Continuing on topic, Stephen Sondheim's Assassins won Best Revival of a Musical at the 2004 Tony Awards. I was so out of it, I had no idea it was in revival. I was wondering why Emily mentioned a show that was 13 years old and barely made a ripple in the Broadway scene. It's questionable whether it's even accurately called a "revival", since it has undergone serious re-working and re-writing through the years, but I guess "revival" sounds better than saying it was being workshopped for 13 years, which for a Sondheim work would have been ironically appropriate.

Or appropriately ironic, considering Sondheim's work has always been ambitious or offbeat or uncommercial or confusing, and now, perplexing. Strange characterizations for a composer who is arguably universally considered a genius in the community.

* "Sweeney Todd" was intensely macabre, featuring graphic onstage throat-slitting.
* "Into the Woods" cleverly entwines various children's fairy tales in the first act, and then starts killing all the characters in the second.
* "Merrily We Roll Along" reaches its happy ending only by moving backwards in time, confusing the hell out of critics. Even song reprises are heard before the actual songs (it's called "high concept").
* "Sunday in the Park with George", possibly my favorite, definitely closest to my heart, is an introspective, philosophical meditation on life and art. Very high concept (read: it's boring!). No show-stopping hoofing in this one.
* "Pacific Overtures" featured an all-Asian/Asian American cast, a fact that still blows me away. If that isn't the recipe for a box-office bomb, I don't know what is.
* "A Little Night Music" I think was pretty normal, but I've never seen it. It's based on an Ingmar Bergman film. All of the songs are in waltz time, but that's just conceptual, not odd. Now if it was based on a Fellini film, that would have been odd.
* "Follies" was a cynical and bitter look at love and aging and memory lane.
* "Company" was a cynical and bitter look at love and singledom and commitment.
* "A Funny thing Happened on the way to the Forum" was a delightful romantic comedy set in ancient Rome.

See?

And now with glowing reviews, "Assassins" has apparently been given the depth and complexity worthy of being a "Sondheim". As ingenious as the original score was, apparently the production was piecemeal and perplexing and loose on concept. Now it sounds like they tightened up the loose threads and gave it a full production treatment, and I really want to see it.

Comment: I think the Tony producers were more than happy to have P-Diddy's ("Raisin in the Sun" revival production) stature and notoriety as part of the show, although he was officially referred to as Sean Coombs. Naive of rap and MTV, I imagine the producers thought he might open up the Tony's to a new audience. Doubt it. As for the Diddy, I imagine he was sitting there wondering what he was doing surrounded by all these fruity people.