Sweet Sweet Lovin': "Girlfriend" at Berkeley Rep

Over the weekend I went to see the new musical Girlfriend at Berkeley Rep. (Full disclosure: one of my friends from college was operating one of the spotlights--I made sure to applaud extra hard after the songs that featured her expert tracking of the actors with the spotlight!)

Like American Idiot earlier in the season, Girlfriend is a "jukebox" musical--it is based on the pop-rock music of Matthew Sweet, particularly his album Girlfriend, from 1991. I had never heard of Sweet before I saw this show (the early '90s are kind of a cultural blind spot for me), but it's good music--timeless, poppy, earnest and melodic.

In Berkeley Rep's Girlfriend, the music is played by a 4-person all-female band (styled and costumed to look like butch lesbians) and sung by two young actors, Ryder Bach and Jason Hite, as they enact the story of two gay Midwestern teenagers struggling to express their attraction to each other. Neither the characters nor the plot is going to win many points for originality; it's the old story of young love having to overcome societal obstacles. And it's a wish-fulfillment fantasy too: one of the boys is a geeky, epicene outcast and the other is a smart, guitar-playing, All-American jock. And perhaps the show (which runs about 2:05, with intermission) takes a little too long to tell its sweet but slender story.

At the same time, though, the audience really does fall in love with these characters--and, as a writer, that is not an easy effect to acheive. It is much easier to shock or offend an audience, than it is to make people care for your characters as though they are real human beings--and say "awww" aloud as the story wraps up. While the Girlfriend boys are archetypes, there is an attempt to give them backstories and witty dialogue that fleshes out their characters--they are several degrees more rounded than the young men of American Idiot. The Green Day musical certainly got my heart pumping to a punk-rock rhythm, but it didn't stir my emotions; Girlfriend left me with a sweet little smile.

Though Berkeley Rep is doing its best to encourage the link, American Idiot might actually be the wrong musical to compare Girlfriend to. The more I think about it, the more Girlfriend reminds me of a contemporary version of Kneehigh's/ACT's Brief Encounter (my review): a story of a love that society wants to repress, a wish-fulfillment fantasy where a mousy protagonist finds himself/herself desired by a smart, handsome, successful guy. And all accompanied by the most upbeat pop music of the era. In both cases, too, the show is not only about the love between its two lead characters. It's about our love for these kinds of stories and songs, and the enduring hold they have on our imaginations; about the fact that we all can remember what song we were listening to in high school when that special someone glanced our way...

Happy (Belated) Birthday, Stephen Sondheim

So yesterday was Stephen Sondheim's 80th birthday (and Andrew Lloyd Webber's 62nd) but I was too busy hanging out with the wonderful people who attend the San Francisco Theater Pub to write a blog post in his honor. At one point in the evening, about 11 PM, someone pointed out that the day ought to be an official holiday for theater lovers, and we drunkenly sang "Happy Birthday, Sondheim and Lloyd-Webber!" I may also have broken into a tipsy version of "The Ladies Who Lunch."

Two years ago I went to see Sondheim and Frank Rich's lecture tour when it came to Portland. (It was a few days before he turned 78 and the audience sang "Happy Birthday" to him then, too.) Here are a couple of posts I wrote at the time:

• A selection of my favorite Sondheim lyrics
• My lengthy report on the evening with Sondheim and Rich
  

Now, for years, I had wanted to write a letter to Sondheim; not only is he a genius whose songs touch my soul, but he also, in 1980, started Young Playwrights Inc., whose national playwriting contest I won in 2006. I wanted to thank him for that (and I knew that I could ask Young Playwrights to deliver my letter to him directly). Seeing him in Portland was what finally pushed me to write that letter that I'd been planning for years.

And I got a response back!--I still remember the excitement I felt when I opened my mailbox at college to discover the envelope. Sondheim still uses a typewriter for his correspondence, and fine Crane letter-paper. I'm not going to reveal what the letter said... but it is one of my most treasured possessions.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that not only is Sondheim a brilliant composer and lyricist, he also seems like a truly good man--because he is so indebted to the great artists, like Oscar Hammerstein, who mentored him when he was young, he gets the importance of nurturing future generations of writers and composers. I admire the way that he refuses to publicly comment on the works of living composers (including his co-birthdayist's) because he realizes that people in the American musical theater tend to take everything he says as though it was the word of God, and he wants to use his power in a positive way. Yes, he's famed for writing songs about ambivalence and negativity. But he doesn't come across as a grouchy old man! At his appearance in Portland, he was engaging and enthusiastic and emotionally open (crying when telling a touching story about Hammerstein).

Still, though, for those of us who can't get enough of the "word of God," it is wonderful news that Sondheim has a book coming out in October: Finishing the Hat: Collected Lyrics (1954-1981) with Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines and Anecdotes. I know what I want for Christmas!

And now for a few of Sondheim's many dazzling compositions. First, Bernadette Peters will rip your heart into pieces singing "Not a Day Goes By" from Merrily We Roll Along:



And here is Peters, with Mandy Patinkin, in the original production of Sunday in the Park with George, singing "Move On." This is one of those songs that I can always, always, return to and find a deeper wisdom in it. The struggle of my life is a struggle to live out the message of this song.



This just barely scratches the surface of what Sondheim has done, though, so I really enjoyed reading this Playbill feature in which younger composers and lyricists select their favorite Sondheim songs. It is easy to concur with just about every one of their choices!

Thank you for everything, Mr. Sondheim.