A Serious Case of Sondheim

Does the world need yet another revue of Stephen Sondheim’s show tunes?

David Kernan thinks so, and history suggests he is willing to persist in the face of skepticism--even that of the maestro himself. Hence the U.S. premiere this week at the Laguna Playhouse of “Moving On,” with Kernan as conceptualist and director.

Kernan is the English singer-actor-director who started the phenomenon in 1976 by organizing and starring in the hit song-sampler “Side by Side by Sondheim.” Now he is trying to extend what has become, in his hands and those of others, a decade-by-decade-by-decade tradition of raiding Sondheim’s venerated musical theater oeuvre for revue-able material.

The second Sondheim revue, “Marry Me a Little,” surfaced off-Broadway in 1981; it was a sequence of then-unheard outtakes from his musicals, strung together by Craig Lucas and Norman Rene. In 1993 came “Putting It Together,” which began as a star vehicle for Julie Andrews. It was put together by Sondheim and Julia McKenzie, a member of the original “Side by Side by Sondheim” cast. Unlike “‘Side by Side,” in which the music stood more or less alone with a bit of witty connective tissue provided by a narrator, “Marry Me a Little” and “Putting It Together” conjured new characters whose stories unfolded through the sequencing of songs originally written to fit different scenarios.

“Moving On” goes back to basics, with one innovation: The link between the songs is the disembodied voice of Sondheim himself, reminiscing about his life to set up various thematically based segments of the show as it moves from youthful aspiration to love and its disillusionments, to a final valediction about finding the resilience to keep moving on.

Kernan, 61, took a break from rehearsals recently and spoke about the motivations and methods behind “Moving On.”

“Side by Side” was such a lucky experience, he says, that he always wanted to find an excuse for a follow-up. When Sondheim’s 70th birthday rolled around last year without any major theatrical celebration planned in London, Kernan decided to provide one at a small theater, the Bridewell.

He asked Sondheim’s permission and, he says, got back a handwritten note approving a limited, five-week run: “It said, ‘By all means. You do my stuff better than most.”’

That warm fuzzy was in marked contrast, Kernan says, to the wry note Sondheim had sent him 25 years before, clearing the way for “Side by Side by Sondheim.” “I got a telegram--it’s written on my heart, really--saying, ‘By all means have a try, but apart from the Book of Kells I can’t think of anything more boring.”’

The idea for “Side by Side” hit Kernan after he was involved in a mini-concert of Sondheim songs to raise money for the Stables, singer Cleo Laine’s small theater north of London. Kernan, who was part of the first London cast of Sondheim’s “A Little Night Music,” was struck during the benefit by how well the songs retained their theatricality even when extracted from their original shows.

“Each song, out of context, still has impact on the audience, and each song is so brilliantly constructed,” he says. “Each has a beginning, a middle and an end, and they’re virtually small playlets.”

Kernan says he and Sondheim had hit it off several months before when the composer coached the cast of “A Little Night Music” before it opened in 1975.

“He has an incredible ability to pinpoint the mood, the emotion of a song,” Kernan said. “I said to him, ‘Why don’t you direct?’ He said, ‘I don’t have the patience. You need the patience of Job to listen to actors go over and over something.”’

The following year Sondheim was back to provide more coaching--this time during the run-up to the London opening of “Side by Side by Sondheim.” After a few tryouts in the provinces, it had been picked up for a West End production by a young, uncredentialed producer, Cameron Mackintosh. At the time, Kernan says, Sondheim wasn’t particularly heralded in England: “It was a little bit ‘Stephen who?”’

That changed after the revue’s long run. In 1977, Kernan and the rest of the London cast came to Broadway, where the New York Times review urged readers to “turn cartwheels to the box office” because “this show is happy, funny, witty and so compassionate. It makes you feel good.”

“Moving On,” Kernan acknowledges, is a different animal. It is less boisterous, more reflective and autumnal. That, he says, is in keeping with his decision to wind the songs around the stem of their creator’s commentary on his life.

Kernan had wanted Sondheim on film; the composer consented to audio. Kernan had wanted to interview the composer in person; Sondheim said he would answer written questions.

What Sondheim didn’t know and didn’t ask, Kernan says, was the song selections he had in mind. “He never questioned anything. He just politely answered all the questions.” Kernan culled 12 minutes of narration from the 40-minute tape; Sondheim also OK’d the use of photos of himself at various stages of his life, to be projected during his voice-overs. The show also uses a taped snippet of Sondheim singing “With So Little to Be Sure Of,” one of the show’s valedictory concluding numbers.

“With So Little to Be Sure Of,” from the 1964 show “Anyone Can Whistle,” is one of the songs Kernan cites to show the continuing relevance, meaningfulness and adaptability of Sondheim’s work through changing times.

Crazy business, this,

This life we live in.

Can’t complain about the time we’re given,

With so little to be sure of in this world.

It is uncertain whether Sondheim will see “Moving On” in Laguna. He did see a rehearsal run-through of the London production, and made some suggestions about song choices and sequences that Kernan followed.

Produced in a limited five-week run, the British premiere earned mixed reviews ranging from the Times of London’s “oddly weightless ... more likely to entertain disciples than make new converts” to the International Herald Tribune’s assessment that “it deserves to run somewhere forever.”

Andrew Barnicle, artistic director of the Laguna Playhouse, happened to catch “Moving On” during his annual London theater junket. He invited Kernan to bring the show to Laguna. Kernan doubted Sondheim would approve another production, but he says that to his surprise, the composer consented. “He said, ‘Well, OK, it’s a work in progress, let’s see another production,”’ Kernan says. The Laguna show features a new cast of five singers; Kernan hopes that a strong reception will persuade Sondheim to publish “Moving On,” giving it a chance at the long, far-flung life that previous Sondheim revues have enjoyed.

Paul Salsini, who keeps track of such things as editor of the Sondheim Review, a quarterly journal based in Chicago with 2,200 Sondheim-loving subscribers worldwide, says that this fall will bring productions of “Side by Side by Sondheim” in Duluth, Minn.; Wichita, Kan.; Nantucket, Mass.; Hurley, N.Y.; and Sierra Vista, Ariz. “Putting It Together” will be up in Arvada, Colo.; Hammond, La.; Boston and two Birminghams--Michigan and Alabama. “I think [‘Moving On’] will have a life” if Sondheim permits it, Salsini said by phone from Milwaukee. “Any little group can do that, and if you’ve got good voices, the songs come through.”

Salsini doesn’t see “Moving On” as a big event for Sondheim aficionados, however. He believes fans are much hungrier for new work than for another revue. Sondheim has been very slow in completing the follow-up to his last musical, “Passion” in 1994.

Kernan says he doesn’t envision “Moving On”’ as the great Sondheim popularizer that “Side by Side” turned out to be, but as a valentine to the composer and his fans. It even lacks “Send in the Clowns” and “Comedy Tonight,” the two Sondheim songs that just about everybody knows. Audiences will “have to do some work,” Kernan said. “You are not there just to be entertained. You’ve actually got to listen, and be interested enough in the man and his life. And if you’re not, I don’t think the show is for you.”