By looking at examples from different points in his career, we can see that Stephen Sondheim’s treatment of female characters becomes increasingly more complex and interesting. At the beginning of Sondheim’s career, when he wrote the lyrics to West Side Story (1957), a collaboration with Leonard Bernstein and Arthur Laurents, the females could be considered as stereotypes of the Golden Age of musicals, for instance, Anita, the experienced women who has advice for her vulnerable friend, Maria in West Side Story, who is the sterotype of the woman who will do anything for love. Rose’s stereotypical controlling mother becomes more understanding at the end of Gypsy (1959). However even in this early stage of his career, Sondheim’s lyrics gave them a powerful voice.
In 1970, Sondheim was forty years old. He was then writing the lyrics and music, giving him more power to delve into the complexities of the female condition, as seen in Follies (1971) and A Little Night Music (1973) written around this time. He continued to write both music and lyrics. In the later musicals, his females were richly realised with the power to reveal themselves fully through Sondheim’s mastery in this genre.
West Side Story was loosely based on William Shakespeare’s play, Romeo and Juliet (Sondheim, 2010) where the main characters Maria and Tony represent the doomed lovers in the Shakespearean tragedy. The musical is centred on the conflict between a gang of Polish White-Americans, the Jets, and a gang of Puerto Rican Americans, the Sharks, in the streets of Manhattan.
Maria, one of the two lead females, is an innocent victim – the “Juliet” character. However despite being this female archetype, she shows strength and asserts herself. She attempts to pressure Tony to call off the fight between the two gangs, although is unsuccessful. Maria is deeply in love with Tony as shown when singing ‘A Boy Like That/I Have a Love’. The lyric “I have a love and it’s all that I need, right or wrong”, shows Maria’s belief in the power and strength of love despite all odds. Her love overrides any negative traits or behaviours from Tony – even murder. At the end of the musical when Chino shoots Tony, Maria holds the same gun and says that “all of them” killed Tony due to their hate. When she says “Now I can kill, too, because now I have hate!”, she lost her innocence. Maria is holding the gun, ensuring everyone on stage listens to her, but she does not kill anyone. Her words force the members of the gangs to face up to the reality of the tragedy of the pointless gang rivalry and tragic events. Maria is not the same person who started off as innocent at the beginning of the musical; she is now more mature and understands about love and hate.
Anita is portrayed throughout West Side Story as a loyal, assertive woman with strong opinions. The lyrics Anita sings in the duet ‘A Boy Like That/I Have a Love’ suggest that Anita is more grounded and cautious with love. Anita warns Maria to “stick to your own kind”. This shows that Anita is very black and white in her thinking and practical as it would be a lot safer for Maria to love someone from the Jets rather than the Sharks. Anita warns Maria “a boy that kills cannot love”, and later “A boy like that wants one thing only, and when he’s done, he’ll leave you lonely”. These lyrics illustrates Anita believes Tony is incapable of love, that Maria should not be with Tony and that he will use and discard Maria. Anita warns Maria singing “He’ll murder your love; He murdered mine, Just wait and see.” Anita strongly believes Tony is a ruthless man, his feelings for Maria will not last and Tony will leave Maria in emotional pain.
Maria challenges Anita’s strong point of view with “Anita no, you should know better,” which is an equally strong lyric, showing a differing, idealistic view of love. She holds her ground singing “It’s true for you, not for me”. Maria accepts Anita’s point of view but she is not prepared to change hers. Regardless of their differing perspectives, Sondheim’s lyrics reveal a strengthening bond between these two women. At the end of the song, Anita agrees with Maria and together they sing “When love comes so strong, there is no right or wrong, your love is your life”. In Maria and Anita’s duet, Sondheim creates a universal statement about the nature of love. Clemency Burton-Hill (2018) comments on the potency of this lyric noting the brilliance of both the music and lyrics.
