Britain is in the grip of a mini-Sondheim feast at the moment. Sunday in the Park with George is now in previews for its transfer from the fringe Menier to the West End’s Wyndham’s; and last night a new production of Pacific Overtures opened at Leicester Haymarket, completing a trio of recent Sondheim regional revivals that started off with the Sheffield Crucible’s Assassins and continued with Derby Playhouse’s Into the Woods. And on Sunday, the original cast of Side by Side by Sondheim, the British-originated revue from 1976 that first put the composer’s name into popular currency, are reuniting at the Novello for a one-night benefit performance, too.
The man himself is here, too, and making himself public with talks at both the National Gallery on Friday evening (about Sunday in the Park with George) and for members of the Stephen Sondheim Society on Sunday afternoon. He’s also been giving major press interviews recently, with both last week’s Time Out and today’s Independent carrying big profiles.
It’s creating a welcome buzz around him, and just as he is making himself physically more accessible than usual, the work is being revealed, too, as far more accessible than some of the shows were once perceived to be. Sunday in the Park with George and Pacific Overtures are, together with Passion, probably the most rarefied and ‘difficult’ of his shows, yet both of these productions prove that beneath their cerebral surfaces, the songs pulse with genuine emotion and feeling.
It was thrilling to sit in the Leicester Haymarket at last night’s opening of Pacific Overtures, and see director Paul Kerryson’s ongoing and unflappable commitment to this difficult work come to life again. Kerryson, more than any regional theatre director in the country, has banged the Sondheim drum over the years, producing Merrily We Roll Along, an earlier production of Pacific Overtures, Follies, Sweeney Todd, Into the Woods, Sunday in the Park with George and A Little Night Music there in the space of less than a decade, between 1992 and 2001. But it was also a bittersweet occasion, for this is one of the last in-house productions that the theatre is producing in its current home before it moves out to a new one next summer at the Leicester Performing Arts Centre.
But if the current surge of interest in all things Sondheim is undoubtedly welcome, a new show would be even more welcome – if greedy to ask for! He told The Independent’s Louise Jury that he’s giving Bounce, his last original show that played in Chicago and Washington DC but failed to get to New York, one last look: “I’m doing a final rewrite now, hope to get it on next year, and if not, then not. I’ve spent too much time on it.” But when Time Out’s Jane Edwardes asked him if he still has an appetite for writing, he replied, “No. Since you ask. Age. It’s age. It’s a diminution of energy and the worry that there are no new ideas. It’s also an increasing lack of confidence. I’m not the only one. I’ve checked with other people. People expect more of you and you’re aware of it and you shouldn’t be.”
