Review: Stephen Sondheim receives an all-star salute at the Hollywood Bowl’s ‘Everybody Rise!’
A team of Broadway all-stars came together for one night to pay tribute to Stephen Sondheim at the Hollywood Bowl on Sunday. The orchestra and singers were dressed in formal evening attire, but the mood of “Everybody Rise! A Sondheim Celebration” was buoyant and relaxed.
The wit and wisdom of Sondheim’s songwriting punctured all pretensions. The lyrics scraped against some hard existential truths, but the expansive musical comedy vision assured that life will go on until it doesn’t and we might as well enjoy it as best we can while we can. As headliner Patti LuPone sang in “The Ladies Who Lunch,” “I’ll drink to that.”
LuPone, whose first number was “Being Alive” from “Company,” which is a bit like walking on stage and diving headlong into one of Hamlet’s great soliloquies, was like a precious emerald in a bejeweled crown. Surrounding her were Sierra Boggess, Sutton Foster, Norm Lewis, Brian Stokes Mitchell and Skylar Astin. Any one of these performers could have delivered a memorable show solo. Together, they were like a glorious buffet in which the temptations are so abundant that one can only succumb to the pleasurable variety.
A look at Stephen Sondheim, the award-winning composer-lyricist with shows such as “Company,” “Follies” and “Sweeney Todd.”
The show, which featured a chorus from Cal State Fullerton situated behind a first-rate pickup orchestra, was co-curated by Robert Longbottom, who directed the delightful 2019 Hollywood Bowl production of “Into the Woods,” and conductor Kevin Stites. The singers came out, usually singly but sometimes in pairs or groups. The first act culminated in “A Weekend in the Country” from “A Little Night Music,” the second act in “Sunday” from “Sunday in the Park With George,” both numbers enlisting the embarrassment of riches that was the full ensemble.
The revue nature of the evening made it more meaningful for those who were already conversant with the shows from which the songs were plucked. Sondheim was a playwright’s lyricist-composer if ever there was one. He wrote contextually to serve the story.
Sondheim, who died in 2021, had a few hits, most notably “Send in the Clowns,” which has been interpreted by countless artists. But the lyrics only really make sense in the situation Desiree Armfeldt finds herself in in “A Little Night Music” when she must steel herself from collapsing into heartbreak after the man she has decided to wholly give her heart to reveals he has given his own to another.
A critic’s tribute to Broadway composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim, a master of storytelling in song.
LuPone can sing with Puccini-esque flair, drawing out vocal color with an Impressionist’s insouciance. But she is also an astute dramatic performer who knows how to release the hidden meanings of lyrics. Her rendition of “Send in the Clowns” would touch even the newcomer who mistakenly believed LuPone was singing about a trapeze star at Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, so resonant was her stoical disappointment.
The shimmering richness of Lewis’ baritone and the agile beauty of Boggess’ soprano supplied the evening’s natural pyrotechnics. Lewis combined lightness and gravity in his handling of “Everybody Says Don’t” from “Anyone Can Whistle.” Boggess and Lewis imbued “Too Many Mornings” from “Follies” with gorgeous romantic melancholy.
Mitchell gamely took on both spousal roles in “Getting Married Today” from “Company,” his bridal anxiety turned up to maximum hilarity. But it was in “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” that he tested his Tony-winning mettle.
The Tony-nominated revival of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s musical arrives at the Ahmanson Theatre in a production starring Tony-winner Stephanie J. Block as the Baker’s Wife and Montego Glover as the Witch.
Mitchell’s superlative baritone darkened the amphitheater with “Epiphany,” Sweeney’s murderous prayer. With LuPone’s perversely opportunistic Mrs. Lovett reviewing the prospective cannibalistic menu, his Sweeney perfectly complemented her cockeyed humor with his own savage drollery. And together with Lewis in “Pretty Women,” Mitchell seized on the devilish irony that Sondheim often saves his most magnificent melodies for the bloodiest occasions.
Astin, who played the Baker in Longbottom’s staging of “Into the Woods,” impresses once again at the Bowl. His version of “Finishing the Hat” made me wish someone would immediately cast him in the next revival of “Sunday in the Park With George.” His spry flexibility as a performer was put on virtuoso display in “The God-Why-Don’t-You-Love-Me-Blues” from “Follies.”
This high-caliber production of ‘A Little Night Music’ is the crowning achievement of Pasadena Playhouse’s six-month-long Sondheim Celebration festival.
Foster, a two-time Tony winner who played the Baker’s Wife opposite Astin in 2019, nearly stole the show when she returned to the musical for a wistfully enchanting retread of “Moments in the Woods.” Her approach to Sondheim was always character-centered, never more so than in her interpretation of “Losing My Mind” from “Follies.”
Astin and Boggess delivered the emotional goods in “Move On,” a song that whispers deeply felt truths even to those who don’t know the slightest thing about “Sunday in the Park With George.”
Los Angeles has been treated of late to quite a bit of excellent Sondheim, from the ambitious festival earlier this year at Pasadena Playhouse to the recent Broadway revival of “Into the Woods” at the Ahmanson Theatre. The greatest homage one can offer Sondheim is a new production, but Astin and Boggess singing “Move On” is nearly as good as a full-scale revival.
Pasadena Playhouse’s Sondheim Celebration kicks into gear with a revival of “Sunday in the Park With George,” directed by Sarna Lapine.
The finale of “Sunday” was sublime and justly selected. But it was LuPone singing “The Ladies Who Lunch,” a reprise of her most recent Tony-winning performance, that brought the audience to an ecstatic climax. It was a potent nightcap in an evening of bliss.
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