‘Attitude is not enough. You have to care’: Here’s what ‘Blue Moon’ got right about what Stephen Sondheim really thought about Lorenz Hart
There’s a cute/brutal scene in Richard Linklater’s Blue Moon, starring Ethan Hawke as Broadway lyricist Lorenz Hart (of Rodgers and Hart) crashing out on the opening night of Oklahoma! (of Rodgers and Hammerstein) where said lyricist meets Hammerstein’s acerbic young neighbor Stevie, an aspiring lyricist with an encyclopedic knowledge of musical theatre. While the uninitiated don’t learn this until the closing credits of the Blue Moon, which is now streaming on Netflix, “Stevie” is Broadway behemoth Stephen Sondheim–who really did have some harsh criticisms for Hart.
In the film, their exchange ends abruptly after the ten year-old makes a low-key disparaging comment about Hart’s work. “I like it,” he says. “It’s funny. It can be a little sloppy at times.” Hammerstein apologizes and pulls him away. But the kid does not relent, insisting that he didn’t say that because he was “tired” and rolling his eyes at something he overheard Hart say as they depart. It’s smart that Linklater deploys Stevie so subtly and pointedly. Otherwise, a cameo like that would have come across as, to borrow a Hammerstein lyric from another musical, cornier than Kansas in August.
The kid’s sass has already drawn comparisons to Young Sheldon. I, however, expected nothing less. While the movie may or may not have invented the encounter, they did not invent the opinion or the history. It’s true that Sondheim, the greatest and most influential musical theatre lyricist of all time, grew up next to Oscar Hammerstein II. He was more-or-less raised by Oscar and his wife. He was a massive nerd about lyrics, words, and puzzles. And he didn’t mince words when it came to his colleagues. Linklater smartly deploys him lightly in the film. He could have kept going.
Here’s what the adult Sondheim said about Hart IRL.
The index in Sondheim’s own book on songwriting, Finishing the Hat, has a subheading under Hart that reads “careless lyric writing of,” …brutal! “Jaunty and careless,” is the subtitle under a full page in the book devoted to the guy. “Hart’s pervasive laziness manifests itself in three areas: mis-stressed syllables, convoluted syntax, and the sacrifice of meaning for rhyme,” he writes. (Sondheim 153) An anecdote in that section details how Sondheim once spent a portion of a lecture opening the Rodgers and Hart songbook to random pages and finding copious examples of those three errors. Even when he admits to being guilty of syllabic sins himself, he says “But only a few. Hart had a treasure trove.” (Sondheim 153)
Sondheim recalls that Alan Jay Lerner said that Hart once told him that he “probably could have been a genius” if he cared. Unsurprisingly, Sondheim doubts that. “Hart’s attitude distinguishes him as a lyricist, but attitude is not enough. You have to care.” (Sondheim 153)
He did actually call him sloppy, too. In 1971, he called him both sloppy and unprofessional in TIME Magazine. In Finishing The Hat, while criticizing Ira Gershwin’s “sweaty” and “clenched” lyrics, he fires additional shots at Hart seemingly just because, saying “I recognize that this opinion, like my opinion of Hart, is a heresy–no two lyricists are worshipped in the pantheon more than Gershwin and Hart–but the truth is that Gershwin is often too convoluted and Hart is often sloppy.” (Sondheim 176)
It’s not all venom, to be fair. Sondheim does have respect and kind words for Hart as well: “jaunty but melancholy, forceful but vulnerable. There’s a pervasive sweetness about him that comes through in even his most self-conscious work. He was verbally nimble, full of humor, and a lazy craftsman.” (Sondheim 153) Well, almost kind and almost respectful! He also says, early on in the book, that “one of the very few lyricists who were genuinely funny” (Sondheim 6) is Frank Loesser, of Guys and Dolls fame, and goes out of the way to call him funnier than Hart and Gershwin. He tried.
This Sondheim “Easter Egg” was even more subtle.
Remember when I said that Stevie mocked something Hart said as his mentor lead him away in Blue Moon? The turn of phrase in question was “weighty affairs will just have to wait”–which happens to be a Sondheim lyric from “Comedy Tonight,” the opening song in A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum.
There’s no evidence to suggest that Sondheim copped this line from Hart and turned it into a lyric IRL. It’s not mentioned in Finishing The Hat, the most appropriate place for such a reveal, so I have my doubts that this is anything other than a fictional invention. But it’s a cute idea, especially as one of the things the real Steve appreciated was the comedy. Imagine a know-it-all kid makes fun of something that you thought was (pretty and) witty, and then repurposes it into something brilliant? The worst!
It’s also not the first time that this happens in Blue Moon. Hart also strikes up a temporary rapport with E. B. White, of Charlotte’s Webb and The Elements of Style fame, and inadvertently gives him the idea for Stuart Little. It all adds up to an epically bad night. Hart’s former partner Richard Rodgers, played heartbreaking Andrew Scott, is finding success and changing Broadway forever with a new writer. He can’t stop yapping about a girl who is not interested in him. And even the Ghost of Broadway Future, ten-year-old Stevie Sondheim, is better than him and knows it.
(featured image: YouTube)
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
