At 79, with some of the greatest works of American musical theater to his credit, Stephen Sondheim has reached that point in a prolific composer’s career when major revivals of his shows now number in the double digits. And with revival has come reconception. On Broadway the most evident trend has been toward chamber-style orchestrations like the eight-instrument arrangements for the current revival of “A Little Night Music,” Mr. Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s story of aging lovers grappling with regrets.
The chamberization of his work has had a double-edged, somewhat surreal effect on him, Mr. Sondheim said during a recent interview at his Manhattan town house.
“I’ve reached an age where I’m two generations past when I was considered avant-garde. I went right from avant-garde to being old hat in five minutes, and you start to feel superannuated,” he said. “With every new generation, popular art changes. Already there’s a generation that thinks the Beatles are old-fashioned, which I find screamingly funny. The same thing is true of plays and musicals. People need things loud and fast. That’s one of the things that I like about ‘Little Night Music.’ The musical says: Slow down. Slow down and think.”
A part of him misses “the big swells from larger orchestras” absent from the current “Night Music,” at the Walter Kerr Theater, as well as the musically pared-down Broadway revivals of “Sweeney Todd” (2005) and “Sunday in the Park With George” (2008). It is strange, he said, to imagine that new generations of theatergoers might first experience his work on an intimate scale rather than the lush musicality of the original Broadway productions decades ago.
And yet for an artist long admired for breaking new ground with composition form and incisive, nuanced lyrics, the new approach has also been stimulating. While he is now completing a two-volume book on theater and lyric writing, Mr. Sondheim said, he is not content simply to be a custodian for his shows or fly all over the world putting seals of approval on directors’ rethinking of his works.
“The good news from this chamber approach is that you get to concentrate on the piece of work rather than on the production,” said Mr. Sondheim, who also includes the scaled-down Broadway revival of “Company” (2006) in the recent trend. (In “Company” and “Sweeney Todd,” both directed by John Doyle, the actors played the instruments.)
In an era of blockbuster musicals like “Wicked,” rock-oriented shows like the forthcoming “American Idiot” and reality television that turns musical performance into “American Idol” contests, Mr. Sondheim said that he bristled — “chills go up my spine” — whenever he hears someone say that a certain musical form is timely or relevant. For him the goal has always been telling a strong, clear story, not being in vogue, and balancing music and lyrics so that orchestrations never overwhelm the story and its words. Too many musicals today lose that, he said. The smaller orchestrations please him because they allow for even greater diction and clarity from the performers. Besides, he said, given how few instruments are used “in ‘Night Music,’ the amount of variety in the orchestration is amazing.”
While that show’s most personal songs, like “Every Day a Little Death” and “Send In the Clowns,” easily lend themselves to chamberization, Mr. Sondheim said, he would have liked to hear the big brass moments and color in more rousing songs like “A Weekend in the Country.” In this he is echoing some critics and audience members who have taken issue with the limits of a small orchestra and its effect on the epic and haunting qualities of some of Mr. Sondheim’s songs.
Trevor Nunn, the director of the new revival of “Night Music,” said in an interview that he had aimed for a production that was “a good deal more Chekhovian in its intentions” than a lavish spectacle might have achieved. He added that he was soon hoping to mount a revival of Mr. Sondheim’s “Follies,” the 1971 musical about a reunion of showgirls and others who were part of a Ziegfeld Follies-like company, and that he would seek a similarly intimate feeling, though it would be performed in a larger space than the Menier Chocolate Factory in London, where the current “Night Music” originated.
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