Sondheim’s “Company” to the Big Screen? Not Yet…
In a recent web interview, Stephen Sondheim was asked which of his musicals he’d like to see next put on the silver screen. His response was almost comical in its helpless-before-the-wheels-of-success attitude: “ It’s not so much a question of which I would like to see, rather which I think would lend itself..There is a move afoot to do Follies movie with a well-known director and a well-known star, and I’m not going to tell you who they are.”
Well, fine, Mr. Sondheim, be that way. He did reveal that he thought that Company would be well suited to the silver screen, and my first reaction was to agree…until I thought about it some more. There were some people who were horrified at the casting of Johnny Depp in Sweeney Todd because of what they saw as his lack of singing ability (I personally thought he did fine, but I’m not a purist). However, one of the things I like about Company is the jewelbox production - one stage, the performers playing the instruments, the stylized way the set becomes a party or a balcony or a bedroom just because the performers choose to see it that way.
If someone took Company and decided to shoot it in NYC, on location, with dance numbers in Central Park and such…I’d be appalled. Horrified. It’s not that kind of show - it needs to be character-driven. And I’m not sure that a movie-going audience will accept a character-driven story that doesn’t have obvious changes of scenery.
No, I want to see Into the Woods, dammit, and I want it with the kind of green-screen CG that made 300 and Sin City so much fun. More than that, though, I want to leave some of these musicals on the stage,and just let people like Baz Luhrman continue to develop the movie musical as just that: a movie musical, not an adaptation.
What’s your opinion? Any musicals you’d especially like to see on the screen? Or absolutely not?
image courtesy of Newscom
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POSTED IN: Broadway, Broadway Hits, Interviews, Stage to Screen, screen to stage
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