Drawing on Sondheim's intimate correspondence with such notable figures as Hal Prince, Leonard Bernstein, and Arthur Laurents, Daniel Okrent offers a look at the complex inner world of one of the twentieth century's most beloved theatrical composers.
Terse but illuminating ... Without grandstanding in a game of biographical gotcha, Okrent takes up key themes of Sondheim’s life and links them persuasively to songs in his shows ... Upon scrutiny, Sondheim appears to have revealed a great deal about himself in his songs about characters from all over the dramatic map, as Okrent shows ... What are we to make of this? Okrent does not hazard a guess, and a guess would be all we’re left to try.
A brisk, engaging read that avoids hagiography. Okrent highlights the emotional frailties that coexisted with the brilliance and generosity ... Okrent’s failings are, unsurprisingly, primarily those of omission ... The biography’s brevity is necessarily limiting.
