(Hedy Weiss’s article appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times, 2/11.)
Among the many things you will learn from the Porchlight Music Theatre production of “Sondheim on Sondheim” — the intriguing hybrid of revue-meets-documentary devoted to the composer-lyricist who has created many of the most audacious Broadway musicals of the second half of the 20th century — are the following:
• Although many have pointed to “Sunday in the Park with George” and “Company” as Stephen Sondheim’s most autobiographical shows, the one he says is closest to his real life is “Merrily We Roll Along,” which captured the exuberant but complicated early years of his career in the 1950s, when he and his good friend Mary Rodgers (daughter of composer Richard Rodgers), along with a slew of others, were all trying to forge their careers.
• He has a special place in his heart for “Sunday in the Park,” and, as the show suggests, he regrets never having had children but sees art and teaching as substitute forms of a legacy.
http://entertainment.suntimes.com/music/review-sondheim-sondheim/