George Furth (who had had a memorable role in Butch Cassady and the Sundance Kid) had written a series of sketches about marriage revolving around a central female character. Prince read the piece and thought it should be musicalized and revolve around a male character who has great hesitations about married life. Prince approached Sondheim, who was initially against the idea. He had been begging Prince to produce a murder mystery musical set amidst a crumbling Broadway theatre he was working on with James Goldman (author of The Lion in Winter) called The Girls Upstairs. Prince agreed to produce that show if Sondheim would work on the Furth project. Sondheim reluctantly agreed, but what would follow would legitimately advance the musical theatre as the art of the concept musical was born.

Company, as the show was now being called, kept a scenario based on scenes which had no connection except to the lead character of Robert who is celebrating his thirty-fifth birthday with all his married friends who are worried about his wifeless future. The actor cast to bring the role alive was Dean Jones, who starred in many classic live action Disney films, but was an actor of great emotional complexity. Other cast members brought aboard were Charles Kimbrough (future star of Murphy Brown) and Elaine Stritch. The musical pieces fashioned for the show were heartbreaking song-stories of life in New York and the sets (designed by another legend—Boris Aronson) would bring contemporary New York life alive in a Prince-directed show that would shatter audiences night after night.

It opened in 1970 to a bevy of critical and audience praise. This time, Sondheim’s experimental work was appreciated. Time Magazine declared it a “landmark musical, one of those few shows that enter the permanent lore of the theatre by altering the vocabulary of dramatic possibilities.” The Tony Awards lauded the show with the awards of Best Musical, Best Book, and Sondheim’s first Tony for Best Score. Also that year, documentarian D. A. Pennebaker filmed the Original Cast Recording session, which would result in a must-see film for any fan of the musical theatre entitled Original Cast Album: Company. This musical would go on to be revived continually and eventually received a much-needed script revision for the first Broadway revival in 1995.

Then came Prince’s promise to follow through with The Girls Upstairs. Goldman and Sondheim had already collaborated on a television musical called Evening Primrose (adapted from the fantasy author John Collier’s short story). When Prince came aboard as a collaborator with them, he urged them to shift the project from a murder mystery into a story of a reunion of the Follies girls who had inhabited the crumbling theatre’s stages. The result was Follies, which would become what some would call the most perfect invention of the musical theatre.

The songs would consist of pastiches of songs from the nineteen-teens to the fifties with the close of the theatre and personal, character-driven songs. The book would focus on two couples—former stage-door johnnies and the Folly girls they married. Many performers of Broadway’s yester-year would join the cast, including John McMartin, Gene Nelson, and Ethel Barrymore Colt. The show was co-directed by Prince and the up-and-coming choreographer Michael Bennett, who would go on to create A Chorus Line.

The show suffered from an enormous budget which ended up dwarfing the small story, but nevertheless Follies opened in 1971 to glowing reviews. The New York Times called it simply “a work of art” and the American Theatre Wing gave Sondheim his second Tony for Best Score. Unfortunately, the show was not the hit they had anticipated. Due to the set dressings and extravagant costumes, it ended up costing money and many felt the somewhat dour book was not on the same level as the score. It closed shortly after five hundred performances, but Follies would grow in reputation as one of the undisputed masterworks of the American musical theatre. The libretto was revised heavily for its West End premiere in London, but in 2001, when Broadway saw its first revival of Follies, a version of the original book was restored. Select scenes from a famous Lincoln Center concert of material from the show were included in the documentary film Follies: Five Days in New York (released on DVD and VHS as Follies in Concert), which would capture Carol Burnett, George Hearn, and other legends performing songs from the show.

Prince’s production office was desperate to get out of debt following Follies. He and Sondheim were becoming standard collaborators and he elicited Sondheim’s help when he had the notion of adapting Ingmar Bergman’s classic Swedish comedy Smiles of a Summer Night. He hired Hugh Wheeler, a British playwright, to adapt the tale of sexual frustration and aging into a musical libretto. Sondheim would fashion a score with songs all based on the Waltz tempo of ¾ time. The result was another of Sondheim’s most successful shows—A Little Night Music.

Prince saw the piece as a bona fide hit—a light comedy with serious overtones—that may be able to pull them out of debt to continue producing shows for Broadway. Prince pulled in an elegant cast including British film veterans Glynis Johns and Hermione Gingold and Canadian theatre actor Len Cariou. During tryouts for the show, Sondheim would add a song at the eleventh hour called “Send in the Clowns,” which would be one of only two songs of his to become legitimate hits outside of their theatre beginnings.

A Little Night Music opened on Broadway in 1973 and became that bona fide hit Prince needed. Brendan Gill, in the New Yorker, wrote that the show “comes as close as possible to being the perfect romantic comedy musical.” Sondheim, for the third time in a row, won the Tony for Best Score—Tonys also were won for Best Musical and Book. Prince saw an opportunity to extend his talents into film, adapting A Little Night Music into an Elizabeth Taylor vehicle film in 1978 (with a screenplay by Wheeler), which became an embarrassing disaster. But it did nothing to stop the reputation of A Little Night Music, which continues to enchant audiences all over the world in both and opera and theatre houses.

At this time, Sondheim would take a few years away from the theatre to pursue other interests, including co-writing the screenplay for Herbert Ross’ The Last of Sheila with actor Anthony Perkins, But, during that time, his former collaborator Shevelove asked Sondheim to write the songs for a free adaptation of Artistophanes’ comedy The Frogs, which was to be produced by the Yale School of Drama—in the Yale swimming pool! Sondheim agreed.

