So we have a show that revolves entirely around the question of
"connection." Will Robert decide that he wants to commit to
someone or not? Robert is also presented almost always in
opposition to the couples. No matter how much his married friends
may say that they love him, he is still always something of a
loner, an outsider in this world of couples. Many productions
follow the lead of the original by often placing Robert alone in
one area of the stage, isolated from the couples who, placed
together as a group, form an implicit community. Does he want to
join the group or not? And is how much time he spends with each
couple part of what keeps him from getting married and thereby
becoming a member of the group?
In Robert we see, for the first time, the prototypical Sondheim
male protagonist. We will see him again to varying degrees in Ben
Stone in Follies, Fredrik in A Little Night Music,
Sweeney Todd, Franklin Shepard in Merrily We Roll Along,
George in Sunday in the Park With George, the Baker in
Into the Woods, and Giorgio in Passion. Only in
Pacific Overtures and Assassins, the two shows that
Sondheim wrote with John Weidman, is some variation on this
protagonist missing. (The two shows written with Weidman are
notable for having a primarily historical-political focus, and
they both are ensemble pieces, lacking a central character or pair
of characters. It is arguable, however, that the two shows written
with Weidman do each have a protagonist and an antagonist:
Japan and the United States in Pacific Overtures, and the
assassins versus the rest of the country in Assassins.)
What is it that ties these characters together, disparate as they may be in many respects? I would say it the quality of being emotionally withdrawn on some level, unwilling to fully accept or trust another person. Certainly there are many differences among them. Sweeney and George and, to some degree, Giorgio, are outsiders. Sweeney, however, can be socially adept when he needs to be, something that George (at least the George we see in the first act) is unwilling, or perhaps unable, to be. Ben Stone, Fredrik and Frankllin Shepard are all successful in their careers and social lives. But all these men essentially distance themselves from making a real emotional commitment to anyone else, except, in the case of Sweeney, to his memory of the wife he believes to be dead. At one point or another, in one way or another, each of the men mentioned in the preceding paragraph will betray or fail to appreciate a central women in his life. Sometimes this will revolve around a single moment or two when the betrayal or withdrawal becomes explicit, as with Fredrik and Desiree in A Little Night Music, and with the Baker and his Wife in Into the Woods. Sometimes the man will simply be emotionally withdrawn almost constantly, as with Ben Stone or George. Sometimes he will fail to recognize the true value of a woman who loves him, as with George, Giorgio and Franklin Shepard. And in one case, that of Sweeney Todd, he will be so obsessed with his idealized memory of his wife that he literally fails to recognize her when he sees her. These protagonists are usually articulate and intelligent, though occasionally, as with Sweeney Todd and George, they are taciturn to varying degrees, speaking only when they need to, though we are always aware of their intelligence. (The Baker, in some ways an anomaly among these characters in that he is an "average man," is perhaps an exception.) Some of them tend to be witty and intellectual, and some do not. But all these Sondheim protagonists hide their deepest feelings and their vulnerability, often behind a kind of masculine pride or by creating an intellectual shield. They keep people at a distance. Obviously, this is a generalization, but I think it is a valid one.
One thing that makes Robert both the exception and the most extreme example of this type of man is that he can't deeply a betray a woman, because he simply refuses to make any sort of commitment to anybody. As the three girlfriends sing of him:
Knock, knock, is anybody there?
Knock, knock, it really isn't fair.
Knock, knock, I'm working all my charms.
Knock, knock, a zombie's in my arms.
Taken literally, this lyric implies that, from the point of view of these women, Robert is a member of the walking dead.
It's interesting that in the earlier shows, this character "type" was always a woman: Fay in Anyone Can Whistle and Leona in Do I Hear a Waltz? Rose in Gypsy also fits this pattern to some degree, so perhaps Sondheim's attraction to this kind of character has something to do with his early collaborations with Laurents. As we shall see, a number of these characters ultimately undergo some sort of climactic breakdown, a crisis, after which they can admit their need and vulnerability. Sometimes out of this crisis will come redemption, salvation, a new level of understanding. sometimes not. If we look back to Rose in Gypsy, we see that she succeeds in alienating everyone who has ever been close to her, either through her need to control them or her inability to admit how deeply she needs them. In the final scene, she expresses a thought that seems common to many of these characters: "What I got in me--what I been holding down inside me--if I ever let it out, there wouldn't be signs big enough! There wouldn't be lights bright enough!" I'm referring not so much to her belief that she could have been a star, but to her admitting that she has been repressing her deepest feelings and desires. She then proceeds to sing "Rose's Turn," her famous mad scene, made up largely of variations of earlier songs in the show.
