Company
This is a very quirky blog choice. 4 videos this week. I know, I’m trying your patients. You would be amused and bemused to watch me
pick out the videos and subjects of these blogs. I started at 7:50 AM watching Christa Ludwig
sing Brahms trying to show that you can also express yourself AND move and an
hour later ended up watching half an hour of Elaine Stritch videos. Who is Elaine Stritch? You’ll see.
All 5 videos are of Elaine Stritch recording and performing
pieces from Stephen Sondheim’s 1970 musical “Company.” If you don’t know any of the songs from
“Company” you should take some time and seek them out.
Elaine Stritch couln’t sing; let’s just get that out there. Never-the-less, she managed to have a Broadway
career for over 60 years! I don’t think
it’ll take you long to see why. She died
just 3 years ago at 89. About a year before,
she did one last run of cabaret shows in the Carlisle Hotel’s lounge – one of
the last great cabaret rooms in the city.
She actually lived in the hotel until just before she died.
The first video is from a documentary about making the first
cast recording of the musical. You’ll
hear Sondheim explaining the context of the song “Here’s to the ladies who
lunch” and then the struggles to get Stritch to put down a good take. It’s hard to watch if you’ve ever recorded
anything. Imagine the composer and
producer being so visually and vocally unsatisfied with your performance in
front of a roomful of people who are waiting for you to get it right. Realize too that it’s 2:00 in the morning and
everyone has two performances the next day!
And watch all of the acrobatics she goes through to try and produce a
vocal character. In the second video you
get to see the take they’re so upset about.
Can you find anything wrong with it?
Cut to the third video and watch her (many years later) perform
the same piece for an audience. Notice
how still she is but how clear the words are and how laser focused the meaning
and intention of everything is. It’s
almost as if she has internalized all of the crazy physicality from before and
it’s all being put into the piece rather than her body. Also, notice how she (and Sondheim) keep
leading you to a climax and then taking it away until the very end. The entire piece is one of delayed
gratification. It builds and builds and
pulls back and then ends with a huge crescendo.
I’ve talked a lot about pacing in class.
Here is a master class in how to do that. And how many times have I said “look like
what you sing?” Well, here you go. The original production of “Company” had
around 700 performances and Stritch has probably sung the song a thousand more
times since then by the time this video was made. Does she seem to be phoning it in or does it still
seem like it’s new for her?
The last video is just sort of a bonus for those of you who
might ever like to record. Notice that
everyone is performing though there’s no audience. They are singing to the microphone as if it’s
an audience member. And notice how you can
somehow hear Stritch’s ironic expressions in her voice. Again, how you look can determine how you
sound. You are the instrument! You are the performance! By the way, the co-lyricist says something at
the end of the video which is extremely important.
By the way, there is one last video which you can watch or
not but it is the take which they ended up using on the cast recording. After all of the drama, she got it in one
take.
Documentary
First take
Live performance
Other piece
Take that was used
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