In Stacy Ellen Wolf’s essay from The Oxford Handbook of Sondheim Studies, she describes Golden Age female characters: “women in traditional musicals fall into two basic types: feisty women who fall for their men and troubled women who fall for their men.” (Wolf, 2014, p.366). Anita and Maria could fit her description: Anita representing the feisty, streetwise and practical female in love and Maria the innocent and helpless female in love. As a lyricist, Sondheim was restricted in how he could develop character as he did not write the book. In Anita and Maria’s duet, they both express strength. They do not have power over their own destinies, but Sondheim allows them to comment on it. Their lives are ultimately defined by the actions of their men.
Two years after West Side Story, we see the character of Gypsy Rose Lee, who is very much in control of her destiny. Gypsy is about a fearless stage-mother and burlesque dancer, Gypsy Rose, who achieves fame as she strives for her daughters, June and Louise, to achieve on the burlesque circuit. This book was also written by Arthur Laurents. Again, Sondheim only wrote the lyrics. Jules Styne wrote the music. This musical was based on the memoirs of Gypsy Rose Lee.
Laurie Winer’s New York Times Article states “In Rose, Arthur Laurents, Jule Styne and Stephen Sondheim wrote a new type of musical heroine” (Winer, 1983). He continues with “Rose also stood out in the musical landscape as a woman who insists on something new for herself and for her children.” She is very ambitious for her two daughters, Louise and June, to become famous burlesque dancers, for fame and economic survival. Rose meets Herbie, a former agent whom she manipulates to become the girls’ new manager. He proposes to Rose, however, she declines. Rose suggests that she has suffered enough after three divorces and is not ready to remarry, saying to Herbie before singing ‘Small World’ that “After three husbands, it takes a lot of butter to get you back in the frying pan”. Twice in the song Rose considers “We could pool our resources by joining forces from now on”, briefly considering the economic advantages. But her ambitions and independence prevail. At the end of Act I when Rose sings ‘Everything’s Coming Up Roses’, she reveals her determination to carry on with: “We got nothing to hit but the heights! I can tell, wait and see. There’s the bell! Follow me! And nothing’s gonna stop us ’til we’re through!” Once June runs away, Rose promises to make reclusive Louise into a star, pushing the direction of the musical in the second act.
For Rose, success on the stage overrides having a good relationship with her daughters. At the end of the musical she sings ‘Rose’s Turn’, that was “one of Gypsy’s most powerful moments (Alyson McLamore, 2004). The response from her daughters makes Rose feel that they have not appreciated what she did for them. One powerful lyric that illustrates this point is “Well, someone tell me, when is it my turn? Don’t I get a dream for myself? Starting now it’s gonna be my turn.” Rose believes she has been doing everything for her two daughters to make them famous. She is living her life through her daughters by forcing them to be the stars that she never was. When her daughter ran away, she realised that it has been all been pointless. In the future, she turns around and says that she will only do things for herself and nobody else. Louise has shown Rose that the way she went about forcing her onto the stage was not a good way to bring up a daughter: “all I wanted was for you to notice me, and I still do”. Louise can now talk honestly to her mother about what it has been like to been forced into a stage life that she did not choose for herself.
June, the younger daughter, was very confident, and extroverted as a young girl. She “has talent to burn and becomes a vaudeville headliner” (Jacobs, 2003). At the age she was at the time, she just enjoys having fun and being on stage dressed up in a costume. As time goes on and she becomes a teenager, it is not so much fun and she dislikes the songs, dances and the costumes of burlesque dancing. In the scene where June is beside herself about Rose pushing her too hard, Rose is furious and storms out of the office refusing to allow June to go to a school with Mr. Grantizer to take acting lessons. June and Louise sing the duet‘If Momma Was Married’. This song reflects that June and Louise would be a lot happier if Rose was married to a husband. June cannot cope with her mother’s ambitious bullying and she wants to be loved.
Louise was an introverted, shy older sister when she was younger, then she becomes a famous burlesque dancer when she gets older. Rose coached Louise alongside June when the girls were younger, but Louise was not successful. Earlier on when Louise was talking to June, she says that she has no talent for burlesque dance. When Louise sings ‘Little Lamb’ on her birthday, she asks the lamb how old she is because Rose has not told Louise her age. When Rose sings ‘Everything’s Coming Up Roses’, Louise feels horrified because her mother is making the best of a bad job and ignoring that one of her daughters, June has run away and that they may not see her again. At the beginning of Act II when Herbie, Rose and Louise sing ‘Together, Wherever We Go’, Louise begins to really enjoy dancing and being on stage. Louise really cares for June as well as her mother. Ultimately, Louise turns out to be the one who can carry on the mother’s profession, but she does not need her mother to coach her as an adult.
