Last Friday night, I saw a production of the first produced musical comedy for which Stephen Sondheim wrote both words and music. Then last night (Monday), I saw a production of his first almost-produced musical, Saturday Night, which was scheduled for a 1954 opening when its producer spoiled everything by dropping dead. The show — with a book by Julius Epstein — went on indefinite hold and never did get a production until it was done in London in 1997.
It concerns a band of friends who live in Flatbush in 1928 and, with the market booming, decide to invest everything in a stock tip. The plot is rather feeble (if you want to read a detailed synopsis, click here) and the reason to now stage Saturday Night is to savor early and largely-unheard Sondheim. At age 24, he was working in more familiar, melodic forms but he still had more skill than most accomplished composers.
Last evening's performance was a "staged reading" (no sets, actors carrying scripts) put on by the Musical Theatre Guild, a fine Southland organization that does four or so of these a year. They're usually one-nighters, but this one is getting two more performances in October, out in Thousand Oaks. It's well worth it as an energetic cast, including Noel Orput, Kim Huber, Richard Israel and the fabulous Eydie Alyson, did full justice to Mr. Sondheim's witty lyrics. I am continually amazed at the professionalism of this group which puts on whole musicals — usually, shows that none of them have even seen, let alone appeared in before — with only 25 hours of rehearsal. (They don't even get to use the actual theater until the day of the performance.) It's like how I feel about Cirque du Soleil: Just the fact that they do it at all is impressive; never mind that they also do it so well…