A Tribute To Stephen Sondheim First of two Videos

[NoelAine]

As most of you  know we lost a great legend in Musical Theatre, Stephen  Sondheim, American composer and lyricist. I know there are a few of you that might not love the theatre *winks* but I believe that every single soul has something special to give to the world if we are open to taking a moment to dig a little deeper then comes an appreciation perhaps even an inspiration for what the person is all about.

  Once again, this project started from a single photo that I've submitted to FOCUS Magazine as they are celebrating Sondheim this month. I knew that if I was going to get the right photo I needed to take a little time to research everything about him. And the more I learned the more I felt connected to a couple of his songs. The first being '"Send in the Clowns". Honestly , In my younger years I kind of considered it a pretty corny song. I never really had taken the time to truly listen , it’s a lament sung by Desirée—the “sadder but wiser girl,” to her former lover Fredrik, who she hopes will take her up on her offer to rekindle their affair after years apart and despite his marriage to another. But the musical itself, inspired by the Ingmar Bergman film “Smiles of a Summer Night” and set in 1900 Sweden, doesn’t feature a single clown.

If you’re in the circus and there’s an accident—say the trapeze artist falls down—they would ‘send in the clowns’ to distract the audience, I don’t think people get that, intellectually, but part of ‘Send in the Clowns’ is: this is a bad situation, how can we distract from it?”

It may be an atypical bit of imagery for a love song, but the element of surprise is what gives the work of Sondheim its distinctive identity. And whether or not the use of a circus as a metaphor for love resonates, the song conveys a deep sense of yearning with its questioning lyrics.

It’s something of a torch song, I think it’s clearly romantic. It’s not quite an unrequited love, but a love that, for some reason, was unable to survive. It’s not anger—‘you done me wrong’—it’s more wistful, regretful. The love may still be there, but this relationship is not going to work out.

Sondheim described the character of Desirée as “one of the most complicated people in the play.  These are not fairy tale characters. We all know a Desirée, we all know a Fredrik—we know all these people in the show, and we can identify ourselves in at least two or three of them.”For whatever reason, he added, “Send in the Clowns” engages people, however unexpectedly that might be.

“That’s the magic of songs, sometimes.”

Ok, so that's the first song of Sondheim's. The second one you'll just have to wait for the next video. I promise nothing sappy and it well leave a smile on your face 🙂

As far as filming went , my camera was really lagging so I apologize if there are a few bumps through out. It's hit and miss when working in a virtual world thousands of feet up in the sky .:-)