Louise develops into a successful artiste. Her mother finally realises that she will have to live her life on her own as both her daughters have left her and she has refused Herbie’s earlier offer of marriage. The outcome is that Rose has nothing to live for apart from her memories. In Gypsy the action is not driven by a romantic love story, but the ambitions of a larger than life stage mother and her relationship with her daughters. The lead character of Rose “ is both monstrous and achingly human; a woman who manages to be defined by motherhood while transcending it” (Buchanan, 2018). She is still ambitious at the end of the musical, but she realises she cannot contorl her daughters anymore. She has become more mature throughout Gypsy.
Sondheim wrote the music and lyrics to Follies, which James Goldman wrote the book for. This musical was set in a crumbling old theatre on Broadway in New York City. The musical is about the Weismann’s ‘Follies’ showgirls reuniting in 1971 from an old Follies show that ran from 1918 to 1942. New York City in the 1970s was on the decline with lots of drugs and prostitution. Four main characters are doubled by actors playing the younger versions of them. There is criss-crossing of now and then, past and present, and old and young. He took the opportunity to write two kinds of songs, character songs for the four principal roles and pastiches for the remaining performers in old-fashioned styles (Sondheim, 2010).
One of the main characters, Sally, is a delightful, but irresponsible former showgirl, who is married to Buddy, but she is not happy with him. In 1940, Sally was twenty years old and she was caught up between Buddy and his best friend, Ben, even though Ben and Sally were dating at the time. In 1971, Sally is now married to Buddy, but she is still emotional and innocent regardless of the routine life of a married woman. When Sally sings ‘In Buddy’s Eyes’, she communicates with Ben about how they spent their days together. At the lyric “but in Buddy’s eyes, I’m young, I’m beautiful. In Buddy’s eyes, I don’t get older”, Gordon acknowledged “the carefully placed “yes” and “no” suggest her rising resentment and defensiveness as she anticipates her questions.” She wildly attempts to restore herself her self-esteem (Gordon, 1990, p. 99). According to Sondheim (2010), this song was originally called ‘In Someone’s Eyes’, as the lyrics were very similar, but it also had counterpoint from Ben reflecting on their relationship.
When Sally sings ‘Losing My Mind’, she expresses herself with how she is stuck with her love for Ben. In the lyrics “You said you loved me or were you just being kind?”, Sally has major anxiety. Now that she is older, she is trying to sort herself out by asking herself questions. Sally has also been in and out of a mental hospital for several years while she was ill. The enharmonic modulation from Ab Major to B Major reflects Sally’s feelings and the darker meaning to this song. In Ellen Gamerman’s article from ‘The Wall Street Journal’ (2011), Bernadette Peters talks about her conversation with Sondheim regarding Sally’s character: “[Sally] is off balance, to put it mildly. He thinks she’s very neurotic.” Neurotic and unbalanced people exist in real life as Sondheim and Goldman reflect this in Sally’s character.
Phyllis is another former showgirl, just like Sally, except she is more elegant and polished than Sally. When she was younger in her late teens/early twenties, she was a showgirl in the chorus of the final edition of Weismann Follies before the Broadway theatre was torn down to make a car park. When the showgirls reunite, Phyllis is in her 50s and is married to Ben. Phyllis is jealous of Sally’s marriage. When Phyllis sings ‘Could I Leave You’, she sings: “how do you wipe tears away when your eyes are dry”. She is not in love with him, yet she chooses to remain. At the lyric “not to fetch your pills again every day at five”, the mundane nature of ordinary life is reflected on stage. As Phyllis’ bitterness about society’s values develops, the tempo increases and the rhythms grow rapidly. (Gordon, 1990, p. 105). Brantley’s article from the New York Times suggests “Phyllis’s lacerating assertion of independence to her husband overflows with both tenderness and hostility.” (Ben Brantley, 2011). Phyllis is fond of Ben, but at the same time, she is bored with his personality and the predictability of their lives.
