A New Sondheim Biography Reveals Some Shockers — And The Dark Side Of Genius

Stephen Sondheim’s death successful 2021, astatine 91, was a gut punch to philharmonic theatre fans. Showered pinch honors and tributes, he had begun to look eternal, a taste constant. Even his gnarliest shows enjoyed successful revivals — much acclaimed, and much profitable, than their original productions. His power and mentorship shaped a caller procreation of theatrical composers that included Adam Guettel (“The Light successful nan Piazza”), Jason Robert Brown (“Parade”), Jeanine Tesori (“Fun Home”), Jonathan Larson (“Rent”) and Lin-Manuel Miranda (“Hamilton”).

The astir secular of Jews, Sondheim is now nan taxable of a curriculum vitae successful Yale University Press’ fantabulous Jewish Lives series. Its author, Daniel Okrent, was nan New York Times’ first nationalist editor and has written acclaimed books connected topics specified arsenic migration and Prohibition.

Okrent ne'er met Sondheim, he tells us, but he had immoderate adjacent misses: He sat adjacent nan composer successful nan theatre connected much than 1 juncture and was moreover mistaken for him. For “Stephen Sondheim: Art Isn’t Easy,” Okrent spent 3 years absorbing nan literature, interviewing collaborators and friends, and probing nan archives. He cites a peculiar indebtedness to biographer Meryle Secrest’s extended taped interviews, from nan mid-1990s, pinch Sondheim and others.

The resulting measurement is simply a brisk, engaging publication that avoids hagiography. Okrent highlights nan affectional frailties that coexisted pinch nan brilliance and generosity. He seeks to liberate Sondheim’s estimation from nan encrustation of story and to demystify his relationships, while offering a succinct study of his achievements. That’s a gangly bid for a compact book, particularly fixed its subject’s long, analyzable life. Okrent’s failings are, unsurprisingly, chiefly those of omission.

The wide outlines of Sondheim’s communicative are good known. The precocious only kid of 2 acrimoniously divided parents, he benefited from nan mentorship of his Bucks County, Pa., neighbor, Oscar Hammerstein II. Sondheim enjoyed early success, successful nan precocious 1950s, arsenic nan lyricist for “West Side Story” and “Gypsy,” but chafed astatine nan limitations of nan role. He vastly preferred penning music.

With a assortment of collaborators, including Hal Prince, George Furth, John Weidman, Hugh Wheeler and James Lapine, he went connected to forge a unique bequest arsenic some a composer and lyricist. His shows, including “Company,” “Follies,” “A Little Night Music,” “Sweeney Todd,” “Merrily We Roll Along” and “Into nan Woods,” mined nan acheronian and complexities of quality relationships, deployed divers forms of storytelling, and expanded nan possibilities of nan Broadway musical.

Okrent’s subtitle, “Art Isn’t Easy,” is simply a lyric from Sondheim’s “Sunday successful nan Park pinch George.” The 1984 musical, inspired by nan creator Georges Seurat’s 1886 pointillist masterpiece “A Sunday Afternoon connected nan Island of La Grande Jatte,” explored nan rigors and rewards of nan creator process.

There are immoderate surprises here. While Sondheim said astir utilizing intoxicant arsenic a imaginative lubricant, Okrent goes further. Quoting Lapine and others, he concludes that Sondheim was an unrepentant alcoholic, arsenic good arsenic a prolific personification of marijuana and cocaine. He kept drinking, Okrent says, moreover aft astatine slightest 2 bosom attacks.

For years, Sondheim dated men casually, without commitment. Only precocious successful life did he find 2 superior loves, nan songwriter Peter Jones and past nan shaper Jeff Romley, 50 years his junior, whom he married. That national brought him contentment, Okrent says.

Okrent besides takes earnestly Sondheim’s “emotionally intimate” relationships pinch women. Among them were Mary Rodgers, girl of composer Richard Rodgers, who chronicled her devotion successful nan memoir “Shy;” nan character Lee Remick, whom Okrent says Sondheim genuinely loved; and nan producer-director Hal Prince’s wife, Judy, an creator muse pinch whom he whitethorn person talked daily. Her disinclination (along pinch Romley’s) to cooperate pinch biographers leaves an unfortunate spread successful nan record.

One of nan myths Okrent tackles involves Sondheim’s expected rupture pinch Judy’s husband, whose imagination had helped substance shows specified arsenic “Company,” “Follies” and “A Little Night Music.” After nan spectacular failure, successful 1981, of “Merrily We Roll Along,” Sondheim turned to caller collaborators. But, according to Okrent, nan relationship remained mostly intact. (A final, years-long collaboration pinch Prince, connected nan philharmonic “Bounce” — later called “Road Show” — ne'er made it to Broadway.)

Okrent portrays Sondheim arsenic witty and endearing, but besides poorly groomed, remote, caustic, speedy to anger — and, mostly, speedy to forgive. One objection was nan lawsuit of nan prickly Arthur Laurents (librettist for “West Side Story” and “Gypsy”), a longtime friend and sometime foe whose petition for a deathbed sojourn Sondheim spurned. By contrast, Sondheim was consistently accessible and encouraging to younger composers and lyricists moreover arsenic his ain creator output sputtered.

One of his astir embattled relationships was pinch his mother, known arsenic Foxy. She famously bemoaned his commencement successful a sadistic letter, which Okrent suggests Sondheim whitethorn person misquoted. But it was done her machinations that he met Hammerstein, a indebtedness he repaid by supporting her financially done overmuch of her life.

The biography’s brevity is needfully limiting. While Okrent mentions that nan caller Tony Award-winning Broadway revival of “Merrily We Roll Along” fetched precocious summons prices, he doesn’t item nan reasons for its success. (Director Maria Friedman re-envisioned nan show arsenic a representation play, and formed nan supremely likable Jonathan Groff arsenic nan corrupt composer Franklin Shepard, ruefully reflecting connected his past.)

Okrent touches connected Sondheim’s faltering efforts to complete his last musical, pinch David Ives, “Here We Are.” But he says thing astir its posthumous Off Broadway production, successful 2023, which played to packed houses and mixed reviews — not rather nan valedictory Sondheim would person wanted.

In Sondheim’s assemblage of work, Okrent searches for nan autobiographical resonances that Sondheim himself mostly disdained. He likens nan composer to some nan emotionally disengaged protagonist, Bobby, of “Company,” who struggles pinch ambivalence, and (more surprisingly) nan vengeful barber Sweeney Todd, whose demons drove him to murder. Sondheim’s were alternatively tamed by his art, Okrent suggests, which shaped his “textured, contradictory, troubling, and gratifying life.”

Klein is simply a Philadelphia-based taste professional and reporter.