Bring on the liars, lovers, and clowns

Elaine Stritch who originated "little things"

 "It's sharing little winks together,
Drinks together,
Kinks together,
That make marriage a joy."

-- Stephen Sondheim, Company 

 The death of the great American genius, Stephen Sondheim, hasn't so much saddened me in itself as made me nostalgic for all the wonderful musical shows Will and I attended together over 41 years.

I remember a review called Side by Side by Sondheim which played in San Francisco at the Marines Memorial Theatre in summer of 1978.  (I know the year because I have a subscription to Newspapers.com and chased it down in the San Francisco Examiner.)  We would have been staying down the street at the Hotel Beresford, an old place that had special rates for teachers.  While I remember little of the actual show, I do remember the deep enjoyment I experienced being with my sweetheart, listening to the sophisticated lyrics, believing, as I did then, that we were having the same experience as we listened.

Now I understand that we probably weren't interpreting the lyrics or the evening in the same way.  But whether or not our minds were processing the cognitive aspect of the evening in the same way, I know we were enjoying being with each other and the performers.  

Will was never as sophisticated as I thought he was and I was never as emotionally mature as he hoped I was.  Nevertheless, we've always cared for each other, even without understanding what makes the other tic  (sic).  The Sondheim song with which I most identified was another one from Company:  

"I've got those
"God-why-don't-you-love-me-oh-you-do-I'll-see-you-later" Blues,
That"Long-as-you-ignore-me-you're-the-only-thing-that-matters" Feelin".

In the summer of 1981, after we spent time in Los Gatos and San Francisco, we drove to Los Angeles to see Sweeney Todd where it was playing at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.  We were both so excited to see the show with its original cast of Angela Lansbury and George Hearn.  I remember best the moment when Sweeney slits the first throat and raises his blade high as lights blast on to catch the blade and the drops of blood sliding from it as the great whistle blows.  Wow!  And the music, so terrible and beautiful.  I remember at the time being amused that many of the people in the audience were of the same class and power as the folks Sweeney was butchering.

Ad from LATimes, August, 1981

Two other Sondheim shows Will and I enjoyed together were Assassins (Artists Repertory Theatre, 2006, Portland) and Company (Ethyl Barrymore Theatre, Broadway, 2006).  

Will stopped going to the theatre and to the movies in 2014, during our second-to-last trip to New York City. He got sick on that trip and was too tired to go out at night.  I look back now at one decision I made -- to go to a play without him  because he freaked out and thought we were going to the movies but it was a play and "too expensive".  I was so upset with him (because I still didn't understand the dementia) that I let him walk back to the hotel himself.  

That was the last time I let him alone on the streets of a city.

 

Of course my first Sondheim was A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.  I overplayed the album I took out from the Los Gatos library. I also and watched the movie whenever it played on television so I had a few of the songs memorized.  I can still perform much of "Everybody ought to have a maid" and "Miles Gloriosus:" the Braggart Soldier.  

Buster Keaton in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum