Many PBS stations are running an episode of Great Performances these days that will take you to a recent celebration at Carnegie Hall of Stephen Sondheim's 80th birthday. It's a nice special with performers like Bernadette Peters, George Hearn, Elaine Stritch, Patti LuPone and Audra McDonald, all hosted by David Hyde Pierce. It is, of course, wonderful. How could an evening of those folks singing Sondheim songs with the New York Philharmonic — and the composer himself in the house, laughing and crying — not be wonderful? If you enjoyed it, you might want to spring for the twenty bucks and order the DVD (which has several additional numbers not shown on PBS) so you can watch it whenever you want and see it without those endless, tedious Pledge Breaks that remind us again and again that they don't have commercials.
There are no real surprises in the show. Except for a performance of "A Little Priest" by one Mrs. Lovett and two Sweeneys, it's all Sondheim-approved singers singing his most famous songs in Sondheim-approved style, exactly as expected. Nevertheless, I'm a sucker for these concerts and of course, I love just about everything Sondheim has done…and I even respect the hell out of the work of his I don't love. No one is more deserving of such tributes and I look forward to the "80 years and one month" tribute next month with Bernadette Peters, George Hearn, Elaine Stritch, Patti LuPone and Audra McDonald…and then the "80 years and two months" celebration in January with Bernadette Peters, George Hearn, Elaine Stritch, Patti LuPone and Audra McDonald…and then for a change, the February "80 years and three months" birthday salute with feature Audra McDonald, Patti LuPone, Elaine Stritch, George Hearn and Bernadette Peters…and maybe Liza Minnelli. And y'know, if they can keep these going, maybe they can make sure that Mr. Sondheim never writes another show.
Maybe I shouldn't say that last part but I wonder. I've been privileged to know a number of writers, artists and other creative folks who were not undeserving of the label "genius." It has not been true of all of them but it has been true of some that tributes and worship and adulation make it increasingly difficult to produce new work. It seems to make some part of certain creative folks think, "Hmm…maybe I'd better quit while I'm ahead."
I can think of at least three brilliant comic book artists who, I believe, tended to shut down because of that and I'll even mention the name of one of them: the late Alex Toth. I was a close friend of Alex's for about ten years and I'm afraid I was one of the many who kept telling him how brilliant he was…up until the time I began to perceive that we were doing him a disservice. He didn't stop drawing completely in his later years, and I'm not suggesting Too Much Adulation was the only reason he'd go months without producing anything for public consumption. Alex had plenty of reasons. It just began to dawn on me that one of the reasons he was finding them — or allowed little ones to become big ones — was that he felt so overpraised and feared that whatever he produced would not live up to expectations. (Jack Kirby, about whom folks will ask if I don't bring him into this, did not have this inhibition during his last years. He had more or less the opposite problem. He was eager to produce work worthy of the adoration he was experiencing and would probably have output a lot of it had not his health made that impossible.)
Being crushed by one's own reputation is something I've observed in other folks in or out of comics. I know a novelist who wrote an acclaimed Best Seller years ago and who has followed it, so far, with…nothing. He has offers. He has publishers willing to buy his next book, sight unseen and he even signed a contract with one, accepted a huge advance…then returned the advance a few years later. So many people have hailed his literary magnificence that the need to live up to expectations has absolutely paralyzed him. For a while, he would write something and tear it up, write something and tear it up, over and over. Coming from the author of that smash hit, nothing was good enough…and by now, he's pretty much given up. He figures that as long as he doesn't write another book, he'll forever be the author of that big, well-reviewed Best Seller. Why take the chance that he'll become the author of a disappointing flop? He's particularly afraid everyone will say of the previous book (the smash), "Well, guess he was just a fluke…an untalented guy who had one good book in him." So the more people told him, "I loved your last book and can't wait for the next one," the less likely he became to ever produce that next one.
I have no idea if Mr. Sondheim is impacted by any of these tributes…and certainly when one is 80, it's perfectly valid to opt to do other things in one's life and take it easy or at least easier. He has nothing to prove and certainly owes his admirers nothing. Still, I keep wondering not so much about Sondheim but about any great creative talent who curtails their output as they get older. I once spent an afternoon with Ernie Lehman, who wrote some darn great movies (look 'em up) but not in his last 25 years. Our time together was about ten years before he passed and he was still writing…but I don't think he was that serious about getting any of it produced. He even made some remark about how he envied young writers because what they created was not automatically compared to North by Northwest and The Sweet Smell of Success. I admired the guy but I was more impressed with someone like Larry Gelbart who remained productive to his dying day at age 81.
I love all these tributes to Stephen Sondheim…but you know what I'd like even more? I'd like to see him write another show or two that contains work worthy of inclusion in a tribute to Stephen Sondheim. I just hope all this canonization isn't making that impossible.