Shevelove’s adaptation of The Frogs pitted playwrights William Shakespeare and Bernard Shaw against each other for the position of the greatest playwright. The play was produced in 1974 with Larry Blyden guest starring as Dionysos and unknown students Meryl Streep and Sigourney Weaver in the Chorus. This could’ve been the ending of this musical version of The Frogs, but material from the show, particularly the opening song (a re-working of the original opening number from A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum) and Sondheim’s setting of Shakespeare’s “Fear No More” from Cymbeline became beloved by Sondheim aficionados and veteran Broadway actor Nathan Lane decided to even further adapt The Frogs and ask Sondheim to write more material, making it a legitimate musical.

The new show, under the direction of Tony winner Susan Stroman, opened on Broadway in 2004 to largely negative reviews. Most saw it as a shameful star vehicle for Lane. Ben Brantley, in the New York Times, said “what should have been a zesty, air soufflé is a soggy, lumpy batter that never shows the slightest signs of rising.” Still, The Frogs has been a favorite for devotees of Sondheim’s work.

Sondheim’s break from the theatre scene continued into 1975, when Prince once again approached him with an offer to musicalize a non-musical play and, once again, Sondheim was skeptical. John Weidman was a student at the Yale Law School when he caught the bug that had made his father famous (Jerome Weidman was a musical librettist who had co-written the Pulitzer Prize-winning musical Fiorello!). But his son started his career as a librettist with a play he had written called Pacific Overtures. The play told the story of Commodore Matthew Perry’s re-opening of Japanese trade in the mid nineteenth century—but from the perspective of the Japanese. Prince saw the theatricality inherent but felt it should be musicalized. He felt that the show could be a clash and mixture of the art of Kabuki and the art of the Broadway musical. Sondheim had never responded well to Asian music, but when he set to work, he created one of his personal favorite scores.

Prince assembled a cast of all non-Asian descent actors—the first Broadway musical to do so. Legendary actor/director Mako (of The Sand Pebbles fame) was cast as the Reciter and famous Korean American actor Soon-teck Oh as one of the lead characters. The libretto was constructed episodically with the songs heightening the individual moments. Prince hired Wheeler to write additional dialogue material because of Weidman’s youth and inexperience, but most of the libretto was Weidman’s. The musical was one of Sondheim’s most innovative and breathtaking works. The final act of the show saw Japan go from a tiny, agriculturally centered country into the metropolitan business-centered country it is today.

The show opened on Broadway in 1976, both stunning and baffling audiences. Rex Reed, writing in The Daily News, said the show “leaves the audience shaken and breathless with excitement and beauty.” The achievement was considered one of Prince’s finest though the show was not commercial enough to prove a legitimate hit. Predictably, its designs won major awards, but although the show was nominated for its score and book, it took home neither Tony. The show was video recorded and was the first American musical to be broadcast on Japanese television. Pacific Overtures has been produced to great acclaim all over the world—in London, a production by the National Opera featured an all-Caucasian cast. In 1984, an Off-Broadway presentation of Pacific Overtures featured a more streamlined libretto and smaller orchestration and was produced to great acclaim. The show was even revived on Broadway in 2004 starring the Tony Award-winning actor B. D. Wong.

The Sondheim-Prince shows were the talk of Broadway in the 1970’s and this was most true and resonant when the pair collaborated on what would be considered their finest achievement. This time, Sondheim brought the idea to Prince. In London, Sondheim saw a theatrical version of the classic British story of Sweeney Todd written by an Englishman named Christopher Bond. The story of a ravenous barber who cuts the throats of the victims he serves appealed to Sondheim. Prince responded to directing a show set in Victorian England and agreed to the project. Once again, Wheeler joined them to compose the libretto, which would be in more of an operetta style with little dialogue.

The expansive and ambitious score was to be performed by Lansbury and Cariou returning from A Little Night Music. Victor Garber, who had portrayed Jesus in the film version of Godspell was also cast along with a young Craig Lucas (author of Broadway’s Prelude to a Kiss) in the Chorus. Although Sondheim had envisioned the show as an intimate thriller, Prince directed it with the bombastic nature of most of his operatic productions.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street opened in 1979 on Broadway to nearly unanimous praise. Reed, as always a champion of Sondheim’s work, called it “[a] work of such scope and such daring that it dwarfs every other Broadway musical that even attempts to invite comparison.” The musical was showered with Tonys, including Best Musical, Book, and Score and it also received the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Musical. Another solid hit, it would become one of Sondheim’s most beloved projects. Prince’s production was filmed on the West Coast in the national tour version with Lansbury and Hearn. Sondheim’s more intimate vision of the show came to fruition with its first of three Broadway revivals—just a decade after the original version closed. Another revival, under the visionary direction of John Doyle, graced Broadway’s stage in 2005. Gothic film director Tim Burton created a big screen adaptation scripted by John Logan (screenwriter of The Aviator) and starring Johnny Deep and Helena Bonham Carter.

Prince and Sondheim had established a collaboration that would go down in theatre history, but their next project would put to a temporary close their decade-long collaboration. Prince had always been a fan of George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart’s ill-fated Broadway comedy Merrily We Roll Along, each scene of which is told backwards. He envisioned the play to be a musical produced with a fresh, young cast. He contacted Sondheim, who said yes without hesitation. He had been a fan of the play as well and Furth was contacted to adapt the play.

