Just saw Company again, and appreciating all over again how different Sondheim is from anybody else. There is really no point of comparison.
When you think, in general, of musical theater, you think of broad strokes of the creative pen, crowd-pleasing numbers, singing, dancing, an old fashioned tug-at-the-heartstrings show.
But when you think of Sondheim, you think of something else entirely. The really hard problems of being an adult, the fractured hearts of humans that make relationships so challenging and yet so worthwhile. It’s a completely different beast.
If we had never had Sondheim, we wouldn’t have believed he was possible. How infinitely beautiful and astonishing is that?