New Sondheim: enjoy it while stocks last

03 December 2008

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Gerald Kaufman is enthralled by the first Sondheim premiere in 14 years. A minor work Road Show may be, but it is still worth much more than anyone else’s musicals

This is a rich period for new productions of classic musicals on Broadway. They include Gypsy (1959), with Patti LuPone, for which Sondheim, at the age of 29, wrote what may still be his cleverest lyrics; On the Town (1944), part of New York’s comprehensive celebration of the 90th anniversary of Leonard Bernstein’s birth, and with a dazzling score which Bernstein wrote when aged 26; and Pal Joey (1940).

Pal Joey is a masterpiece — unlike the mess of a film made of it as a vehicle for Frank Sinatra — in its first revival for 30 years, containing (alongside, perhaps, Carousel), the best music Richard Rodgers ever wrote for a show and amazing lyrics by Lorenz Hart which may be his best and are certainly his filthiest (filthier than any other mainstream Broadway lyricist’s, anyway). The show when I saw it was conducted by Alexander Gemignani’s father, Paul, in a neat turning of the circle.

I doubt that Road Show will be revived 60 or 70 years from now, unlike Sweeney Todd and A Little Night Music, which certainly will be; it is a minor work in this legendary genius’s canon. But, hell, who cares? Minor Sondheim is worth x times as much as anything else by anybody else. I warn you. It has a limited run, finishing at the end of December. Of course, John Doyle could bring it here.

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Rush-is-Right

December 9th, 2008 1:13pm Report this comment

Might I suggest that, after Mr Kaufman's quite disgusting contribution to yesterday's debate about Damien Green's arrest, any further contributions from him should be spiked?

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