The production was beset with problems. The “fresh, young” cast was mostly coming off as inexperienced and not worth the price of a Broadway ticket. Future stars Jason Alexander (Seinfeld’s number two guy), Giancarlo Esposito (who would be featured prominently in Breaking Bad), Tonya Pinkins, Lonny Price (a memorable actor from Dirty Dancing), and Prince’s daughter Daisy, a now well-respected director herself, all had parts. But with their inexperience and a production design which simply did not work, Merrily We Roll Along opened on Broadway trepidatiously, though it perhaps should’ve never opened at all. The show Sondheim had given an immediate yes was given an immediate “no” for its sixteen-performance run in 1981. Audiences had the same problem they had with the original play—no one understood the structure or the fact it was going backwards in time. Sondheim and Prince both felt like they had ruined the future careers of the entire cast and, though wrong, they had to force them to record their cast album the day after their show closed.

Sondheim’s lyrics won a Drama Desk Award and his score was nominated at the Tonys. Frank Rich, the so-called “Butcher of Broadway,” gave the show only one of his hundreds of negative reviews, but still noted: “Mr. Sondheim has given this evening a half-dozen songs that are crushing and beautiful—that soar and linger and hurt.” Almost immediately after the closing of the show—thanks to its cult status through its cast recording—directors all over tried to get the show right, contacting Sondheim and Furth to re-work it. Finally, in 1994 in its Off-Broadway premiere, Furth and Sondheim established a version that has won rave reviews across the world.

With his relationship with Prince sort of strained, Sondheim took another break from writing for the theatre, though he did not take a break from going to the theatre. He had seen the Off-Broadway premiere of James Lapine’s play Table Settings and was impressed by the frank writing and candid direction. He had considered approaching Lapine, but his shyness got the better of him. Finally, it was Lapine who contacted Sondheim and told him of his idea to transform Georges Seurat’s famous painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte into a musical. Intrigued by the idea, Sondheim set to work. With Lapine writing the book, they envisioned how to bring the characters from the painting to life and have Seurat as the main character, actively creating the piece.

Sondheim’s background was Broadway, Lapine came from regional theatre and had taken Off-Broadway by storm. The notion of the “development” of a piece was something new to Sondheim, but Playwrights Horizons became the place that sheltered Sunday in the Park with George before its Broadway premiere. Musical theatre favorites Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters were brought in as well as many other actors Lapine had worked with previously. The second act—in which a descendant of Seurat is shown with his own problems creating his art—was developed in the final stages of the invited-audience run at Playwrights Horizons.

Sunday in the Park with George opened in 1984 on Broadway to mixed reviews. Sondheim’s work had never been easy on the untrained ear, but this score was his most innovative and experimental. He composed, perhaps, as Seurat painted—scientifically, mathematically. And the Broadway hounds didn’t like it. But many got the show including Rich, calling it “a modernist creation. Perhaps the first truly modernist work of musical theatre that Broadway has produced.” Like with Pacific Overtures, the innovative designs were honored with Tonys, but the show itself was snubbed. Regardless, it became a part of history when it won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama—a rarity among musicals. The show was recorded and shown on PBS to great acclaim. In recent years, Sunday in the Park with George has received many revivals.

Lapine became Sondheim’s new collaborator and they set about on their next project—an idea Lapine had to jumble together several different fairy tales into one story. Combining the famous stories of the Brothers Grimm and other European tales as well as Lapine’s orginal story of a childless baker and his wife, Sondheim and Lapine fashioned a highly symbolic musical which told of growing up, parenthood, and courage under fire. This was quite radically different from the Sondheim who had written the jaded parables of Company.

Into the Woods was workshopped at Playwrights Horizons and developed in San Diego, California at the Old Globe Theatre. The book focused on the original Grimm versions of the tales, shunning the “Disneyfied” Charles Perrault versions which were more familiar to audiences. The cast included once again Peters to head an ensemble cast which would elicit classic performances from Joanna Gleason and Chip Zien. News was spreading toward New York that Sondheim and Lapine were onto something.

Into the Woods opened in 1987 on Broadway to glowing reviews. William A. Henry, III in Time wrote, “[i]t is that joyous rarity, a work of sophisticated artistic ambition and deep political purpose that affords nonstop pleasure.” Though it got the attention of more critics than Sunday in the Park with George, Sondheim felt like he went a little soft, but Into the Woods became his second most popular musical. The Tony Award for Best Musical in 1988 predictably went to Andrew Lloyd Webber, Charles Hart, and Richard Stilgoe’s The Phantom of the Opera, but Into the Woods snagged the awards for Best Score and Book. It is now part of the standard musical theatre repertory and the original production was also shown on PBS. The DVD edition of that recording are guaranteed in the collections of theatre lovers. A revival, with slight revisions to the libretto, was produced on Broadway in 2002 and won the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical.

In his prime years, Sondheim performed several duties for the American theatre, including serving as President of the Dramatists Guild and working with several mentorship groups, supervising contests of up-and-coming playwrights. While working with such a group, Sondheim came across a play by a young author named Charles Gilbert, Jr. The play was a revue-style show that told the stories of the U. S. Presidential assassins from John Wilkes Booth all the way down to Lee Harvey Oswald as well as would-be assassins like Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme and John Hinckley. Sondheim was impressed with the concept and asked Gilbert if he could use the idea for a musical. Though Gilbert hoped to contribute with the book, he agreed to Sondheim picking his own collaborator—John Weidman, the man who had brought him Pacific Overtures.