This hero who can't express his deepest feelings, or even if he can, can't act on them, has precursors in the work of Sondheim's mentor, Oscar Hammerstein. If we look at Billy Bigelow in Carousel or the King in The King and I, we see pride-filled men, who can only admit their need for others when it's too late: in the case of Billy, after he has died; in the case of the King, when he is on his deathbed. They both, however, manage to find some degree of redemption and peace. Billy, in fact, explicitly finds literal salvation. Sometimes, however, Sondheim's protagonists will not have to go quite that far to find their salvation. Fredrik, in A Little Night Music, expresses this theme rather directly when he wakes up after thinking that he was about to die in a game of Russian roulette. When he finds that he hasn't, and that the woman he loves but has earlier rejected is with him in his time of distress, he will express himself thus: "I don't suppose this is my heavenly reward, is it?"
What we see in Sondheim's shows, which we don't see in Rodgers and
Hammerstein's collaborations, is the musical expression of this
climax moment: the moment when the protagonist has some sort of
breakdown and admits his deepest fears and needs, or in which he
tries to carry on the lie by which he has lived and finds he is
unable to. These climactic musical numbers sometimes, though
certainly not always, lead to new realizations for the
protagonist, epiphanies of some sort. We see examples of this type
of musical number in "Rose's Turn," in Ben Stone's "Live, Laugh,
Love," in George's "Lesson No. 8," in the Baker's duet with his
father, "No More," and in Robert's final song, "Being Alive."
(Obviously, Sweeney's "Epiphany" has some relevance here, but
there are a sufficient number of differences as to prevent it from
quite fitting into this category.) And strangely, the precursor of
these songs seems to me to occur in My Fair Lady, produced
in 1956, three years before Gypsy. What is strange about it
is that this is not a show for which Sondheim, to my knowledge,
has ever personally expressed particular fondness. I suspect that
it is too staid for his taste, and that Alan Jay Lerner's
occasional missteps as a lyricist disturb him. Nonetheless, in
Henry Higgins, we certainly find a protagonist who could have come
out of a Sondheim show, and in "I've Grown Accustomed to Her
Face," we have a song that may have served, subconsciously, as a
model of sorts for "Rose's Turn." In "I've Grown Accustomed to Her
Face," as Higgins tries to pretend that he has no romantic
feelings for Eliza before finally admitting that he does, we hear
a structure that, like "Rose's Turn," is made up entirely of
variations on earlier songs, though here the variations are
largely musical ones, so perhaps a good deal of the credit should
go to Frederick Loewe. As Joseph Swain points out in his book
The Broadway Musical, (New York, 1990) the main theme of the
song is, ironically, a variation on the "Let a woman in your life"
theme of Higgins's earlier song "I'm an Ordinary Man" (199). Swain
suggests that the "revenge" section of "I've Grown Accustomed to
Her Face"--the section starting "I can see her now"--is a
variation on another revenge song, Eliza's "Just You Wait" (196).
Swain seems to be unaware that the melody there is the same melody
as the interlude section of a song of Higgins's that was cut from
the show, "Come to the Ball," in which he tries to persuade Eliza
to come to the Embassy Ball by assuring her that all the men there
will fall in love with her. (Strangely, this presents yet another
parallel to "Rose's Turn," in that one section of "Rose's Turn"--
the "Momma's Talkin' Loud" section--is also based on a song that
was cut. ) But fortunately, the revenge section of "I've Grown
Accustomed to Her Face" is also closely related to the opening
measures of Eliza's second declaration of revenge and, more
importantly, her declaration of independence, "Without You." This
motivic relationship is entirely more appropriate than the
somewhat more distant musical relationship to "Just You Wait" that
Swain points out, because Higgins did not hear Eliza sing "Just
You Wait," but she sang "Without You" to him in the scene that
precedes his final soliloquy, which is surely in response to
Eliza's song. Perhaps Sondheim belatedly revealed his awareness of
his indebtedness to Lerner and Loewe and My Fair Lady,
while being unable to admit to really liking the show, by having
Franklin Shepard in Merrily We Roll Along (1981) sing, "I
saw My Fair Lady ...I sort of enjoyed it."
“Assassins is about how society interprets the American Dream, marginalizes outsiders and rewrites and sanitizes its collective history. "Something Just Broke" is a major distraction and plays like an afterthought, shoe horned simply to appease. The song breaks the dramatic fluidity and obstructs the overall pacing and climactic arc which derails the very intent and momentum that makes this work so compelling...”
- Mark Bakalor
“I found [the Sondheim Celebration's Company] to be completely delightful. Almost all of the numbers excited and energized me, and most of the scenes were about as pitch-perfect as you can get. I just sat there with a big smile on my face the whole show.
Which is not to say that it is perfect...”
- popcornonmyknees
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