The season for musicals has arrived with a vengeance. Here we are taking a look at just two productions opening this week for long runs, one riding on Stephen Sondheim's illuminating/devastating lyrics, the other a West End-Broadway sensation on tour.
San Francisco Playhouse: Sondheim's Company
It's the little things you share together,
Swear together, wear together,
That make perfect relationships.
The concerts you enjoy together,
Neighbors you annoy together,
Children you destroy together,
That keep marriage intact.
For many years, while Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals were the global cash-cows, Stephen Sondheim's masterpieces were commercial failures, and if you look at the random quote from Company above, you'll see why — it ain't "If you touch me, you'll understand what happiness is..."
It took a long time for audiences "to get" Sondheim, and there came a latent hit parade of Follies, Sunday in the Park with George, Into the Woods, Pacific Overtures, and others. Meanwhile, Sweeney Todd has become one of the most performed musicals, coming to San Francisco Opera and in the last season emerging as English National Opera's highest-grossing production.
And yet, Company is a relatively uncomplicated work, compared with the depth of late Sondheim, and its frivolous-cynical nature (except for the concluding "Being Alive") is far from the emotional tsunami of Passion — and an altogether enjoyable (if thought-provoking) musical.
The music (remember the times when "Sondheim doesn't write melodies" was the conventional wisdom?) is great fun, with "You Could Drive a Person Crazy," "Another Hundred People," "(Not) Getting Married Today," "Barcelona," and "The Ladies Who Lunch."
Susi Damilano is stage director, Dave Dobrusky is music director and leader of the band, and Kimberly Richards choreographs the production. Keith Pinto is cast as Bobby, the character around whose birthday and "growing up" the musical revolves.
Orpheum Theater: Matilda The Musical
Winning seven Olivier Awards (more than any other show in London history) and then 50 international awards, including four Tonys, Matilda The Musical has had extraordinary success, and its touring company is arriving for a month-long San Francisco run.
The story of an exceptional little girl overcoming obstacles sounds like a variation on Annie, but it's both different and more substantial.
Premiering at the Royal Shakespeare Company's Courtyard Theatre in 2010, it later transferred to the West End's Cambridge Theatre, where it continues to run. The Broadway production opened in 2013.
The musical is based on Roald Dahl's 1988 book, Tony Award-winning director Matthew Warchus staged it, with book by Dennis Kelly and a score by Tim Minchin, comedian and self-described "megastar" rocker.
Ben Brantley, not usually given to superlatives, wrote an unqualified rave in his New York Times review:
Rejoice, my theatergoing comrades. The children’s revolution has arrived on these shores, and it is even more glorious than we were promised. Rush now, barricade stormers of culture, to the Shubert Theater, and join the insurrection against tyranny, television, illiteracy, unjust punishment and impoverished imaginations, led by a 5-year-old La Pasionaria with a poker face and an off-the-charts I.Q.
It is the most satisfying and subversive musical ever to come out of Britain, where it was nurtured into life by the Royal Shakespeare Company... In its melding of song, dance and story it’s as classic as Oklahoma!