Like Pacific Overtures, Assassins would be political and episodic and Weidman was thought the perfect person to pen the unusual musical. Sondheim decided to return to Playwrights Horizons for the development of the work. Lapine was in Hollywood directing films like Impromptu and Life with Mikey. Andre Bishop, the then artistic director of Horizons agreed to the project and its development became a labor of love for everyone involved. Veteran comic director Jerry Zaks was brought in to direct and many New York favorite actors came into collaborate, including Terrence Mann (from Les Miserables), Lee Wilkof (the original Seymour in Little Shop of Horrors), Debra Monk (from Prelude to a Kiss), and Garber.

Assassins opened Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons in 1991, unfortunately during the Persian Gulf War. Oddly, its critical reception was largely negative though the audiences came in droves to see the provocative show. Still, some critics did appreciate it, including David Richards in the New York Times, who wrote, “Nothing quite prepares you for the disturbing brilliance of Assassins.” If Into the Woods was one of Sondheim’s lighter shows, Assassins proved he was still the only musical theatre composer willing to go into darker territory. There was no plan to bring Assassins to Broadway at that time, but several years later, the Roundabout Theatre Company planned to open it on Broadway. Their original dates conflicted with the events of September 11, 2001. But, eventually, the musical did have its Broadway premiere in 2004. The show was directed by the Tony Award winner Joe Mantello and famously featured Neil Patrick Harris (of Doogie Howser, M. D. fame) as Oswald. It was only eligible for the Best Revival Award at the Tonys, but it did win.

Though Lapine had not been on hand for Assassins, his collaboration with Sondheim was not over. Sondheim approached Lapine for the only other show he ever originated (the first being Sweeney Todd). Years before, Sondheim had fallen in love with an obscure Italian filmed named Passione d’Amore directed by Ettore Scola which was based on an even more obscure Italian novel named Fosca by I. U. Tarchetti. The film’s story of a not-quite beautiful woman who develops a mad passion for an Italian military man appealed to Sondheim, who envisioned a dramatic operetta which would explore love in the darker regions of mankind. The score, with no individual song titles, was not his most experimental, but it was perhaps the truest, most humane music he ever produced. The book (operetta-style, with only small segments of dialogue) was perhaps the most elegantly constructed of all the books for a Sondheim musical.

Lapine cast an actress named Donna Murphy in the lead role of Fosca. Like Gleason with the role of the Baker’s Wife, the role would give Murphy her signature performance. Newcomer Marin Mazzie would be cast in the role of the other female lead and go on to be a staple of the New York musical theatre. The opening scene of the musical would be very memorable in that it featured Mazzie and male lead Jere Shea in a nude love-making scene. Sondheim’s musical—without an intermission—became the talk of the year as so few new musicals were being produced.

Passion opened on Broadway in 1994. Though some consider its relative success due to the production of few musicals that year, Passion became respected as one of Sondheim’s most perfect accomplishments. Robert Brustein, in the New Republic wrote it had him “sobbing uncontrollably...Sondheim’s deepest, most powerful work.” Others seconded. The musical won the Tony Awards for Best Musical and Score. The production would be broadcast on PBS as the others from Lapine and Sondheim. Though it has not received the same reception in revivals, Passion remains a quietly thrilling and oddly entrancing musical from Sondheim’s achievements.

As Sondheim settled in his personal life, his work in the theatre diminished considerably. It would be six years before another Sondheim score would be heard in New York and when it was, it turned out to be Sondheim’s very first professional score. A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum was not Sondheim’s first planned show for New York. He had first written the score for a musical called Saturday Night for a producer who died before the backers committed. With the death of that producer, Saturday Night died as well.

The musical was based upon the play Front Porch in Flatbush by Julius J. Epstein and Phillip G. Epstein, the brothers who were partially responsible for the classic American film Casablanca’s screenplay. Julius J. Epstein had written the book for the musical. Essentially a light comedy about libidinous young men from the Bronx, much of the material had been heard in several Sondheim reviews from the 1970’s on. The Bridewell Theatre in London, England gave the World Premiere of the show in 1997 for a limited run with a nod from Sondheim, but not much involvement. Kathleen Marshall, the American director-choreographer had the idea to produce it in New York. She contacted the Second Stage Theatre Off-Broadway.

Saturday Night opened Off-Broadway in 2000. The run (part of the Second Stage season) was well-received. Ben Brantley, in the New York Times, wrote “Sondheim’s startling, expressive talent is definitely there.” The production gave New York audiences the opportunity to hear one of Sondheim’s earliest projects come to fruition and his lyrics won a Drama Desk Award. If Saturday Night had been the first score we heard from Sondheim, it’s hard to tell whether his career would have taken the same turns, but Saturday Night continues to have a life in regional and community theatres due to Sondheim’s adoring fans.

Though Sondheim’s original output had been scarce in the new millennium, he had the rare chance of seeing his work finally getting the national recognition it deserves—even if Sondheim himself became pessimistic about the future of the musical theatre. His next musical (first titled Wise Guys, then Gold!, then Bounce—a musical based upon the true story of the Mizner Brothers, a pair of adventure-seeking siblings who were household names in the early part of the twentieth century. It had been many years since the Mizners meant anything nationally, but Sondheim was always intrigued by their stories and desperately wanted to musicalize them. He brought back Weidman to write the book. The original show was was workshopped briefly at the New York Theatre Workshop in 1999 under the direction of American Beauty director Sam Mendes.

