Stephen Sondheim: A Casebook (Casebooks on Modern Dramatists) [Paperback]

Joanne Gordon (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 3, 1999 | ISBN-10: 0815335865 | ISBN-13: 978-0815335863 | Edition: 1

Contents General Editor's Note, Kimball King; Introduction, Joanne Gordon; Chronology; Broadway Babies: Images of Women in the Musicals of Stephen Sondheim Laura Hanson; Comedy Tonight!: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Lois Kivesto; Company 25 Years Later John Olson; Nixon's America and Follies: Reappraising a Musical Theater Classic,James Fisher; The Last of Sheila: Sondheim as a Master Games-Player, Douglas Braverman; On Performing Sondheim (A Little Night Music Revisited), David Craig; "More Beautiful than True" or "Never Mind the Small Disaster": The Art of Illusion in Pacific Overtures, Leonard Fleischer; Psychology, Evil and Sweeney Todd or, "Don't I Know You,Mister?"Judith Schlesinger; Sondheim: The Idealist, Mari Cronin; "Let the Pupil Show the Master" Stephen Sondheim and Oscar Hammerstein II, Andrew Milner; Portrait of the Artist: Sunday in the Park with George and "Revolutionary" Musical Drama, Edward T. Bonahue, Jr.; Assassins and the Concept Musical, Scott Miller; Passion: Not Just Another Simple Love Story, Gary Konas; Revisiting Greece: the Sondheim Chorus, Barbara Means Fraser; Contributors; Index

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; 1 edition (November 3, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0815335865
• ISBN-13: 978-0815335863
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,440,428 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Very good compilation of in-depth essays on Sondheim works, October 9, 2011

By 

G.C. (St. Louis, MO, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Stephen Sondheim: A Casebook (Casebooks on Modern Dramatists) (Paperback)

This volume of 14 essays, by 14 different authors, on selected works of Stephen Sondheim is aimed principally at an academic audience, and does not cover all of Sondheim's musicals individually. I also use the word "works" rather than musicals, because the essay by Douglas Braverman covers not a musical, but Sondheim's one original movie screenplay, "The Last of Sheila", although Braverman does tie this screenplay back to Sondheim's musicals, not surprisingly.

For the most part, even though the discussions are quite in depth and "academic" in that sense, the essays generally avoid literary jargon, so that Sondheim devotees or fanatics who aren't necessarily literary academics can also potentially derive much enjoyment from this collection. The one essay which lays on the literary terminology rather more is Gary Konas' essay on "Passion". To a lesser extent, Barbara Means Fraser also uses a few "heavier" academic terms of analysis, but since she fairly breezes through each musical in her analysis of the role of the chorus in Sondheim's musicals, there almost isn't time to get bogged down. I must confess as a small matter of personal taste that I found Judith Schlesinger's use of the line from "Sweeney Todd" of 'Don't I know you, mister?' as her essay closer very arch and self-conscious, in an otherwise good essay.

Although this volume certainly isn't "casual" reading, it is accessible enough for the intelligent lay-reader who is willing to focus on the task at hand. Sondheim fans will need no recommendation from me.