Sep 08 2009
They say there's no arguing about taste, but of course that's wrong -- taste is probably what we argue about most. (It's facts about which there ought to be no arguing, but there is, because some people -- always on the other side of the argument, of course -- don't care any more about facts than reason.)
So this is my disclaimer, taking a long way around to a letter in a Weekend Feedback complaining about Stephen Sondheim's score for "Into the Woods," several weeks back when I was playing hooky on a golf course in New England.
Now I would have thought that Sondheim's score was beyond argument. I can see objections to his re-writing beloved fairy tales with grownup insight (but they're hardly any more cynical or grim than the Grimm originals), or to his inventing a tale (The Baker and His Wife) in order to weave the others together, or to his connecting Cinderella, Rapunzel, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty as generic maiden-and-prince fantasies, or to his following the sweetly satiric Act 1 with the apocalyptic Act 1, and so on.
Not that I feel those objections at all, since the show has such wit and insight -- just that I can see them coming up. But the score? The one that contains wit, feeling and just plain gorgeous passion? Not so, according to Mike Aleprete of Plum, who said in his letter, after praising the production and performances:
My only complaint was the score by Stephen Sondheim. I just don't get what all the accolades and praise this guy gets for his music. I thought it was monotonous, nerve-wracking and boring. As a matter of fact, I think all of his later works like this and "Sweeney Todd" are terrible. I loved his early music like "West Side Story," and "Anyone Can Whistle." What happened?
Leaving aside the failures of information (the "West Side Story" music is by Leonard Bernstein) and omissions (my own Sondheim favorite is "A Little Night Music"), plus specifics of taste ("Anyone Can Whistle"?!), I'd like to lay this response to a general failure of taste. But taste can't really fail, can it? Just differ.
So instead I'd like to lay this opinion to unfamiliarity, which leads me to this simple offer: If reader Aleprete will send me a snail mail address, I will mail him my own "Into the Woods" CD. If he listens to it twice and doesn't find that it has risen dramatically in his estimation, I will confess myself (and Sondheim) defeated, and in recompense, he can keep (or trash) the CD as a trophy of his victory.
But if he discovers that a little familiarity reveals some of Sondheim's fund of melody, not alone his wit (NO ONE could miss the wit), then he has to mail me back my CD.
Of course, if he remains impervious to Sondheim, he probably wouldn't want to keep my CD, so he might mail it back to me anyway.
NEWS BITS
(1) I first learned from my Facebook wall (yes, even the senior theater critic is on Facebook, though not so often as to make much of a ripple) that Chris Laitta is performing her "TV Tunes" at the CLO Cabaret this week, Sept. 10 and 12. So I've done a podcast interview with her, which you can hear by clicking here.
That I think Chris is a fine performer is obvious, since I keep casting her in our annual Pittsburgh spoof, "Off the Record." This year she's playing Lynn Cullen in "Off the Record IX: High School Confidential!" It's at the Byham Theater, Thursday, Oct. 1. Tickets are already on sale at 412-456-6666, and as usual, proceeds benefit the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank.
(2) Many-award winning director (a fistful of Tonys, to start) Trevor Nunn directs an ensemble cast led by Kevin Spacey and David Troughton in "Inherit the Wind," Lawrence and Lee's highly relevant drama inspired by the famous 1925 Scopes ‘Monkey Trial,' when school teacher John Scopes stood accused of violating a Tennessee statute by teaching Darwin's theory of evolution. It opens on Broadway Sept. 18 and runs into December.