Due to a lengthy lawsuit brought on by the show’s original producer Scott Rudin, material from Wise Guys was postponed from seeing production for nearly three years. But, eventually the musical (with the title Bounce) was on its way to its World Premiere. Harold Prince, Sondheim’s former collaborator signed onto direct the show. But the world did not appear ready to see the next Sondheim-Prince show. The musical opened in Chicago, Illinois at the Goodman Theatre in 2003 with Richard Kind (from television’s Spin City) in one of the central roles. The musical ran briefly and then moved to Washington, D. C. for tryouts for Broadway.

The show opened that same year at the Kennedy Center. News was not good. Peter Marks, in the Washington Post pointed out the score’s similarities to other Sondheim scores. “What you hear…are the echoes of other Sondheim shows…intimations of a musical line from Assassins; a song that reminds you of the cadence of “A Weekend in the County” from A Little Night Music; the thematic connection between the Florida cycle and Sondheim’s other songs about creation, such as ‘Finishing the Hat’ from Sunday in the Park with George.” Marks was not the only one to notice the tired score. Bounce cancelled its Broadway engagement, thought it did leave behind a memorable cast recording and a book and score which were more streamlined than they were as Wise Guys. Finally, in 2008, the musical premiered Off-Broadway in a production directed by Doyle and renamed Road Show.

Sondheim’s final musical would be produced posthumously. For years, he worked on an odd project based on the films of Luis Buñuel) with playwright David Ives. Called, at various times, Buñuel! and Square One, Here We Are premiered Off-Broadway in late 2023 in a star-studded production directed by Mantello. Though unfinished, the original cast recording proves Sondheim continued to push the boundaries of the art form to the very end.

More importantly than a new score from Sondheim was the appreciation of his work, that had left him with more Tonys than most composers of the musical theatre and a Kennedy Center Honor for his contribution to American musical art. But Sondheim’s career did not start with scoring. He was first known as a deft and studious lyricist. And though he never much liked simply being a lyricist, his name became a part of more musical standards than most people have penned in a lifetime—just in the few musicals he served as a lyricist.

*****

The job of a lyricist in the theatre is nearly as thankless as the job of the book-writer. Cole Porter once asked why it took two people to write a song. Many others have the same notion. Names like Fred Ebb don’t resonate as much as John Kander even if it is a Kander-Ebb collaboration. Sondheim didn’t like the job either. While he tried to proffer Saturday Night around New York, he became involved as a lyricist on two mammoth shows which were signature musicals of the classical period before Sondheim himself would revitalize the art form. Sondheim had been mentored by Oscar Hammerstein, II and through his New York connections, became involved with the world-class composer Leonard Bernstein in the mid-fifties.

Bernstein was working on a concept with Jerome Robbins, the legendary director-choreographer, that was largely indebted to Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Bernstein was to write lyrics himself but thought highly of Sondheim and offered him the position as a co-lyricist on what they were calling East Side Story—an unintentional updating of Abie’s Irish Rose. Arthur Laurents reluctantly accepted the position as book-writer (He didn’t want to be a pawn to Bernstein, whose personality preceded his talent). On vacation, the collaborators read stories of gang wars back in their native New York between young Peurto Rican and American youth. Suddenly, their project became West Side Story—now a staple of the theatre, it was actually one of the most radical Broadway musicals at the time.

Sondheim became more involved as the show progressed and Bernstein realized his involvement with the lyrics were minimal and decided to give the entire lyric credit to Sondheim. The show was heavily dance-oriented—combining balletic movements with musical theatre choreography. The score brought a touch of Bernstein’s classical background to the musical. The book is now largely considered a perfect example of musical libretto writing. In an odd turn, the creators decided to end the show on a powerful monologue rather than a song.

West Side Story opened in 1957 and enjoyed a very long run for the time. The cast included Larry Kert (the most memorable Robert from Company) and future musical legend Chita Rivera. Brooks Atkinson, in his glowing review in the New York Times, neglected to even mention Sondheim’s contribution, but praised the “profoundly moving show” even though it was apparent the material was tough to stomach for him. West Side Story went on to be performed all over the world and the 1961 film version (directed by Robbins and Robert Wise and scripted by Ernest Lehman and Robbins) won the Academy Award for Best Picture of the Year. Sondheim had written the words for songs that have stayed in the minds of musical lovers for ages: “Tonight,” “America,” “Somewhere,” “I Feel Pretty,” and many others.

Laurents, ever the idea-man, became obsessed with bringing the memoirs of the famous burlesque performer “Gypsy” Rose Lee to the musical stage. His idea caught on and he felt Sondheim would be perfect to write the score. Sondheim jumped at the chance but then the other collaborators lined up. Robbins would once again direct and choreograph and theatre giant David Merrick would produce, and they wanted Ethel Merman to star as Rose (the primary focus of Laurents’ adaptation) and Merman didn’t want Sondheim. She had just performed in a huge flop and was not going to be in a show scored by a first-time composer. Jule Styne, a famous figure around New York, came aboard. Sondheim did not want to just write lyrics again, but Laurents begged him to stay.

The score became golden and Robbins’ staging became some of the most influential staging in the history of the classical American musical. Merman, though much hated by the writers, was inhabiting a part that would be her swan song and give her the only role that began to infringe on the modern musical, a Lear-like role. The finale, entitled “Rose’s Turn,” was a staggering piece of theatre that perfectly dramatized a woman falling apart at the seams.

