Everyone cringes at their baby pictures, even geniuses.
While West Side Story marked Stephen Sondheim’s Broadway debut, loyal devotees of the composer are quick to remember Saturday Night. It was “the show” that was to have been Sondheim’s theatrical introduction to the world as a composer/lyricist. However, due to an untimely death, Saturday Night would remain on the shelves for more than four decades. Luckily for DC theatergoers, Signature Theater was there to re-introduce the show 56 years after it’s scheduled Broadway opening.
Saturday Night is about a group of young men trying to find dates on the eve of the Great Depression. It is based on the play Front Porch In Flatbush by Julius J. and Philip G. Epstein. The Epstein’s were an accomplished writing team, having won an Oscar in 1944 for the screenplay of Casablanca. Broadway Producer Lemuel Ayers had commissioned Julius Epstein to write the book for a musical based on the play.
Ayers had approached other composers to write Saturday Night before finally asking Sondheim. Once Sondheim accepted, the show was scheduled for the 1954-55 Broadway season and a formal announcement was made in The New York Times. During pre-production Ayers died rather suddenly and Saturday Night was put on the shelf. In 1997, the show was rediscovered and, with Sondheim’s permission, finally received a staging in the United Kingdom. The show has since been performed in the United States, but a Broadway production has never materialized.
On October 29 – 30, 2011, Signature Theater, DC’s leading regional theatrical authority on all things Sondheim, produced a four performance concert version of the show. What “concert version” means is that the show is staged, however the sets are minimal and the choreography is almost non-existent. The purpose of the performance is to focus on music and lyrics. Fortunately for Signature Theater, this is where they excel when it comes to all things Sondheim.
As a score, Saturday Night is reminiscent of musicals from the early 1950’s, which is only fitting given when the show was originally commissioned. The romantic leads end up together and all of life’s problems are solved in two acts. Nonetheless, two features distinguish Saturday Night from other musicals of the era: lyrics and the lack of a chorus. Both foreshadow Sondheim’s career as a theatrical innovator, while remaining true to the art form he loves most.
The lyrics for Saturday Night are exquisite and greatly enhance the audiences’ ability to understand the character’s emotions/motives. The best example of this is the Act I song “Class” sung by the main character Gene. Ever scheming, and longing to be wealthy, Gene explains how the poor can appear rich by simply re-titling everyday items:
This is why
A room is a “flat.”
You don’t say “tie,”
You call it “cravat.”
Say you drink from a “tumbler,”
Instead of a glass.
That’s the mark of someone who has
What I call “Class.”
The lyrics aid in the development of the characters, which is extremely important in the case of Saturday Night. The show features no chorus, which means that each character on-stage must have a distinct personality. Historically a chorus, is used to provide commentary, analysis or setting for the action(s) of the leading characters. For Saturday Night, the characters are now providing the necessary narration since a chorus is non-existent. Hence the importance of well-crafted lyrics.
Signature Theater must be complimented for yet another fantastic staging of a Sondheim show. It provided a brief insight into the early career of America’s greatest composer. The ironic part of the evening is that Sondheim isn’t particularly fond of Saturday Night’s lyrics saying, “There are some things that embarrass me so much in the lyrics — the missed accents, the obvious jokes.” Interesting, because of the all the audience commentary heard after the show, no one mentioned any of these imperfections. Sondheim goes on to say, “But I decided, Leave it. It’s my baby pictures. You don’t touch up a baby picture — you’re a baby!”
Yes, they are Sondheim’s baby pictures, pictures from when a Broadway Baby was born.
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