On Friday we lost one of the most musically gifted minds in showbusiness, Mr. Stephen Sondheim.
An all-time great, Sondheim's creative, insightful and sensitive soul created a body of work that will long live throughout history.
Only a few years ago was I awaken to his great collection of classics, due to my recently gained interest in the field.
I say recently because it took me years before I started liking musicals, which may come as a shocker to some given my interest in music, cinema and theatre.
Sure, growing up I had watched classics like My Fair Lady (1964) and The Sound of Music (1965), but they never really stucked with me.
It was only The Blues Brothers (1980), All That Jazz (1979) and later on Moulin Rouge (2001) that I loved... So, It would be fair to say that I felt a certain lack of interest in watching anything within the genre.
It was only after coming to London and seeing them on stage that I started to become infactuated with the musical genre.
Since then, I've seen a variety of musicals such as The Lion King, Les Miserables, Phantom of the Opera, Waitress, Book of Mormon, Hamilton, among others... Within the many I've seen, two of Stephen Sondheim's masterpieces took my breathe away: West Side Story (which I only saw on TV during the pandemic) and Company (appropriatly I saw it at the Sondheim Theatre in London just a few seats away from Sir Ian McKellen).
West Side Story naturally became an instant classic in my eyes, due to the great pairing between Sondheim's lyrics and Leonard Bernstein's music... But it was Company that would later have a resounding effect in my life.
In many ways, its main character, Bobby, was someone that I could relate to, particularly when we reach the tune Being Alive, Sodheim's best song in my humble opinion.
I've heard many different renditions of that song.... From Neil Patrick Harris to Raul Esparza... even Adam Driver took a crack at it in Noah Baumbach's Marrige Story (2019)... All of them great, but one standsout the most... and that's Dean Jones.
It's a version that I've shared and talked about many times [1] [2]... and what better time and reason to share it again than as a way to celebrate Mr Sondheim's legacy.
As I draw this post to an end, I would would also like take this opportunity to do two last things:
Remind those in London that Sunday in the park with George, another of Sondheim's great works, is hopefully coming to London in 2022, after it was cancelled due to the pandemic. This particular reannactment will star Jake Gyllenhaal and Annaleigh Ashford in the leading roles.
And finally, to encourage everyone to watch this celebration of Sondheim's 90th birthday, Take Me to the World: A Sondheim 90th Birthday Celebration.
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