Gypsy opened on Broadway in 1959 and was an instant hit with audiences and critics. Atkinson finally mentioned Sondheim briefly: “Jule Styne has supplied a genuine show-business score, and Stephen Sondheim has set amusing lyrics to it.” Not exactly the herald of the most talented person working in New York, but a notice nevertheless. Curiously, Gypsy won no Tonys that year, but it became an often-revived show. Lansbury, Peters, Tyne Daly, Patti LuPone—they would all play the role. Gypsy was adapted into a rather tepid Mervyn LeRoy film starring Rosalind Russell and Natalie Wood in 1962. But it was finally adapted with its spirit intact for a 1993 television version, starring Midler and directed by Emile Ardolino (director of Dirty Dancing). The musical is now recognized as the greatest and final musical of the classical era started by Rodgers and Hammerstein

The last musical which benefited from sole lyrical authorship by Sondheim was the least successful but still, though not a runaway hit, performed solidly. It pitted the best of the old-style composers and the most promising of the new-style composers together to work on a single score. Laurents had written a strong Broadway play called The Time of the Cuckoo, which had also profited from a successful film adaptation entitled Summertime. But Laurents was not done with it. He decided his little darling could sing. He and Sondheim had just walked away shame-facedly from Anyone Can Whistle and they needed a hit. Sondheim had sworn off lyric-writing alone, but Laurents somehow roped him back in and the idea was to put Sondheim’s words with the music of Richard Rodgers. Hammerstein was dead and Rodgers was working sporadically with other lyricists, beating a dead horse with a stick.

Laurents wrote the book to a musical which would be called Do I Hear a Waltz? and the director brought in was the formidable English director John Dexter. Dexter, Laurents, Sondheim, Rodgers, and actress Elizabeth Allen. So much talent. They were all doing their jobs, but they found themselves sitting around, staring at each other—nobody enjoying any of it. Rodgers was a producer and kept a tight watch on Sondheim, who kept on bringing in nominally risqué lyrics which angered the difficult Rodgers. Allen complained that Dexter was sexist. Everybody was bickering and yet, the show they produced had a style to it. Unfortunately, it was as placid as its setting of the water-filled streets of Venice.

Do I Hear a Waltz? opened on Broadway in 1965 to mixed reviews. The show was labeled as classy and solid and interesting—but nobody was singing its praises, not the least of which was Sondheim, who didn’t think the main character “sang.” Still, the show won its share of nice notices. The New York Post called it “deft and intelligent…the score is filled with pleasures…haunting…charming…brightly sardonic.”  The score was nominated for the Tony Award that year, but the show walked away with no awards. Surprisingly, several years later, theatre companies across America were re-discovering the one collaboration between two of the greatest musical composers of all time. A production at the Pasadena Playhouse in 2001 set the standard for the show, which is sill being produced widely.

*****

In regional theatres throughout the country, the most exposure Sondheim’s words and music receive is through the various revues which have been staged since the 1970’s. These revues often include his work for film and other minor stage shows and (most famously) cut songs from the shows that made him famous. The first of these was Side by Side by Sondheim—a piece conceived in England by Ned Sherrin, a famous British broadcaster and theatre director. Sherrin wrote continuity threading through the songs of the evening.

The revue (which also includes music by Styne, Bernstein, and Mary Rodgers [an early collaborator—Richard Rodgers’ daughter]) opened in the West End in 1976 featuring Julia McKenzie, who would go onto co-conceive and direct her own Sondheim review. The show was highly successful, transferring to up to three theatres to fulfill the audience’s wishes. The same cast performed the show in 1977 on Broadway to another great three-theatre success.

Side by Side by Sondheim, in its current version, includes “Can That Boy Foxtrot!” (cut from Follies), “I Remember” (from Evening Primrose), “Marry Me a Little” (cut from Company, but restored for the present version), “I Never Do Anything Twice” (from the film The Seven Per-Cent Solution), an extended version of “We’re Gonna Be Alright” (from Do I Hear a Waltz?), and “The Boy From…” (a song Sondheim wrote the lyrics under a pseudonym for an Off-Broadway musical based on Mad Magazine). The revue is still performed often even though it covers material only through Pacific Overtures.

By far the best and most innovative of the revues is Marry Me a Little, which is considered by most simply another Sondheim show. As mentioned above, Craig Lucas was in the Chorus of Sweeney Todd. He had studied under Anne Sexton at Boston University who had suggested he write for the theatre, but Lucas still wanted to be an actor. One day, he asked Sondheim if he have a wealth of un-sung material that he could use for an Off-Off-Broadway show. Sondheim agreed and contributed that wealth of material. Lucas was a collaborator with Norman René (who directed Lucas’ screenplay for Longtime Companion) and they were looking for a show they could do on the same stage as a non-musical play which was running at The Production Company in New York.

Sondheim believed in Lucas as a writer and was very involved with the initial production. Lucas and René collaborated on a scenario for a silent “book” which pitted two lonely people on a Saturday night in their separate New York apartments. But the production was directed where the actors played on one set. The actors would keep crossing each others stage paths but were actually alone in their own apartments. The show was performed Off-Off-Broadway to great acclaim.

