The Extra Scene Partner: Audience
- Michaela Burns
- Feb 24, 2020
- 3 min read
“The audience is your collaborator. There is another character in the room, and you have to consider that. It’s not about pandering, it’s about clarity. If they’re not liking it because they don’t understand it, that is a theatrical sin”
- (Stephen Sondheim, quoted by Rachel A. Burns).
Stephen Sondheim has received mass critical acclaim during his prolific career; however, success does not come without its fair share of backlash. Sondheim has always appreciated his “failures” and what those moments have taught him, and often discusses how they help him to clarify his productions so the audience will connect to the challenging messages that he writes.
Perhaps the first of these major learning experiences Sondheim had was the poor reception to A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. The original opening number called “Love is in the Air” led the audience to believe that they were about to watch a charming show instead of the farce that it actually is. Once Sondheim had rewritten the opening to be “Comedy Tonight,” the shift in reception to the show was almost instantaneous as it prepared the audience for the show’s “low comedy presented in an elegant way” (Burns).
One of my personal favorite anecdotes about Sondheim and audience response is that of the song “Epiphany” from Sweeney Todd: there are actually two different endings, the original ending from Sondheim and the modified version that Hal Prince asked him to write because “Len Cariou has worked so hard while he sings that song. You have to give him a hand” (“Stephen”). Sondheim’s initial goal was to create such a striking dissonance that the audience would not be moved to break the scene up with applause, and to just trickle into the scene with an uncomfortable lack of resolution.
The modified version is still used for most productions, and can be heard here with the additional beat and consonant chord at the very end of the piece:
Sondheim’s original ending can be found in the 2007 Tim Burton film of Sweeney Todd. The ending consonant chord is not present and it fulfills Sondheim’s original intent of leaving things unresolved and simply moving on:
*Interesting side note: Sondheim himself adapted the music for Burton’s film and not only approved of the removal of “The Ballad of Sweeney Todd,” but is also quoted as saying that it’s “the only onscreen version of a musical he has ever enjoyed as a film in its own right” (Burns). So whatever your opinion of the movie was, it was in fact Sondheim approved!
Sondheim yearns to contradict and challenge the messages being delivered by commercial theatre, and “has little interest in what has been done – only in what’s left to do” (Fraser). He has held this belief from the beginning of his Broadway career and has consistently chosen projects that challenge the typical theatre audience.
By simply comparing his productions to other shows running parallel to his, we can see a clear difference in what Sondheim was working towards:
- West Side Story v. Music Man
- Mama Rose v. Maria Von Trapp
- The farcical Forum v. the “sit-com structure” of Hello Dolly and the well-made
play Fiddler on the Roof
This is of course only brushing the surface of Sondheim’s creative genius, but it’s incredibly fascinating how much consideration he has for his audience in writing. They are his driving force, even today after a lifetime of award-winning achievements.
Burns, Rachel A. “Good Deeds: Sondheim Seduces Audiences: Arts: The Harvard Crimson.” Arts | The Harvard Crimson, 20 Nov. 2009, www.thecrimson.com/article/2009/11/20/sondheim-audience-todd-sweeney/.
Fraser, Barbara Means. Sondheim's Societal Struggle. ATHE National Convention, 28 July 1994, www.sondheim.com/discussions/soc-struggle.html.
“Stephen Sondheim: Examining His Lyrics And Life.” Stephen Sondheim: Examining His Lyrics And Life | WBUR News, WBUR, 16 Feb. 2012, www.wbur.org/npr/146938826/stephen-sondheim-examining-his-lyrics-and-life.
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