"Simply Sondheim" Live Stream: I'll Drink to That

Another first for COVID-19: For once during a Sondheim revue, I didn't have to hold back from singing with the actors, because it was live-streamed from a laptop in my kitchen. As the orchestra segued from number to number, I, martini in hand, rode waves of music that I've known and loved for 50 years, and the strong emotions that go with them. Sondheim puts character into the music and the lyrics, giving actors ample opportunity to inhabit their roles and show off their singing chops.

Thankfully foregoing novelty interpretations, this production still held surprises even for this veteran Sondheim fan. I kept a list:

• Two songs about traveling bumpy roads of life pair well to make the opening number: "Merrily We Roll Along" and "Bounce"
• I was delighted to see some songs that I've only heard, "Saturday Night" and "Country House"
• The delight for me of "Now/Soon/Later" has always been in Sondheim's blending of three distinctive songs into one trio, but closeups helped the actors to bring out the erotic tension built into the song
• The actors doing the father and son made "Impossible" from Forum as sweet as funny, joining together on one of my favorite Sondheim couplets (there are so many!) "the situation's fraught, / fraughter than I thought"
• "Poems" builds to a joyous conclusion as two men bond through a friendly haiku competition
• A suite of songs from Passion encapsulated the story, every character's feelings so raw and yet so eloquently expressed
• In "Something Just Broke" from Assassins an assortment of Americans of different times and walks of life sings, "Something just spoke / Something I wish I hadn't heard" and I teared up thinking of the recent assaults on our institutions
• "Finishing the Hat" is a miraculous expression of what it feels like to be an artist wrapped up in your work; the actor made clear the subtle argument of the lyric and the strong feeling behind it, ending with a defiance I didn't expect: "Look, I made a hat -- where there never was a hat!"
• In "The Right Girl," a man sings about the wife he adores who doesn't love him, and about a mistress who, in this interpretation, appears on stage, though he never looks at her when he sings to her -- giving the actress motivation to sing, when he exits, "Goodbye For Now"
• Two songs about obsession overlapped musically for strong combined effect, "Not a Day Goes By" and "Losing My Mind"

Simply Sondheim is live-streaming from Signature Theatre and Marquee TV until March 26. Conceived in 2015 by Eric Shaeffer and David Loud, orchestrated for 16-piece orchestra by Sondheim's longtime collaborator Jonathan Tunick, this refreshed version, filmed on stage, is directed by Matthew Gardiner.

The only thing missing is applause.

[See a curated list of numerous blogposts about Sondheim's musicals and about other Sondheim revues at my Sondheim Page]