Marry Me a Little moved Off-Broadway in 1980. Lucas performed the role of the Man and René directed (Sondheim eventually suggested Lucas quit performing to pursue writing full time—Lucas is now an Obie Award-winning playwright). The show featured much material from Saturday Night, but also: “Two Fairy Tales,” “Bang!,” and “Silly People” (all cut from A Little Night Music); “All Things Bright and Beautiful,” “Uptown, Downtown,” “It Wasn’t Meant to Happen,” and “Who Could Be Blue?/Little White House” (all cut from Follies); “Your Eyes Are Blue” (cut from A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum), “Happily Ever After” (cut from Company), “There Won’t Be Trumpets” (cut from Anyone Can Whistle, but restored for the current version), “Pour le Sport,” a song Sondheim had written for an abandoned musical called The Last Resorts, which he worked on with Jean Kerr, and a song written for the Broadway play Girls of Summer. Marry Me a Little is solely responsible for bringing to the public year the myriads of excellent cut work from Follies, most of which were featured on the “complete” recording based on the Papermill Playhouse production, which heralded two Broadway revivals.

One of the most delightful of the Sondheim revues came about from a benefit concert in New York City called A Stephen Sondheim Evening. Paul Lazarus, a theatre producer and director who directed the hit Off-Broadway musical Personals, put together the evening that would lead to a star-studded album for RCA Records. The material would be much of Sondheim’s most celebrated material and material never before performed.

The cast assembled included Hearn, Chris Groenendaal (who went onto be in the original casts of Sunday in the Park with George and Passion) and (for a surprise finale) Lansbury and Sondheim himself performing “Send in the Clowns.” By this time, Sondheim had already had a decade-long of hits. A Stephen Sondheim Evening would also feature material from The Frogs seeing its New York Debut.

The show was performed in 1983 and lead to a very memorable cast album. The show is licensed today as You’re Gonna Love Tomorrow. It stands as another oft-performed revue. It included an extended version of “The House of Marcus Lycus” from A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and “Echo Song” and “There’s Something About a War,” both cut from Forum. It also included material from Merrily We Roll Along.

The most popular (and yet off-putting) revue was one that had Sondheim’s hands very deeply within. Cameron Mackintosh had been the main ambassador for European rock operas and the musicals of Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber (who was born on the same date as Sondheim and who was Prince’s primary collaborator during the late ‘70’s-early 80’s). His lavish and expensive productions had never included work by Sondheim, though London was just as in love with Sondheim as New York. Finally, Mackintosh produced the stolid West End premiere of Follies. Then, he decided to produce a high-profile revue of Sondheim’s work. McKenzie, who was in Side by Side by Sondheim, was paired with Sondheim to create a revue which would tie together more of Sondheim’s work than had been previously collected. They also decided that Sondheim would re-write lyrics to accommodate a story of acquaintances at a party. A devious Narrator would keep the piece spinning. The result was Putting It Together, which was first produced in 1992 in Oxford, England featuring Diana Rigg (who had played Phyllis in the London Follies and Charlotte in the film of A Little Night Music.)

Putting It Together was produced Off-Broadway at the Manhattan Theatre Club, under McKenzie’s direction, in 1993. It marked Julie Andrews’ return to the world of musical theatre and was much heralded for its supporting cast, including the Obie Award-winning playwright Christopher Durang as the Narrator.

It had a short life Off-Broadway, but interest spread concerning the revue and Sondheim went back to brush up the (rather long) original version, which Mackintosh produced on Broadway in 1999. As Andrews had headlined the first event, Carol Burnett (who had memorably sung “I’m Still Here” for the Follies concert) starred in this production with Hearn and Bronson Pinchot (of Perfect Strangers fame) as the Narrator. This production was recorded for DVD release. The revue, in its present version includes “Rich and Happy” (from the original version of Merrily We Roll Along), a song called “Do You Hear a Waltz?” from an abandoned musical which had nothing to do with Do I Hear a Waltz?, “My Husband the Pig” (cut from A Little Night Music), “There’s Always a Woman” (cut from Anyone Can Whistle), “Country House” (from the London version of Follies), “Sooner or Later” (Sondheim’s Academy Award-winning song from Dick Tracy), and three other Dick Tracy tunes: “Back in Business,” “Live Alone and Like It,” and “More.” Other revues followed, including Sondheim on Sondheim and the recent Old Friends.

*****

The American musical dies a little more each year. Most shows on Broadway are adapted from films and they seem to be settling into long runs like the British Rock Opera invasion of the ‘80’s. Off-Broadway gives very little opportunity for open-ended runs for musicals. Regional theatres develop new work only to be stopped short of even thinking of moving to New York. A few composers (Jason Robert Brown, Michael John LaChiusa, Adam Guettel) lurk around the corner who have massive talent but work very seldom. Sondheim himself had passed the gauntlet onto his mentee Jonathan Larson, but Larson’s life ended just as he was beginning to re-revitalize the form.

Sondheim in his final years sat on a pampered pedestal. The composer had always been “goddamned lazy” (as William Goldman quipped about musical composers), but he still wrote and was a champion of young composers. Regardless, if the musical theatre never produced another Sondheim, it would be understandable. A composer interested in dramatic song, he was (at heart), a playwright and one of the best the professional New York theatre has ever produced.

Some Favorite SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE Sketches

Saturday Night Live (pr. n.): a live show in which most of the funniest sketches are pre-recorded.

On the late Norm Macdonald’s Netflix show Norm Macdonald Has a Show, he interviewed Lorne Michaels, the creator of one of the longest-running series on television, Saturday Night Live. Macdonald, of course, was the one bright spot in the otherwise dismal years of his tenure on “Weekend Update,” before his unceremonious departure due to an onslaught of jokes about “The Juice,” who happened to be a friend of the then-president of NBC, Don Ohlmeyer.

