InsaneJournal

Eeeeee, Sondheim!
I am so jazzed right now, I don't know how I'm going to get to sleep. I just returned from worshipping at the feet of listening to Stephen Sondheim, composer and lyricist of Sweeney Todd, Sunday in the Park with George, and A Little Night Music (among other brilliant musicals) give a moderated talk at our local arts center.

I almost had to pinch my own arm to convince myself it was happening. I've been a Sondheim fan for more than 20 years, and the first person I ever fell in love with - well, I remember the exact moment it happened, because she put A Little Night Music on the stereo (back in the days of vinyl) and insisted, both rapturously and shyly, that I read the lyrics while listening to the opening trinity of songs. Which, if you know the show, concludes as an interlocking puzzle of three different melodies sung over and around each other, while the trio of singers trades the tag lines of Soon, Now, and Later. I fell head over heels. That moment shaped my life, and Sondheim became more than just a brilliant musical theatre composer. He became part of the soundtrack of my loves and losses.

The thing is, I'm not a musical theatre buff. In fact, I'm mostly indifferent to the genre, barring a handful of other peculiar scores: Candide, Edwin Drood, and Falsettos (which I actually can't listen to all the way through, because it reduces me to a weepy mess). But I adore Sondheim, both in spite of and because of his reputation for cynicism.

When encountering an idol in the flesh, as it were, there's always the danger that they'll be a massive disappointment. Reality can ruin a beautiful relationship that would have flourished forever on the charm and meaning of the creation alone, if only you'd never discovered what an asshole or completely uncharismatic log-bump the creator is.

Sondheim's about to turn eighty. He has a gravelly voice and a lot of physical tics that I was privileged to see because I was only seven rows from the stage (yeah, I sprang for a pricy ticket. I don't regret it). He tilts his head to the side a lot, rather like a macaw. Not a cute tilt, more of a neurotic, shoulder-hugging tilt. He makes faces. He has beautiful gestures and graceful fingers, and sometimes he allows his hands to rise in the air and wave around in grand, amusing orchestrations. He hunches and slouches, rubs and paws his face, and squints out of his left eye. He's a great raconteur, and even though he's probably told these tales dozens of times, he didn't begrudge telling us again. He's smart and incredibly well-spoken, especially for someone who claims not to read. He made it sound like a real conversation, not a holding-forth; he's definitely got a performer's temperament. Two hours wasn't nearly enough, but it was entirely, wonderfully worth it. He was fabulous company.

Here's a sample anecdote: a member of the audience mentioned that "Not a Day Goes By" is one of the saddest songs in his oeuvre, and asked if there was a story behind it. Sondheim hunched over, looked at his water glass, groped his beard, then squinted up at the stage lights and kind of rocked back and forth. The moderator started to excuse him, but Sondheim interrupted, "I'm trying to decide whether or not I want to tell you." Then he sat back and said, "Okay, I once knew a woman who was in a relationship. She was married, and she was in love, but finally she couldn't do it anymore. She decided that her marriage was more important, and so she broke it off with this man she'd been seeing. It was very hard, but that's what she did. Two months later, the phone rang at three o'clock in the morning. She picked it up and the voice on the other end said, 'Not a day goes by.' And I knew as soon as I heard it that it would make a great song."

Artists are like that. They can be utterly ruthless, but they take other people's pain and happiness and remember it. When they can find the right setting, they pull it out and re-shape it into something beautiful, something pitched to the exact note of loss and regret.

On a more trivial note: for God's sake, I dressed up. I put lipstick on. I haven't done that in years. I'm sitting here typing in a dress I probably haven't worn since I moved out of San Francisco almost a decade ago.

I'll probably never see Stephen Sondheim again. He's very much an East Coast sort of creature. I never expected to get the chance to see him in person, and I'm walking on air right now. Seeing him is like a bridge between my youth and middle age. I feel weirdly nostalgic and happy andsad all at once. And very lucky.