The Hat Box: The Collected Lyrics of Stephen Sondheim, by Stephen Sondheim. containing Vol. I Finishing the Hat, and Vol. II Look, I Made a Hat

The Hat Box, is Stephen Sondheim’s collected lyrics published in two volumes a year apart. Finishing the Hat was published in 2010 and covers his shows from Saturday Night (1954) through Merrily, We Roll Along (1981). Look, I Made a Hat begins with Sunday in the Park with George (1983) and extends through the several versions of Road Show (2011). The second volume also includes Sondheim’s work in movies and television, single songs he contributed to reviews or other artist’s Broadway shows, and some personal items like birthday songs he wrote for friends or galas. Both volumes append the subtitle, “with Attendant Comments, Amplifications, Dogmas, Harangues, Digressions, Anecdotes and Miscellany“.

The lyrics are the stars, of course, and the reason for the book, but it is the stuff of the subtitle that makes the book such a joy to read. It’s not a memoir; there’s nearly no personal information about Sondheim, nor is it an examination of the musicals themselves. What it is, is a master class in the process of writing a musical from the lyricist’s point of view. Sondheim wrote the music, too, for his later shows, but he doesn’t much discuss the music, or the composition process. Because this is the collected lyrics, we get not only the lyrics of the songs that made it into the show, but all the lyrics to songs that were written and revised or abandoned along the way. And to nearly every lyric, Sondheim adds a note explaining why a song didn’t work, or pointing out a line that still bothers him or occasionally one he’s really proud of. It is the craftsman allowing you into his studio and walking among his works. examining both the finished pieces and the exploratory steps along the way.

Along with the lyrics themselves and the notes directly about them, the book also includes sidebar essays, by Sondheim, with his thoughts about the strengths and weaknesses of other lyricists (for discretion’s sake he confines himself to deceased lyricists) the roles of other artists involved in putting a show together: librettists, directors, critics. Each chapter focus on a single musical, each introduced with an essay about the development of the project, where the idea came from, how Sondheim and the other collaborators got involved. There’s usually little said about the story of the show after it’s opening. In his reflections on the art, there’s an entire history of musical theater here, not told through the shows, but told through the evolution of the medium, from operetta-style, review shows, through Hammerstein’s development of songs driven by character, and into Sondheim’s own hand in the development of the plotless “concept” musical (a term he avoids). It’s clear Sondheim is not only a genius creator of his own work, but is a comprehensive student of the history of the art.

The first volume was the more enjoyable for me. Sondheim’s hand in the two landmark musicals of the 1950s: West Side Story (1957) and Gypsy (1959) places him early in his career in the top echelon of Broadway artists. A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Form (1961) established his credentials as a composer, and was a financial success. But it took him nearly a decade to have another hit. Anyone can Whistle (1964) is a famous bomb, and still sounds like a disaster. I’ve never seen it. The musical he wrote with Richard Rodgers, Do I Hear a Waltz? (also 1964) was a mistake from the start. Mary Rodgers called it a “Why?” musical, meaning, “Why do it?” There wasn’t a good musical reason to do the show, instead it came about because Arthur Laurents had a perfectly good play (“The Time of the Cuckoo”) he thought could be adapted. Richard Rodgers needed a project. And when Hammerstein died he asked Sondheim to work with Rodgers. Sondheim felt he owed something to Hammerstein for his earlier mentoring so he said yes when he should have said no.

Sondheim’s shows of the 1970s and 80s are a near-miraculous streak of brilliance, with one mis-fire. Company (1970) I saw three years ago in its revival on Broadway with the gender-swapped roles. Sondheim lived just long enough to attend a preview. A wonderful night in the theater for Jim and I, in the front row of the balcony, just feet away from the stage (and Patti LuPone!) in the small Broadway theater. Sondheim repeats the story from Mary Rodgers’ Shy that the never-married Sondheim interviewed the twice-married Rodgers to get insights into marriage. Follies (1971) I’ve seen a couple of times, is my favorite Sondheim musical and my nominee for the best musical by anybody, ever. The lyrics are genius. The pastiche songs spot on. The drama is heart-breaking. A Little Night Music (1973). A delight. I saw this in a recent production at the Pasadena Playhouse. The misfire is The Frogs (1974). The project seems problematic from the start, led by a critic and academic who doesn’t seem to know what he’s doing in the theater. Again, Sondheim was brought in as a favor. This time from Burt Shevelove, who Sondheim had worked with in the similarly conceived, and successful, Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. This time it’s Greek (Aristophanes) not Roman. I’ve never seen the show. Apparently Nathan Lane led a revised and expanded version in 2004, but it still doesn’t seem to have worked, and I’m not interested.

Pacific Overtures (1976) Is this my favorite?! Every time I list the next one I change my mind. I’ve only seen this once, in a very small production here in Los Angeles. It’s a beautiful score. “Someone in a Tree” may be my most favorite Sondheim song. OK, it is. And in Sondheim’s note he says it’s his favorite, too, which warmed my hart. Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1979) was the first Broadway musical I ever saw. I saw the original touring production with George Hearn and Angela Lansbury when it came to the Dorothy Chandler pavilion in 1980. That was the year I graduated high school. I had seen musicals only in the movies and in school productions before that. I had already memorized the cast album and was ready for a show. I wasn’t disappointed. I’ve seen it several times since then, most recently in an excellent production at the Utah Shakespeare Festival with a truly terrifying actor as Sweeney.

