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Most everybody knows composer Stephen Sondheim from his one-'n-only chart topper from A Little Night Music, "Send In the Clowns" -- too bad two decades of lounge renditions have dulled our cultural sensibility to the profound understatement of its masterful lyrics. A few may know he also wrote the lyrics to West Side Story. But any Broadway aficionado can also rattle off many more of his twenty or so luminous theatrical achievements (Follies, Company, Sunday in the Park with George, etc. etc.)
Sondheim, indisputably our greatest living American theatrical composer, is more legendary for his lyrical than his melodic ability, and perhaps rightly so. A patron usually doesn't leave the theatre whistling one of Steve's melodic ditties, as one might with Rodgers & Hammerstein or Lerner & Loewe. Still, it's the damnedest thing � just when you're prepared to write him off as a contemporary chromatic musical obstacle course, Sondheim kicks out a little six-note strain of the most haunting melody you've ever heard, as if to remind us that he can do it, he just don't necessarily wanna.
Sweeney Todd is dark and horrific: The twisted barber sings a love song to his finely-honed razor blade, a stepfather fucks his adopted daughter (offstage), people are killed and cut up into meat pies, the makeup and sets are gloomy and macabre � you won't see too many high school productions of this work, unless the Drama Department is looking to lose their funding.
For the Broadway novice, Sweeney Todd is not the most palatable choice for an introduction to Sondheim's genius, and it was frankly too much of a downer for my tastes. But if you're looking for a theatrical performance more Charles Manson than Charles Nelson Reilly, this may be the ticket.
NOTE: This is a Bravo presentation of a taped theatrical performance - may not be available at all video outlets.