Follies whilst looking at the lives of these four characters in a sympathetic way also pokes fun at the stupidity that they show. Leonard Fleischer wrote said that “the emotional high generated by the reunion of the Follies girls ultimately gives way to anger, disappointment, and a weary resignation to reality.” (Gordon & Fleischer, 1997, p. 109). The four main characters were excited to meet each other again, but they reveal, by bringing up the old memories, how imperfect their lives are. Sondheim was not afraid to explore life’s unfulfilled dreams and disappointments through ageing female characters.
Sondheim kept on this track, unravelling the anguish and identity of love in A Little Night Music. This musical began a new period for Sondheim as it was “marked by the turning away from the subject matter of the American present with its danger of narcissism towards the non-American past.” (Banfield, 1993, p.214). Similar to Follies, A Little Night Music is a comic drama dealing with couples and marriage. The metaphor of the show is “the night smiles” for everyone.
This musical is about a man in his 40s, Fredrik Egerman, who recently married eighteen year old Anne Egerman. He has a son from his previous marriage, who is in love with Anne. Frederik has a history with actress Desiree Armfeldt, whose current lover is Carl Magnus Malcolm, married to Countless Charlotte Malcome, a friend of Anne’s. This musical was set in the perpetual twilight of the Swedish summer. All of these relationships are interconnected. They all get invited to spend a weekend in the country. These relationships are all about the shifting allegiances between them and in the end, they end up in the right couplings.
Anne is unhappy, even though she has been married to Fredrik for eleven months. She is very suspicious of Desiree and suspects that they might be having an affair. She also left the play early because Desiree was jealous of Anne. Anne could not tolerate this any longer. In that case, she says that she is sick and needs to go home. Charlotte understands more about life than Anne does and tells Anne that she has to put up with the pain that love brings. In Charlotte’s solo ‘Every Day a Little Death’, she explains to Anne that there will never be a perfect marriage. Swain states that the dramatic context is the emotional setting here is the defilement of honesty, and the principal undertaking of the pessimist (Swain, 2014, p. 113).
Desiree Armfeldt is a very mature, observant woman. She is a very experienced actress, also with two children. The plot disturbs Desiree’s endeavours to recover Fredrik. She organised her mother, Madame Armfeldt to welcome him and his family for a weekend in the country in order to “fan the flames of their old affair” (Sondheim, 2010, p. 252). At the sequence of ‘A Glamorous Life’, Desiree’s daughter, Fredrika sings “Ordinary mothers lead ordinary lives”, in which she refers to other people’s mothers cook meals and making beds, unlike Desiree. At the beginning of the song, Fredrika reads a letter from Desiree (Sondheim, 2010, 260). When Madame Armfeldt sings about Desiree “Ordinary Daughters ameliorate their lot, use their charms and choose their futures”, she refers that ordinary daughters put up with their lives and get on with what they need to do. Desiree is always in a hurry, especially when she sings “But, mother, I really must run”. This shows that Desiree does whatever suits her, just like Rose in Gypsy.
When Desiree sings ‘Send in the Clowns’, she reflects on her relationship with Fredrik and how the sad and funny sides reflect their lives. At the lyric “Me here at last on the ground, you in mid-air”, Desiree shows that she can see her life more objectively and can understand her unthinking actions. Fredrik has not worked out what he should do with his life. When Desiree sings to Fredrik “I thought that you’d want what I want. Sorry, my dear”, she realises that she cannot have him back, although she would like to and he wants to live his new young wife, Anne. At the line “Don’t bother they’re here”, she can see that their lives are bizzare that they are fooling themselves. Fredrik apologises regretfully and leaves her (Sondheim, 2010, p. 277). Since this song accentuates the dialogue, Desiree and Fredrik tentatively go after one another, and are in love forever. (Gordon, 1990, p. 151).
Madame Armfeldt has lived her life putting wealth before love and her feelings. At the final scene when Madame talks to Fredrika about life saying “What is it all for?”, Madame realises that Fredrika understands life better than she does. Fredrika chose love over wealth. Besides Fredirika and Madame, each character from the first scene wants more prominent opportunity in their lives. (Swayne, 2007, p. 269).