Merrily We Roll Along (1981). Another famous bomb. The original Broadway production ran for only 16 performances. I saw the 1985 version at the La Jolla Playhouse. Sondheim had done some tinkering by then, which he says here “fixed” the show for him. I already knew the score from the cast album and didn’t think it needed any fixing. The problem with the original production was Hal Prince’s production, not the book or the score. The later songs Sondheim added to the score are not as strong as the originals, and elevating the Gussie character pulls focus from the trio of characters (Frank, Charlie, Mary) which are the heart of the show. The best version of the story is one of youthful idealism gradually slipping way among the realities of adulthood and a heartbreaking disintegration of supportive friendship lost along the way. The latest version, currently playing on Broadway (Jim and I saw it there) is a tedious character study of an unprincipled jerk, Frank, who was never likable to begin with and easily manipulated by Gussie played as a villain, with Charlie and Mary merely as afterthoughts. Bleech. Maybe I’ll never see a satisfying production of this overly-fussed with show. But at least there’s the cast album. Sondheim has a whole essay about “revivals” by the way, which gives me some hope.

Look, I Made a Hat starts with three more triumphs. Sunday in the Park with George (1984). I saw the original touring production at the Ahmanson, but I enjoyed the recent production at the Pasadena Playhouse even more. Sondheim includes four versions of “Putting it Together”: the original, plus the versions he wrote for Barbra Streisand, Julie Andrews (for Side by Side by Sondheim) and the Oscar telecast in 1994, sung by Bernadette Peters. Into the Woods (1987). I also saw the original touring production of this show at the Ahmanson, but I enjoyed, much more, a minimalist version that the Fiasco Theater put together in 2014 (Jim and I saw the 2016 touring version in San Diego), and the 2022 revival version Jim and I saw last year at the Ahmanson. Assassins (1990) closed a remarkable two decades of work. I finally saw this only a few years ago in a small production here in Los Angeles. It’s bizarre, funny, terrifying, and beautiful, sometimes in the same song.

The next show, Passion (1994), I have not seen. Reading about it doesn’t make me curious, although if there ever was a chance to see it, I’m sure I would. I found the story both unbelievable and uninteresting. The next four chapters all deal with the same show first called Wise Guys, then Bounce, finally Road Show (and apparently called, Gold, for a time along the way). It’s a great lesson in the development of a project. Three great directors, Sam Mendes, Hal Prince, and John Doyle, try three different attempts to find a workable way to tell an unwieldy story about the real life Mizner brothers, Wilson and Addison, who were go-getter, self-promoting, affable but quasi-conmen, at the turn of the 20th century. The story starts in California, goes to Alaska, Addison travels around the world, then New York, then a long sequence in Boca Raton, finally ending up in Hollywood. You can see the trouble. Anyone hoping to get a show on Broadway could profitably read through the four chapters devoted to the four stages of development: a reading in 1998, and a workshop production in 1999, when the show was Wise Guys, overseen by Sam Mendes; Hal Prince’s version from 2003, called Bounce, which introduced a fictional lead female character named Nellie and played in Chicago and Washington DC; and finally John Doyle’s version from 2008, which speeds up the show into a one act and leans into the Bob Hope and Bing Crosby inspiration and thus the title, Road Show. A great lesson, but as it all leads to a show I haven’t seen, reading through all the revisions and cuts, and re-tries, was kind of a slog. I admit to skimming.

I skimmed some of the closing chapters as well. Here are several shows Sondheim had only a small hand in, many unproduced. Movies: including Dick Tracy, for which Sondheim wrote five songs and won an Oscar. Television work: The mini-musical Evening Primrose (1966) includes only four songs but two are among Sondheim’s best: “I Remember” and “Take Me to the World”. The final chapters include several commissioned songs. There’s one written for a Leonard Bernstein birthday celebration that’s very good, called “The Saga of Lenny”, based on the Kurt Weill/Ira Gershwin song “The Saga of Jenny” . And there’s another called, “Hey Mr. Producer” written for a gala tribute to Cameron Mackintosh based on both “Send in the Clowns” and “Music of the Night” from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera which Sondheim and Andrew Lloyd Webber performed together sitting at one piano. That would have been fun to see. The volume trails off with some of the very early work Sondheim did under Hammerstein’s tutelage, really only of interest to students, and Sondheim completists.

Missing, because it came after the publication date is Here We Are (2023). There are only a few songs and although quite good, they seem like lesser versions of similar songs Sondheim wrote for earlier shows. Jim and I were lucky enough to see the Broadway production with an absolutely incredible cast. It will likely never be produced so well again.

I missed the chance to buy The Hat Box when it was first published and then it went out of print. Luckily it was re-released in conjunction with the production of Here We Are. I was excited to see it for sale in the lobby. Jim bought it for me for Christmas.