[This is a continuation from a previous post, an interview with Stephen Sondheim held at Sydney's Theatre Royal on July 6, 2007.]
Jonathan Biggins:
Well let’s strip away the legacy of the last fifty years and adopt a more linear narrative…one that you may not be familiar with. (Audience laughs).
Stephen Sondheim:
You’ve seen the work.
JB: You were immersed in the world of musical comedy from a fairly young age, weren’t you? It does help to grow up in Central Park, doesn’t it?
SS: Well I didn’t grow up IN Central Park. (More laughter). No. What you’re referring to I think, is my association with Oscar Hammerstein.
JB: Well, eventually.
SS: My father was in he dress business, and he would go to musicals and take buyers, but he rarely took me. I didn’t see many shows as a kid until I fell a-foul of Oscar Hammerstein.
JB: You be-friended his son when you went to school.
SS: It wasn’t that. My parents got divorced. My mother had custody of me and she bought a house in Pennsylvania, which was quite close to the Hammersteins’. His son and I became friends. She knew the Hammersteins slightly but she was a working woman and I was an only child and that was one way of getting me off her hands, which she did, and I sort of osmosed into the Hammerstein family and that’s how I became a songwriter.
JB: And you began writing musicals at school, didn’t you?
SS: Yes when I was 15.
JB: And I believe you showed that to Oscar Hammerstein and he didn’t think that much of it.
SS: Well, I thought I’d be the first 15 year old to have a show on Broadway. Rodgers and Hammerstein were producers as well as writers.
I went to a school called George School…’Friends School’…form of Quakerism. I wrote a show called “By George” with two of my classmates and I was sure that he’d want to produce it so I gave it to him to read and said “I want you to pretend that you don’t know me and this just crossed your desk. It’s just a musical and you don’t know the writer.”
So he called me over the next day. I went over to his house and he said “Now, you want me to pretend I don’t know the author of this?”
“Oh please, absolutely,” I replied.
“In that case, it’s the worst thing I’ve ever read in my life.”
So my lower lip starts to tremble and he said “I didn’t say it was untalented, but if you want to know what’s wrong, I’ll tell you what’s wrong” and he did something wonderful.
He treated me as an adult and went right from the first stage direction right through and took all afternoon to get just, I think, just half way through the first act. He showed me exactly…
What is this character doing here?
Why does she say this?
Why do you drop this here?
Is this your idea of a rhyme?
Why is this song here?
He treated me absolutely as a grown up. I’ve said it before and it’s not too hyperbolic. I really learned more about musical theatre in one afternoon than most people learn in a lifetime because I had the distillation of decades of experience and you know when you’re that age, you are a sponge. I can remember things that he said. I’ve applied those principles ever since and I didn’t have to learn them the hard way.
JB: How important is the role of mentorship in creative art?
SS: I think very important. Nothing can be taught. All creative art has to be experienced by the artist. I do believe in guides, and in questioning.
I believe in Socratic teaching. If I’m working with a young songwriter or they ask for my help, I don’t make statements, I question. I say -
Why did you choose this?
What does this mean?
What is your intention here?
There’s that wonderful phrase “How do I know what I think until I hear what I say?”
Having to defend what you’ve written, you find out something about what you’ve written. As opposed to having someone say ‘This is wrong’, “blah blah blah…”
to be continued…