The audience discovers that Madame empowers a certain kind of mindfulness in Fredirika (Goodhart & Puccio, 2000, p. 152). Madame tells Fredirika that the night has smiled three times; at the follies of human beings; once at the follies of young people, and secondly at fools who know very little, like Desiree, and thirdly on the old people like herself who know too much (Banfield, 1993, p.216). Madame has finally understood how life works and how some people become wiser as they age and others are foolish for most of their lives.
Sondheim’s females characters in his earlier musicals were stereotypical, but are more complex more recently in his career. Swain describes this musical as “the vaguely exotic, foreign locale, the opulent settings, the fantasy world of graceful speech, and larger-than-life characters.” (Swain, 2014, p. 310). The musical setting is unusual for Sondheim as it is set in Sweden and this musical was often referred to as ‘the waltz musical’, connecting with European culture.
Sondheim wrote the music and lyrics to a one-act musical, Passion (1994), book by James Lapine. Passion was set in the countryside of Italy in 1863. This musical was adapted from an Italian novel called Fosca by Iginio Ugo Tarchetti, followed by Ettore Scala’s film Passion d’Amore (1983).
Fosca is a cousin of the man in charge of the military post in Milan, Italy. She has a nervous disorder, which makes her collapse frequently with seizures. Giorgio suggests that she might like to borrow some of his books. When she returns one of the books, Fosca sings ‘I Read’. When she sings “I do not read to think, I do not read to learn, I do not read to search for truth, I know the truth, the truth is hardly what I need”, she uses reading to escape from her own life as she is not very happy. Later in the song, when Fosca sings “I read to live to get away from life!”, she refers to her loneliness, depression and her need for love. Fosca discovers oppurtunities to impress Giorgio prominent of her quantity of mindfulness. (Knapp, 2009, p. 306). She does not have any friends as she has been tricked into marriage by an Austrian Count, Ludovic, who was already married to another woman. Ludovic took all of Fosca’s money and then vanished. This issue made Fosca very ill and depressed. She has become a victim of the ruthless male, Ludovic. At the song ‘Loving You’, she tells Giorgio that she loves him with these words “I will live, and I would die for you.” This shows that she strongly cares about him and needs somebody to take care of her while she is ill (Knapp, 2009, p. 306).
Clara is having an affair with Giorgio, but she is already married with a child. She is a very jealous woman and does not like anyone coming between her and her lover, even though she is already married. Clara enjoyed her affair with Giorgio, but he asks her to leave her husband. When Clara and Giorgio meet up at the train station in Milan after Clara sings ‘Forty Days’, Giorgio tells Clara that Fosca has given him power over her life by needing him more than Clara does. When he finds Fosca on the trian, he furiously blames her of causing her sickness. “He asks her to forget him, but she rpelies calmly” (Gordon & Konas, 1997, p. 212). Later in the musical, lara responds to Giorgio “I hate this woman and I don’t even know her”. This shows Clara’s jealousy of Fosca as Giorgio has gradually turned away from Clara and is now in love with the much more demanding Fosca. Clara said she would leave her husband but not until her child goes to school. Laura Hanson wrote that “Clara has to choose between her own sexual fulfillment and her identity as a mother” (Gordon & Hanson, 1997, p. 25), meaning that she has to choose between having an affair with Giorgio or being a good mother.
Over the course of Sondheim’s career, he shows he thinks deeply about the way women manage their lives in a society which is often hard on them. Most of these characters have gone through tough times as well as some good times. They might not end up wise, but they will have learnt something about themselves. West Side Story, Gypsy, and Follies are American stories about the rival of two gangs, a pushy stage mother, and theatre revues. A Little Night Music and Passion are more about European people and the female characters in these shows are about relationships and how they develop in the course of a lifetime.
Sondheim’s female characters develop in complexity throughout his career. Sondheim created increasingly more interesting women, showing a deep understanding of character development and the way society moulds women to its expectations. Sondheim’s women show that they are mostly strong and able to cope with what life throws them.