Sondheim: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and Into the Woods

Stephen Sondheim is possibly best known for Sweeney Todd for which he wrote both the music and the lyrics. Sweeney Todd and Into the Woods are strictly Sondheim productions--that is, the music and lyrics are the show. He has also contributed music and lyrics to various enterprises, including A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.

KATE SAYS A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum is the silliest movie I've ever seen.

I'm not a huge fan of slapstick, which AFTHOTWTHF contains much of, so I can't say that I fell over laughing while watching it. In fact, I can't say I really knew how to respond to it at all (although the line, "If you never learn, you'll be a eunuch all your life" did provoke belly-chortles). I felt kind of the way I do about The Drew Carey Show. I like Drew Carey--I really enjoy Whose Line Is It Anyway? But I don't get his comedy series. It's like the part of my brain that would find it funny isn't tuned up or something.

Despite being entirely bewildered by A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, I did finish it with a greater understanding of musicals and American culture--one, I finally put together the Michael Crawford of Phantom and the Michael Crawford of Hello, Dolly! (He did A Funny Thing in 1966 and Hello, Dolly! in 1969.)

Two, I got a better understand of American comedians in the mid-twentieth century. My exposure to stand-up comedians, in order, has been Bill Cosby; Stephen Wright; Tim Allen; Seinfeld; and Foxworthy. Not quite the same as Forum's Mostel, Gilford, Silvers, and Keaton. (Stand-up comedians as a subculture is another closed book to me--my experience has been fairly limited although I would like to go on record as having been a fan of Cosby's early stand-up before he did The Cosby Show. His routines about growing up in Philly are some of the funniest I've ever heard.)

And of course, there's the recent spoof A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Thor's Hammer.

Still, the movie was nothing like what I imagined, mostly because I came to Sondheim by way of Dame Judi Dench singing the heartbreaking "Send in the Clowns" and the dark comedy Into the Woods.

I initially saw Into the Woods performed by an off-Broadway traveling company on Halloween Night at BYU a number of years ago. It was the best theatrical evening I've ever had. The performers were full of energy (quite often, Broadway productions can come across as rather "eh"--I saw Les Mis in London, and the only actor acting his heart out was the understudy for Marius); the audience was fully engaged and appreciative plus the auditorium was packed!! Consequently, although I get a big kick out of Bernadette Peters--and I own the live Broadway VHS version of the musical--I still consider the production I saw at BYU the best production ever.

Into the Woods has hilarious parts--my favorite is "Agony" by the Prince Brothers--but it is also rather dark, specifically the second act. This is not to say that it is tragic: if anyone wanted to sell the idea that life is played once as comedy and once as tragedy, Sondheim would that guy. One major theme of Into the Woods is that life is just . . . life. People make mistakes. Witches can be right. Giants can be good. Welcome to the world. 

To me, Into the Woods is the perfect example of the power of fairy-tales (I show parts of it in my folklore class). I may not agree with all Sondheim's interpretations, but he is the ultimate re-imaginer of Cinderella, Jack in the Beanstalk, Little Red Riding hood, etc. He mixes up Freud, Jung, and himself to get an entirely unique and modern look at the grown-up lessons buried in Grimm. He makes you wonder why fairytales ever ended up in the nursery to begin with. Because, truly, they belong on the stage.

MIKE SAYS finding these two movies was a bit of a challenge, though with the combined might of the Internet, Amazon, and my credit card, I was able to finally get ahold of them.  Finding time to watch them was something else entirely!

Into the Woods is a imaginative, clever, and often disturbing mish mash of fairy tales that are made to work together in a pretty clever manner, though not without a price-- at 3 hours, the play might have benefitted from a story or two being left out.

The greatest mercy of the play is that the main events in each of the characters lives are not retold or shown. They live through their well-known adventures and then return to the stage.  The story that binds them together feels fairly authentic, and works well in the context.  As such, I shouldn't have been surprised when it, and most of the other stories, head toward tragedy before winding up.

The music of the play is well done, but not particularly memorable for me.  I'm not sure if it was the production or the numbers themselves, but they didn't quite grab me.  Though, the Wolf in the production I saw may haunt my nightmares for for years.

AFTHOTWTTF is something else entirely. The pacing and wit of the play is captured well in the film. It reminded me of Oscar, another play adaptation, in that it still felt like a play throughout most of the film. The biggest detractor to this, of course, is the on-location shoot, which worked well for the most part.  The other thing, of course, is the rather elaborate action and chase scenes.  I'm assuming that the play doesn't feature these, but with modern production value, it's hard to say for sure.

The humor is largely physical, but there are some pretty funny lines as well.  What I found a little surprising was just how few musical numbers the film had.  They were fun, and catchy, but the majority of the film is the crafty deeds and interactions of the characters.  Which were fun enough that it made up for the lack of music.

While the film is silly, I, like Kate, didn't find it always as funny as I should have.  I did enjoy it . . . But there were only a few lines that really got a solid laugh out of me.

Another thing of note is that despite Sondhiem's fame and prestige attached to these plays, in the end he was only really credited with the music, which I found intriguing.  Surely there was a writer who filled in the blanks, or who even prompted the creation of the songs . . . Yet it was Sondheim that got the recognition.

With the end of these films, comes the end of the "classic" films on our list.  While this list has been extremely entertaining and educational, I'm definitely relived to move on to stuff a little lighter.  Next week, Buffy and High School Musical!  (Sorry, Joss!)