Composer and critic talk friendship, arts and music

Composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim and Frank Rich, former drama critic and columnist for The New York Times, spoke on Monday as a part of the Public Lectures Series in McCarter Theater.

The friendship between Sondheim and Rich begin during the critic’s undergraduate years at Harvard, during which Rich published an essay about Sondheim’s musical “Follies.” The article caught Sondheim’s attention and he invited the undergraduate to lunch.

Sondheim opened the conversation with his memories of Milton Babbit, the deceased Princeton music professor under whose tutelage Sondheim worked in his early years after college.

“Milton loved to say that he helped [Leonard] Bernstein perfect [‘West Side Story’s] ‘Tonight,’ ” said Sondheim, who began working on the famous musical when he was just 25. Monday marked the 50th anniversary of the Broadway premiere of “West Side Story.”

Sondheim was offered the job of lyricist for the famous Shakespeare remake after running into producer Arthur Laurents at a party. Sondheim recalled Laurents saying, “I never thought of having you do it. I’ve heard your songs — I didn’t like your music, but I thought your lyrics were pretty good.”

A week later, to Sondheim’s surprise, he was given a job offer.

“But I didn’t just want to do the lyrics,” Sondheim recalled.

Unsure what to do, he called his surrogate father, Oscar Hammerstein II (of Rodgers and Hammerstein), to ask for advice. “He told me, ‘Take the job. You can write music later,’ ” Sondheim said.

Rich asked Sondheim about Sondheim’s famous distaste for nearly all film adaptations of musicals, including the film of “West Side Story,” excepting only Tim Burton’s “Sweeney Todd.”

“The key problem with most screen adaptations is that they are too literal,” Sondheim said. “They’re never conceived as movies but instead as photographed plays.”

Tim Burton’s film, on the other hand, cut the ballad scenes and all the choral numbers, which, according to Sondheim, are a convention that work on stage but not on film. “The screen is such a realistic medium — if you see a bunch of people singing the same thing on film, it’s a little peculiar,” he said.

The duo also discussed the reception of Sondheim’s book “Finishing the Hat,” a collection of Sondheim’s lyrics. Sondheim said the biggest surprise was that it was generally well received.

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Standing ovations, however, do not impress Sondheim, he said. “Now it’s automatic; it doesn’t matter if you get on stage and read the telephone book. The audience is applauding themselves for having been there — they’ve spent a lot of money and a lot of time,” he explained.

Sondheim explained that the best praise is silence.

“My idea of a standing ovation is being so moved that you just can’t move, that you sit there in silence. I remember once walking home with a friend after a show and not wanting to talk after what I had seen. It’s those 10 seconds of silence after a show, and then the cheering starting — that’s what you want to hear. Of course, it doesn’t happen very often. Certainly not in musicals,” he said.

Enrolling at Williams College, Sondheim said, he intended to be a math major, but an elective music course changed his mind freshman year.

Sondheim says that he still found his “voice as an artist” relatively late — the day of the first rehearsal of “Company,” a musical for which he wrote the music and lyrics.

“There are some people who never find their voice, and there are some who find it very late,” he said.

As for his plans for the future, Sondheim said he intended to continue writing music. “While riding out here with Frank, I mentioned an idea that I’ve had for a while, and to my horror, he encouraged me with it,” Sondheim said.