The Oxford Handbook of Sondheim Studies offers a series of cutting-edge essays on the most important and compelling topics in the growing field of Sondheim Studies. Focusing on broad groups of issues relating to the music and the production of Sondheim works, rather than on biographical questions about the composer himself, the handbook represents a cross-disciplinary introduction to comprehending Sondheim in musicological, theatrical, and socio-cultural terms.
This collection of never-before published essays addresses issues of artistic method and musico-dramaturgical form, while at the same time offering close readings of individual shows from a variety of analytical perspectives. The handbook is arranged into six broad sections: issues of intertextuality and authorship; Sondheim's pioneering work in developing the non-linear form of the concept musical; the production history of Sondheim's work; his writing for film and television; his exploitation and deployment of a wide range of musical genres; and how interpretation through key critical lenses (including sociology, history, and feminist and queer theory) establishes his position in a broader cultural context.
Recenzijas
"You'll be glad you did all those bicep curls when you pick up The Oxford Handbook of Sondheim Studies...fascinating, revealing, provocative."--The Bay Area Reporter
|
|
xi | |
Acknowledgments |
|
xv | |
Notes on Contributors |
|
xvii | |
Introduction |
|
1 | (10) |
|
PART I INTERTEXUALITY AND AUTHORSHIP: TOWARD NONLINEAR FORMS |
|
|
|
|
11 | (14) |
|
|
2 Sondheim and Postmodernism |
|
|
25 | (14) |
|
|
3 "You've Got to Be Carefully Taught": Oscar Hammerstein's Influence on Sondheim |
|
|
39 | (24) |
|
|
4 "Old Situations, New Complications": Tradition and Experiment in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum |
|
|
63 | (18) |
|
|
5 Anyone Can Whistle as Experimental Theater |
|
|
81 | (16) |
|
|
|
PART II THE ART OF MAKING ART |
|
|
|
6 The Prince--Sondheim Legacy |
|
|
97 | (20) |
|
Miranda Lundskaer-Nielsen |
|
|
7 "Growing Pains": Revising Merrily We Roll Along |
|
|
117 | (16) |
|
|
8 "Give Us More to See": The Visual World of Stephen Sondheim's Musicals |
|
|
133 | (18) |
|
|
9 Orchestrators in their Own Words: The Sound of Sondheim in the Twenty-first Century |
|
|
151 | (14) |
|
|
10 "Nothing More than Just a Game": The American Dream Goes Bust in Road Show |
|
|
165 | (20) |
|
|
PART III SONDHEIM IN PERFORMANCE |
|
|
|
11 "It Takes Two": The Doubling of Actors and Roles in Sunday in the Park with George |
|
|
185 | (18) |
|
|
12 "Something Just Broke": Assassins after the Iraq War---A Production and its Reception |
|
|
203 | (11) |
|
|
13 Sondheim on the London Stage |
|
|
214 | (13) |
|
|
14 "And One for Mahler": An Opera Director's Reflections on Sondheim in the Subsidized Theater |
|
|
227 | (14) |
|
|
PART IV SONDHEIM ACROSS THE MEDIA |
|
|
|
15 Evening Primrose: Sondheim and Goldman's Television Musical |
|
|
241 | (17) |
|
|
16 From Screen to Stage: A Little Night Music and Passion |
|
|
258 | (20) |
|
|
17 More Sondheim: Original Music for Movies |
|
|
278 | (18) |
|
|
18 Attending the Tale of Sweeney Todd: The Stage Musical and Tim Burton's Film Version |
|
|
296 | (13) |
|
|
PART V SONDHEIM ACROSS GENRES |
|
|
|
19 A Little Night Music: The Cynical Operetta |
|
|
309 | (10) |
|
|
20 Croaks into Song: Sondheim Tackles Greek Frogs |
|
|
319 | (16) |
|
|
21 Sweeney Todd: From Melodrama to Musical Tragedy |
|
|
335 | (15) |
|
|
22 "Careful the Spell You Cast": Into the Woods and the Uses of Disenchantment |
|
|
350 | (15) |
|
|
PART VI SONDHEIM, IDENTITY, AND SOCIETY |
|
|
|
23 Keeping Company with Sondheim's Women |
|
|
365 | (19) |
|
|
24 Follies: Musical Pastiche and Cultural Archaeology |
|
|
384 | (20) |
|
|
25 Narratives of Progress and Tragedy in Pacific Overtures |
|
|
404 | (12) |
|
|
|
416 | (16) |
|
|
27 Sondheim's America; Americas Sondheim |
|
|
432 | (19) |
|
Bibliography |
|
451 | (6) |
Index |
|
457 | |
Robert Gordon is Professor of Drama and Director the Pinter Centre for Performance and Creative Writing at Goldsmiths, University of London . He is an actor, playwright, critic and director who has written on acting theory, post-war British theatre, South African theatre, Oscar Wilde, Pirandello, Pinter, Stoppard, Osborne and Arthur Miller.