Stephen Sondheim. <3

While I sit my apartment, drinking two fingers of MEDICINAL scotch, listening to the act one finale of Sunday in the Park with George for the 28th time, I KNOW I’m not the only fan of Sondheim who has felt compelled to sit down, and write about how this man changed their life.
There is a bit of poetry in knowing I’m one of a million people writing their stories tonight, and though THAT VERY comforted me, it almost kept me from continuing to write…that fact and the following ghosts that are hovering in and around me:

The ghost of being basic
The ghost of not having anything original to say
The ghost of feeling like my words aren’t enough

And here is where the real poetry comes in, if I’ve learned anything from my past thirty odd years of loving Stephen Sondheim, it’s to keep fucking writing.

Many years ago, I had the pleasure of sitting in a very small audience at the Liberty Grand in Toronto, and watching Canadian artists salute Sondheim, with the man himself there.
Early on in the planning of this event, when the night was being cast with musical theatre artists, I hoped upon hope that I might be asked to perform.
Paul Sportelli, the musical director of the evening, wrote me an email with the words “Sondheim Salute” in the subject line.
Needless to say, I became VERY EXCITED.
Staring at the email with my mouth hanging open, I read Paul’s plea to lend him a copy of my hand written sheet music chart for “Can That Boy Foxtrot”…so that Sheila McCarthy could sing it at the tribute.

Bloop.
Blurg.
BOOM.

This was back in the day, when you couldn’t just source music like that on the internet
“Can That Boy Foxtrot” wasn’t published yet, so I’d had it lifted to sing at auditions.
The song was written for Follies and was replaced in previews with “I’m Still Here”, which I think we can all agree, was not a bad substitution.
“Can That Boy Foxtrot” was (and still is) one of my favourite pieces because the whole song is a play on the word FUCK, in which the word FUCK is never said.
Sondheim.
So, I sat in the audience and watched the amazing Sheila McCarthy sing the tune…she nailed it, of course.
AND I was jealous, indeed.
I’m glad I’m old enough to say that.

That night was amazing, even if I didn’t get to perform.
Leslie Arden, who’d spent time at Oxford in London being taught by Sondheim, got up onstage and sat at a grand piano and talked about what it was like to learn from him.
She told a story (and I’m sorry Les, but I’m paraphrasing) about how he said simplicity in lyrics and music was key.
Then she played a bit of Finishing the Hat.

Leslie: What are you writing about? A hat. What is the song really about? Finishing the Hat.

Simple.

The evening’s finale was Sondheim in an onstage interview with Richard Ouzounian.
It was amazing to hear the man talk about his life and his work.
Sondheim was being mentored by Oscar Hammerstein when he was 16.
Saturday Night was produced off broadway when he was 23.
His enormous list of unbelievable achievements went on and on, a list he seemed proud of, but not ruled by.

The man knew who he was, seemed to almost always know who he was and what he was meant to do and pursued it with focus, hard work and abandon…and hearing him talk about it ALL was glorious.

At the end of the night, the performers got to meet him, and my ex being one of the performers, I stood beside him in the reception line, waiting to shake Stephen Sondheim’s prolific hand.
As I got closer and closer to him, I became so anxious that I almost had a panic attack.

SIDEBAR:
I’d met him one time before, when I was in the studio theatre at the Ford Centre in Toronto, warming up for Showboat, which was in previews before it went to broadway.
There were about four of us in the studio, and Drabinsky walked through with this unassuming man, and Garth has many faults, but the remembering of names is not one of them.
He introduced this man to all four of us.

Garth: Michel, Sharron, Ken, Dan…this is Steve Sondheim.

I just nodded.
I mean, there is nothing that can prepare you for a moment like that.
Then he was gone.

Shockingly, that night, Bobby Morse, playing Cap’n Andy, did his WHOLE performance with no fourth wall, right to Stephen Sondheim in the house seats.
It was something to watch, really.
END OF SIDEBAR

Back in line to meet him for the second time, when I was about two people away, the score for Sunday in The Park with George just started to play in my head.
It was as loud as if there was a band present in the room.
When it was my turn, Sondheim reached out his hand to me and said:

Stephen Sondheim: Hello, Steve Sondheim

I grabbed his hand and screamed over the orchestra inside me:

Sharron Matthews: You’re excellent, Sir.

And I moved on.
I mean.
Ah well.

It’s been my great sadness that I’ve never done one of his musicals professionally…also, I’m fairly gutted that I didn’t represent myself better both times I met him, but what can you do?
I’ve auditioned for his musicals numerous times.
I’ve sung a lot of his songs at auditions, one-offs, and cabarets.
Back in the day of the Global Cabaret at the Young Centre, an evening of Sondheim was put together and I was asked to be in it.
Thrilled.
I was FUCKING thrilled.
The cast was Adam Brazier, Patricia O’Callaghan, Mike Ross and myself, with Robert Cushman as the narrator.
We did four performances of that show, and everyone, and every moment was delicious.
I had the joy of singing many of my favourite Sondheim songs BUT I was particularly thrilled that I got to do my VERY favourite piece with a full band.

Moment In The Woods.

It’s one of the easiest songs I’ve ever learned, and at the same time one of the most challenging. Singing it was like putting on a suit that’s tailored to your body…performing it, a beautiful and easy conversation with the instruments and audience.
The lyrics are magic.

