Sondheim on Sondheim
Reviewed by Steven Leigh Morris
Ophelia’s Jump
Thru June 5
RECOMMENDED
Originally conceived and directed by James Lapine for a brief Broadway stint in 2010, this revue of Stephen Sondheim’s life and work received a new charge of pertinence in the wake of Sondheim’s death in November at the age of 91.
The show includes a strong video presence of the composer-lyricist via interviews for the Broadway production plus prior interviews on various TV outlets. In many ways, these interviews are the show’s highlight, providing context for the potpourri of Sondheim’s songs across the spectrum of half a century of Broadway theater.
What emerges from Beatrice Casagrán’s staging for Ophelia’s Jump in Upland is how, through lyrics and composition, Sondheim braved the headwinds of American musical theatre by taking the art form into the darker recesses of the American psyche, tamping down (though not excluding) the sentimentality of his mentors Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein. Even with this production’s conspicuous absence of cynical ditties such as “Every Day A Little Death” from A Little Night Music (which was a part of the Broadway version), Sondheim nonetheless appears on screen to explain in his own words his excursions into darkness, how he was a neurotic among neurotics, how his parents divorced when he was 10 years old, and how, much later in life, when his mother was facing open heart surgery, she penned him a note expressing her regret that she gave birth to him. Is it any wonder that he never entered a serious romantic relationship until he was 60-years-old? Everybody he knew had bouts of neuroticism, he explained, and he imagined that putting dysfunction on the stage would find relevance among his audiences. The close of Into the Woods is an homage to grief and loss and a guidepost for how to cope with them (“Sometimes people leave you, halfway through the wood; others may deceive you, you decide what’s good; no one is alone”).
His mother, being what Sondheim describes as a star seeker, did push the child into the home of neighbors named the Hammersteins — talk about a career move! — who became his adoptive family. Still, as a young man, Sondheim had little comprehension of romantic partnerships, and so, like a journalist, he consulted with his friend (and daughter of Richard Rodgers), composer Mary Rodgers, when she was into her second marriage. And sometimes, even in his breakthrough musical, Company, after taking counsel about dysfunctional relationships and the challenges of marriage, that second-hand sourcing feels apparent.
What is similarly apparent is Sondheim’s idiosyncratic impulses as a composer, in which he (almost) abandons melody for syncopated musical motifs — mini-anthems, really — that dance around each other in a kind of blend of Bach and Eric Satie. His mature musicals are as much about form as content.
This all comes across in the capable hands of music director (and pianist for this show), Bill Wolfe, who sits upstage plunking away on a spinet, while a genial 10-actor ensemble performs on and around portable wooden blocks in front of him. The visual strength of the uncredited set design lies in Sheila Malone’s impressive projection design.
“Ten-actor ensemble” is a bit misleading, since the core is nine performers. Casagrán steps in near show’s end to perform, strikingly, the torch song “Send in the Clowns” from A Little Night Music.
The company is at its best during the chorales, when the combined voices soar. Knockout solo voices include those of Casagrán, the underused Kara Masek and Liana Rose Veratudela, plus Chanlon Kaufman, and Caitlin Lopez.
This intriguing and at times revelatory retrospective does feel a bit like a compendium of snapshots, where the parts at times struggle to contribute to the whole — but that lies in the very conception of the homage. I walked away with more than when I’d arrived, provoked by the evolution of the American musical that this homage alluded to — and having been, on occasion, deeply moved.
Ophelia’s Jump, 2009 Porterfield Way, Suite I, Upland. Fri.-Sat., 8 pm, Sun., 4 pm., Thurs., June 2, 7:30 pm; thru June 5. Running time: 2 hours and 30 minutes with one intermission https://opheliasjump.org
