With playgoing on hiatus, the contributors to New York Stage Review have decided to provide our readers with alternate discussions of theater: think pieces, book/music/video reviews, and the like. We would much rather be reviewing live theater, and we look forward to the day when the curtain rises once again.
Last night, April 26, 2020, was no ordinary Sunday. It was the 50th anniversary of the Broadway opening of Company. And it was the possible online theatrical event of the pandemic: Take Me to the World: A Sondheim 90th Birthday Celebration, produced and hosted by Raúl Esparza, starring the likes of Patti LuPone, Meryl Streep, Mandy Patinkin, Bernadette Peters, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and dozens of other Sondheim acolytes. Just as soon as the folks at Broadway.com solved a few pesky technical difficulties. Live(streaming) theater. There’s nothing like it.
What, you had somewhere to go? If you were bored during the hour-long delay, there was plenty of entertainment to be found on Twitter. (“A silent tribute to the Buñuel musical?” theorized Washington Post theater critic Peter Marks while our screens were black.) But once it finally started, the free concert—a fundraiser for ASTEP (Artists Striving to End Poverty), founded by the show’s über-talented musical director, Mary-Mitchell Campbell—was worth the wait.
[Read David Finkle’s review here.]
If this had been staged in a theater with a full orchestra, costumes, and all the bells and whistles, the powers that be could have charged hundreds upon hundreds per ticket. Then again, if this had been a theatrical event, all the stars would not have aligned for this one performance. Patti LuPone would have been playing Joanne in Company on Broadway, and might not have been available to sing “Anyone Can Whistle” in front of her bookcase. Her Company costar Katrina Lenk probably wouldn’t have whipped out a guitar to accompany herself on a haunting, ever-so-playful version of Sweeney Todd’s “Johanna.” Since the Alanis Morissette musical Jagged Little Pill suspended performances, we lucked out and got to hear Elizabeth Stanley on A Little Night Music’s meter-shifting, tongue-twisting celebration of “what passes by,” “The Miller’s Son.” And with Hollywood on hiatus, BFFs Beanie Feldstein and Ben Platt—who’ll costar in Richard Linklater’s Boyhood-style Merrily We Roll Along film—duetted on Into the Woods’ “It Takes Two.” If only we didn’t have to wait a couple decades for that Merrily movie!
Also, there is something to be said for the simplicity of no-frills filming: clips captured on iPhones and iPads, piano accompaniment (or sometimes none at all!), a Hirschfeld hanging on the walls (looking at you, Donna Murphy). Who knew that watching Melissa Errico sing “Children and Art” while sitting in front of her bookshelf could be so captivating? (And is that her Dot hat tucked behind her? Eighteen years later, I am still kicking myself for not seeing her and Esparza in Sunday in the Park With George at the Kennedy Center’s 2002 summer-long Sondheim Celebration.)
All the artists made their own song selections—which yielded some beautifully unexpected results. Bet you weren’t thinking Judy Kuhn—who starred more than once as Fosca in Passion—would pick the unrequited love ballad “What Can You Lose” from the film Dick Tracy. (Actually, maybe you were…she did record it on the album Unsung Sondheim.) Tony winner Michael Cerveris—whose Sondheim roles include John Wilkes Booth in Assassins, Sweeney Todd, and multiple turns as Giorgio in Passion—turned in a sublime rendition of Sunday’s “Finishing the Hat.” Meanwhile, original Sunday star Mandy Patinkin, wearing a hat and a Patagonia jacket, backed by an idyllic wintry landscape, sang the show’s contemplative “Lesson #8” (“Where are the people/ Out strolling on Sunday?”)—sans accompaniment, thank you very much. Alexander Gemignani—who tends to play pretty serious Sondheim parts (John Hinkley Jr., The Beadle)—cut loose with Follies’ “Buddy’s Blues,” featuring some very impressive chair-ography. And host-producer Esparza chose a song not from Sunday, Merrily, Company, Anyone Can Whistle, or Road Show, but from the Sondheim–James Goldman 1966 TV musical Evening Primrose, “Take Me to the World,” an ode to seclusion, yearning, and loneliness that becomes all the more heart-wrenching now that we’re all in quarantine (“Take me to the world that’s real/ Show me how it’s done/ Teach me how to laugh, to feel/ Move me to the sun”). And speaking of isolation-appropriate songs: Bernadette Peters—whose presence at a Sondheim celebration is practically mandatory—selected “No One Is Alone,” which she, like her Sunday costar Mandy Patinkin, performed a cappella. It was like theatrical comfort food.
With more than 30 performances—including the Merrily We Roll Along overture, played by about 20 Broadway musicians, and a stunning “Someone in a Tree” (Pacific Overtures) by Ann Harada, Austin Ku, Kelvin Moon Loh, and Thom Sesma, who costarred in the 2017 off-Broadway revival—Take Me to the World was pretty much all a Sondheim fan could want. No, there was no “Losing My Mind,” unless you count all the YouTube commenters waiting for the show to start. Okay, no one performed “Being Alive,” but Aaron Tveit did do a magnificent “Marry Me a Little.” Yes, it was a little Into the Woods–heavy, but Chip Zien, the original Baker, sang “No More,” and ended by clutching his Baker’s hat to his chest. And if you’re wondering what Meryl Streep performed—since Neil Patrick Harris went and stole Into the Woods’ “The Witch’s Rap”—it involved her Mamma Mia! costar Christine Baranski, a martini shaker, and Audra McDonald. We’ll drink to that.
Take Me to the World: A Sondheim 90th Birthday Celebration aired April 26, 2020, on Broadway.com. Click here to view and to donate to ASTEP.