Michaels told Macdonald that most people’s favorite SNL years are usually the ones they watch in high school. For me, it was most certainly junior high school, when I first found it. After Michaels had returned to the fledgling show in the mid-80s and eventually assembled a spot-on cast that included Mike Myers, Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman, Jan Hooks, and Kevin Nealon heading the “Update.” These years (which eventually added Chris Farley, David Spade, Chris Rock, etc.) were my favorites. In fact, when Will Ferrell first appeared on the show, I thought comedy had died. It took me a long time to understand and appreciate Will Ferrell.

Of course, those early 90s years does not provide the only treasure-trove of comedy from SNL and most people would tell me Nealon, who often incorporated his “Subliminal Man” character in his newscast, was the worst ever (which is most certainly Colin Quinn). With SNL, there’s rarely an in-between. There are those who will always think the show worked best in its first five years with Belushi, Aykroyd, etc. There are those who would fight for Eddie Murphy’s star turn in the lean years. I myself have a soft-spot for the time when Bill Hader, Fred Armisen, Kristen Wiig, and Jason Sudeikis made me laugh heartily nearly every week.

And yet the criticism that SNL is always the same is essentially true. The really funny stuff is usually pre-recorded (think The Lonely Island), some characters are overused to the point of exhaustion, the opening and closing episodes of a season are always the best and the middle part of the season lags between low-level and God-awful. This has not seemed to change in the nearly fifty years the show has been on the air.

Still, here are sketches that I find myself constantly returning to—ones etched in the memory. They are listed in no particular order (and some can no longer be found due to music rights issues or SNL’s own draconian use of YouTube). Still, I would be interested in your favorites in the comments and what era of the show holds a special place in your heart. As for the most recent seasons, only Colin Jost and Michael Che occasionally save it (and sometimes not even then), but one always holds out hope they’ll find another cast whose energy is infectious.

Sofa King

One of a series of one-joke sketches concerning professions that have almost lewd names (such as "Cork-Soaking" with Jimmy Fallon and Janet Jackson), this one is certainly the best. Shia LaBeouf, think what you will of him, had some great moments on SNL.

Dylan McDermott or Dermot Mulroney

Bill Hader was, of course, the king of the SNL game show sketches, save Ferrell's Alex Trebek in Celebrity Jeopardy!. This sketch is nothing short of perfection with pitch-perfect performances all around, including the egregiously underused Jay Pharoah and Jamie Foxx.

Sore Toe

The rawest years were the early '80s. Almost nothing is remembered except for a watered-down Chevy Chase in Charles Rocket. But, there is a charm in this sketch which features Randy Quaid and Robert Downey, Jr.

Rosetta Stone

Sometimes, SNL walks a tight-rope with sexual subjects, somehow finding humor in pieces like "Chucky Lee Byrd" and an eventually removed sketch involving a sketchy Safe-Lite employee. But, this one holds a soft spot.

39 Cents

As you can see Hader has dominated the list so far and he does strike one as the perfect SNL cast member. Like John Cleese, it's his seriousness that's so funny in this great send-up of commercials for developing nations.

Death Row Follies

While the so-called "Golden Years" featured some great sketches, most notably a racy piece with Chase and Richard Pryor, they are usually when they are especially naughty, especially late night. I include here not the sketch, but how Garrett Morris came up with the idea for his "death row folly" number.

Herb Welch: Falling Ice

Included here is perhaps one of the few recent SNL characters that have gained national laude (including Stefan, Matt Schatt and The Girl You Wished You Hadn't Started a Conversation with at a Party). Herb Welch began as a tribute to a viral YouTube video and became perfection.

Tales of Bill Brasky: Holiday Inn

The "Bill Brasky" series is one of my all-time favorites. Each and every one. The sketch is actually a type of sketch in which each character tries to top the other in their hyperbole (see the "Four Yorkshiremen" sketch which appeared on At Last the 1948 Show and in Monty Python: Live at the Hollywood Bowl).

Gus Chiggins, Old Prospector

The only cut sketch on the list (while there are many more classics), this shows Ferrell at his finest and some of the best character-breaking ever recorded, except for Debbie Downer at Walt Disney World.

Space the Infinite Frontier: Dr. Kent Wahler

Ferrell, of course, saved the show from its mid-'90s doldrums and ushered in an era that included women becoming more prominent on the show, more razor-sharp "Weekend Updates," and future internet memes ("I need more cowbell"). His Harry Caray is terrific.

One More Mission: Acting Career

Phil Hartman was, in some ways, the most talented SNL cast member. He had a perfect voice, was a perfect actor when necessary, and had more than a baker's dozen of spot-on impressions. This little sketch with Jon Lovitz was actually one of his earlier career routines which was incorporated into the show.

M&M Store

Zach Galifianakis (and Larry David and Dave Chappelle) have been wonderful SNL hosts. Zach's turn as the racist M&M Store employee is uproarious and the other characters really make it work.

Grossed Out Cruise Ship Singer

This one gets short shrift as it appeared late in the episode at a time when audiences were just beginning to accept Miley Cyrus instead of Hannah Montana. But, while a slow burn, this sketch has something special.

The Sinatra Group

Hartman dominates as the Chairman of the Board in a bizarre variation on the McLaughlin Group (a direct parody by Carvey ranks high up there also), this sketch shows how talented the cast of my favorite era really were.

Jingleheimer Junction

Tim Meadows was never used to his full potential, but has gone onto great work in film including Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story and Mean Girls. His Perspectives sketches are sadly not preserved anywhere to stream, but his professionalism in what could have been a disastrous sketch is a great example of what he brought to the team.

It's a Match

This one's just for laughs. I like it. I hope you do too, especially if you loved Match Game.