How Sondheim Found His Sound

Appendix: The Concept Musical and Sondheim

— — — — — Appendix: The Concept Musical and Sondheim While writers have tried to de‹ne the concept musical, few have troubled to trace the genesis of the term. In his dissertation Eugene Robert Huber cited Martin Gottfried’s 1979 de‹nition of the concept musical and asserted that the term “seemed to enjoy a great popularity in the sixties , seventies and the early part of the eighties.”1 Huber, however, offers no evidence to bolster his assertion. Moreover, by marking the term’s genesis in the 1960s, Huber implicitly suggests that the term was not unique to Sondheim; Sondheim was relatively inactive between 1964 and 1970. Joanne Gordon, in contrast, squarely situates the term in Sondheim ’s work. “Concept, the word coined to describe the form of the Sondheim musical, suggests that all elements of the musical, thematic and presentational, are integrated to suggest a central theatrical image or idea.”2 But the term wasn’t coined expressly for Sondheim. John Bush Jones gives a short history of the term, relating that Gottfried, in his review of Zorba, began to formulate the notion of a concept musical. “Conception is the big word here—it is what is coming to replace the idea of a ‘book’ . . . there is even less room than in the usual musical [for story] because Prince’s concept . . . apparently won out on every question about cutting .”3 Gottfried further developed his ideas of concept in his review of Company. [Company] isn’t a story musical but an alternative to the “book show,” which any sophisticated (and there aren’t many) musical theatre person knows is silly, passé and doomed. It is also without singing and dancing chorus so that the 14 people in it do everything. That is, it is an ensemble or chamber musical with words and music and musical movement and dance that ›ow, organically, from the same source. Yet, it hasn’t the self-conscious look of an “experimental musical” because it is so sleekly professional.4 With his review of Follies, Gottfried consolidated his ideas. This story is the weakest part of the show, grasped by its makers as a device to hold it together despite their every impulse to throw it away. Stephen Sondheim and Harold Prince ‹nally did throw such stories away (with Company which, though produced last year, was conceived after Follies) because that is where their theatre has been leading . Sondheim and Prince are up to their ears in dance music theatre but Follies was not quite ready to rely completely on concept as the organizational replacement for a book, and so it falls back on the shaky support of a story. James Goldman wrote this story and he was given short shrift by Prince and Sondheim, who were obviously more interested in the concept.5 As for which musicals are “concept musicals,” it depends on whether the writer is focused on Sondheim. Gottfried, writing broadly, named Fiddler on the Roof (1964), Cabaret (1966), and Chicago (1975);6 Scott Miller, writing narrowly on Sondheim, named Company, Follies, Paci‹c Overtures, Merrily We Roll Along, and Assassins.7 Dan J. Cartmell, also writing narrowly, omitted Merrily but included West Side Story as well as Fiddler on the Roof, Cabaret, and Chicago.8 Stephen Citron names “Sunday in the Park with George (how an artist rearranges reality)” as a concept musical.9 Foster Hirsch wrote as follows. Someone who should know what a concept musical is has his own list. “Love Life and Allegro were the ‹rst concept musicals,” said Hal Prince, who directed a series of landmark concept musicals, including Cabaret (1966), Company (1970), Follies (1971), and Paci‹c Overtures (1976). “They were the ‹rst of their kind. Subconsciously, when I ‹rst saw them, I noted that they were shows driven by concepts. They didn’t work, though I was too young at the time to realize that. (Weill’s score is swell, by the way.) Were the shows upstaged by their concepts? In both cases you were so aware of the concept and the craft.”10 But despite Hirsch’s imputation of concept musical to shows that Prince directed, Prince himself repudiated the term. The whole label that was put on our shows, the whole notion of the “concept” musical, was one that I really resent. I never wished it on myself. . . . I kept hearing, “We’re sick of the goddamn concept musical .” And I kept thinking, “Leave me alone . . . I never called it that.” It’s called a “uni‹ed...