How Sondheim Can Change Your Life
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- USD 14.99
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- USD 14.99
Descripción editorial
'The song is you.'
For fans of musical theatre, Stephen Sondheim is one of the true titans – the genius who brought us Sweeney Todd and West Side Story, Into the Woods, and Company. With acclaimed revivals of his landmark shows regularly performed in London and New York, and new generations being introduced to the man who forever transformed musical theatre, Sondheim’s legacy has only grown. What is it about such classic songs as ‘Being Alive’ from Company, ‘No One Is Alone’ from Into the Woods, or ‘Send in the Clowns’ from A Little Night Music (to name but a few) that still resonates for so many?
In How Sondheim Can Change Your Life, Richard Schoch shows how Sondheim’s greatness (beyond the clever lyrics and adventurous music) lies in his ability to tell stories that speak to all of us. From Louise’s desire for freedom as Gypsy Rose Lee to Sweeney Todd’s thirst for revenge, the struggles we see in Sondheim’s characters are ones we all have – and we can learn valuable lessons from how those struggles are resolved.
Following the arc of Sondheim’s extraordinary career, How Sondheim Can Change Your Life is rich with stories and insights into the master’s creative process, and reveals the many ways that Sondheim’s works can enrich the lives of all of us.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Schoch (The Secrets of Happiness), a professor of drama at Queen's University Belfast, pays affectionate tribute to the late composer Stephen Sondheim and the lessons his musicals offer. Covering the full span of Sondheim's career on Broadway, Schoch posits that Louise's break from her domineering mother to become a burlesque dancer in 1959's Gypsy teaches audiences to live for themselves; that Bobby's apparent victory over his fear of intimacy in the final minutes of 1970's Company reminds viewers that "love isn't there to make our lives less frightening... it's there, if we can find it... to give us more life"; and that 1979's Sweeney Todd forces spectators to grapple with the banality of evil. Here We Are, which was posthumously staged in 2023, reveals that beauty can be found in the unfinished or improvised—as in life itself, Schoch argues, since the "wild, wondrous mystery of ourselves won't ever be fully revealed." While some of Schoch's interpretations can feel like a stretch, he illuminates with appealing and unbridled enthusiasm how Sondheim plumbed the depths of human experience. Musical theater lovers will be delighted.
