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‘FINALE: Late Conversations With Stephen Sondheim’
By D.T. Max
c.2022, Harper/HarperCollins
$20.99/225 pages
“My idea of heaven is not writing,” the iconic gay composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim is reported to have said.
“On the other hand,” Sondheim, who died last year at 91, was, thankfully, as he reportedly said, “obviously compulsive about it.”
“FINALE: Late Conversations With Stephen Sondheim,” a new book by New Yorker staff writer D.T. Max is good news for Sondheim’s multitudes of aficionados.
“I’m not good. I’m not nice. I’m just right. I’m the witch. You’re the world,” Sondheim wrote in “Into the Woods.”
Whether you’re a teen in a production of “Into the Woods,” a Boomer who came of age with “Company,” an 80-something who fondly remembers “Gypsy” or an artist who identifies with “Sunday in the Park with George,” you know you couldn’t have hung out in Sondheim’s world.
Frequently, profiles of celebrities are take-downs or suck-ups. Max avoids these pitfalls.
In “FINALE,” sometimes Sondheim is witty, entertaining, hospitable (his staff offer Max wine) and generous (Sondheim tries to help Max find a puppy for his family). At other times, Sondheim talks hatefully about his mother (who sounds like a cool customer) and cops to not reading much, though he loves “The Catcher in the Rye” because of its dialogue. Sondheim veers away from the orthodox take on Hitchcock. “Vertigo,” he says, is overrated. His fave “Hitchcock” movie was “Shadow of A Doubt.”
In “FINALE,” Max makes us feel like we’re having drinks with Sondheim.
It wasn’t easy for Max to have informal, entertaining, illuminating conversations with Sondheim.
There’s always some drama, metaphorically, some seduction involved when a reporter attempts to interview a celeb. This was even truer with Sondheim, who zealously guarded his privacy.
“Profiles are fraught efforts,” Max writes, “Profiles of the famous famously fraught.”
Some writers don’t bring the difficulties of their work (from getting the interview to coaxing candor and new reveals from interview subjects who’ve been burned by social media) into their reporting.
But in “FINALE,” Max doesn’t just clue readers into the vexations involved in nailing and conducting his interviews with Sondheim. “FINALE” is structured around his quest to discover revelations about Sondheim. His search for insights into Sondheim’s life and creative process becomes, figuratively, a Broadway show. In this vein, the book’s chapter titles range from “Prelude” to “Audition, January 2016″ to “Opening Night, April 2017″ to “Closing Night, March 2019″ to “Curtain.”
The main focus of “FINALE” is Sondheim. But Max is a character in the narrative.
Sometimes this is off-putting. Do we need to learn where Max went to school, where he grew up or what movies he enjoys? (He agrees with Sondheim about “Vertigo.”)
Does it shed light on Sondheim when Max spills his feelings (from angst to enthrallment to disappointment when Sondheim cancelled appointments) around writing about Sondheim?
But though, at times, there’s too much of Max, sometimes his presence adds to the story.
Max, like many who’ll read this book, grew up loving Sondheim. Max’s uncle was a playwright, and he was introduced to Sondheim, when his mother brought home a signed recording of “Side By Side” after a benefit. But he’s not an expert on musical theater.
He views Sondheim with the admiring, but unprofessional, gaze of many theatergoers. This serves readers well. It keeps the conversations lively and un-pedantic.
Most of the book is a series of one-on-one conversations that Max has with Sondheim at his home in New York City and his house in Connecticut. Sondheim’s dogs and husband Jeff Romley wander in and out. Sondheim talks about not being able to finish a musical that he’s working on. He remembers that decades ago, one day, Katharine Hepburn, then his neighbor, came by when he was playing the piano, composing. “Pipe down! she told him.
It’s doubtful that Sondheim, given the time when he grew up, would have talked about being gay. (Though he never denied his sexuality.) Still, I wish Max had asked him about it.
This is a minor quibble. “FINALE” will be catnip to lovers of musicals.
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