Moment in the Woods – by Stephen Sondheim
Written for the Baker’s Wife in INTO THE WOODS

What was that?
Was that me?
Was that him?
Did a prince really kiss me?
And kiss me?
And kiss me?
And did I kiss him back?

Was it wrong?
Am I mad?
Is that all?
Does he miss me?
Was he suddenly
Getting bored with me?

Wake up!
Stop dreaming
Stop prancing about the woods
It’s not beseeming
What is it about the woods?

Back to life, back to sense
Back to child, back to husband
No one lives in the woods

There are vows, there are ties
There are needs, there are standards
There are shouldn’t and shoulds

Why not both instead?
There’s the answer, if you’re clever
Have a child for warmth
And a baker for bread
And a prince for whatever
Never!
It’s these woods

Face the facts, find the boy
Join the group, stop the giant
Just get out of these woods

Was that him?
Yes, it was
Was that me?
No, it wasn’t
Just a trick of the woods

Just a moment
One peculiar passing moment
Must it all be either less or more?
Either plain or grand?
Is it always “or?”
Is it never “and?”
That’s what woods are for
For those moments in the woods

Oh, if life were made of moments
Even now and then a bad one!
But if life were only moments
Then you’d never know you had one

First a witch, then a child
Then a prince, then a moment
Who can live in the woods?

And to get what you wish
Only just for a moment
These are dangerous woods

Let the moment go
Don’t forget it for a moment, though

Just remembering you’ve had an “and”
When you’re back to “or”
Makes the “or” mean more
Than it did before
Now I understand
And it’s time to leave the woods.

 

I loved it.
I still love that song.
I’ve not performed it in years, but just a while ago, on my drive from Tofino back to home, on one of the rare times I didn’t have a book or music playing in the car, I suddenly started to sing it, and then I went all the way through it, to see if I still knew the words.
I do.
ALL of them.

I’ve not sung in a while.
To be honest, I felt like I’d lost my connection to music.
I was unsure if I’d ever get it back, and I had come to some kind of peace with it.
But on the way back home from my big cross country trip, after I’d made it to my goal of the Pacific Ocean, I started to listen to songs as if I might want to sing them.
The finale of act one of Sunday in the Park, Sunday, the very song I’m listening to right now over and over again, played in my car just two weeks ago about the same 28 times.
You know what? I can still remember all my harmonies from when I played Dot in college, over 30 years ago.
Did I lose my music…not really…I don’t think you EVERY lose Sondheim.

I wonder if Stephen Sondheim ever lost his music?

Another night, many years ago, I sat across the dinner table from Len Cariou who regaled the small group of us with stories about the original productions of Sweeney and A Little Night Music.
While they rehearsed for the broadway opening of Night Music, he told us that Sondheim promised him again and again that Fredrick, Len’s character, would have the penultimate song, BUT he just had to figure out what that song was, and write it.
Then, one day, just before they started previews, Sondheim came into rehearsal, apologized to Len, told him he would have the reprise of the song, but this song…the penultimate song…would be for Desiree.
He sat down at the rehearsal piano, and played, “Send in the Clowns”.
Can you even imagine?

Singing his music is at times a difficult challenge, but when you get it? When you really get it? It’s like flying. It’s like a fucking dance with the music.
BUT he made you work for the flow.

Earlier tonight, when I found out he passed, it felt like a family member had gone.
It just seemed incomprehensible that Stephen Sondheim was not eternal.
Watching people from EVERY walk of life salute him on social media is overwhelming.

Someone said that he was OUR Shakespeare, that we were so blessed to live at the same time as a theatrical giant.

Truth.

We lived in a time when he was still writing his musicals.
I remember when Passion, Assassins and Into the Woods came to broadway.
He was STILL writing a new one, right now.
He kept going.
He said in an interview just days ago that he was too old to travel anymore, so what else could he do but fill his time with writing?

Didn’t we all just think that one day soon, we would all get to listen to the new Sondheim?
I know he had a show in workshop…but who knows what will happen with that.
It wasn’t finished.
He said it wasn’t.
How can someone else finish it?

All over the world musical theatre artists, musical theatre lovers, and lovers of Sondheim mourn.

What a time to be alive for so many reasons.
What a time for him to go.
His work will live forever.
He has inspired generations of artists, interpreters, creators and producers…and will continue to.
One man.

While we are not all Sondheim (and I gather from ALL of the videos I’ve watched tonight, he would never want us to be anyone but ourselves) if we are not inspired by the foot print and life’s work he’s left behind…we are missing the point.

Keep writing.
Keep creating.
Keep failing (look at Merrily We Roll Along…a failure that keeps getting produced over and over).
Keep encouraging.
Keep teaching.
Keep striving.
Keep learning.
And again, keep writing…words OR the story of your life in whatever way your own creation takes you.
Well, that is my takeaway, at least.

God, thank you for Stephen Sondheim and thank you, Stephen Sondheim.

You are a true giant, a giant of art.

I cannot believe he’s gone.

I came back 12 hours later to add this, because I think it bears mentioning how a few lines written by this man, once sung by me when I was 19, helped me through the hardest year of my life.

No one is you, George.
There we agree,
But others will do, George.
No one is you and
No one can be,
But no one is me, George,
No one is me

I’m grateful forever…to the very pit of my soul.

No hyperbole.