| re: If / When / How Sondheim's cleverness alienates his audience... | |
| Posted by: showtunetrivia 01:26 pm EDT 10/09/24 | |
| In reply to: If / When / How Sondheim's cleverness alienates his audience... - GrumpyMorningBoy 01:03 pm EDT 10/09/24 | |
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| I don’t see alienation here at all. You don’t even have to know any of those names or what their works are like to grasp what’s going on here: an erudite older lawyer searching for material to get his young, naive wife in the mood for sex. Sondheim, in each of Fredrick’s lawyerly analyses, gives the listener all the context needed, ticking off the reasons each is unsuitable. The punchline is the only place where name recognition—that Anderson wrote children’s books—is really the only place it was necessary. And hopefully, that’s common knowledge and not alienating. I was a high school freshman when ALNM came out, and vividly remember following the song with the liner notes. I had read Dickens and JANE EYRE, but had no problems following it. My kids grew up hearing Sondheim even younger. I just asked my youngest, who memorized this score well before her teen years, if this verse gave her any trouble: “No, Sondheim explains enough in the descriptions. I didn’t know who the Brontes were, but that they were ‘grander, but not very gay.’” Laura in LA |
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