Sondheim shares life experiences

IU Auditorium audience members were in for a rare experience Thursday as National Public Radio host Scott Simon interviewed musical legend Stephen Sondheim.

Sondheim, a composer and lyricist, shared his insight into the world of songwriting for Broadway and living next to Katharine Hepburn.

Even Simon, a Peabody Award-winning journalist who has reported from all 50 states and every continent, said he was honored to be in the presence of such a legend.

“My wife has said she is afraid this is the first interview I have to do where I might have to wear adult diapers,” Simon said.

Simon began the interview by asking what he calls the chicken-and-egg question: What comes first, the music or the words? Sondheim graciously volunteered to be the chicken, before describing his approach to songwriting.

“They both come together ... I develop them at the same time,” Sondheim said, and added that it’s all about inflection. The music mimics speech, which is its own music, he said.

Growing up as an only child, he lived with his mother after his parents’ divorce, three miles away from the house of Broadway great Oscar Hammerstein, who played a pivotal role in Sondheim’s life.

“Oscar became a surrogate father and Dorothy, his wife, a surrogate mother,” Sondheim said. “And because he was a surrogate father, I wanted to be what he was ... If he was a geologist, I would’ve been a geologist.”

After writing his first show at age 15, Sondheim asked Hammerstein to read it as if he didn’t know Sondheim. After reading it, Oscar blatantly told Sondheim it was the worst show he had ever read.

“He treated me as if I was an adult, not as if I was a 15-year-old,” Sondheim said. “By the end of that afternoon, I learned more about songwriting than most songwriters learn in their lifetimes.”

Simon, curious about a previous quote of Sondheim’s, pressed the idea of Sondheim as “the boy in the bubble.”

“I’ve been extremely lucky and privileged,” Sondheim said, referencing his family, Hammerstein and the success of his early shows.

At age 79, Sondheim has no shortage of stories, from writing “West Side Story” with Lenny Bernstein in “the smallest, darkest room,” to Hepburn banging on his door at 2 a.m. barefoot in 35 degree weather demanding he stop rehearsals. He does not sing his own songs in the shower, and he said he believes that he solves his writing problems while sleeping. And as far as he is concerned, there is no difference between Sunday and the other days of the week, except that’s the one day he reserves to eat bagels and lox.

Though a lover of words, Sondheim would rather do crossword puzzles and learn foreign languages than read a book. Prose bores him, and he admits he has no style.

“Obviously when you write, there’s a part of you in what you write,” Sondheim said. “You can’t help it.”

But in response to the belief that Sondheim’s characters are autobiographical, he firmly denies it, asserting that plots, not characters, represent the life of the writer.

For musical theater major and senior Quinto Ott, it was an inspiring event.

“Stephen Sondheim is probably one of the most influential people in my field,” Ott said. “He has done some of the most influential work of our time.”

Even non-theater majors, such as junior Ben Delony, can appreciate a landmark like Sondheim.

“His mannerisms made everyone really, really comfortable,” Delony said, “Despite the fact that he does the behind the scene work, he has an incredible presence that makes people flock to him.”

Both Ott and Delony appreciated Sondheim’s modesty. He truly has no qualms about his life, including both failures and successes, Ott said.

“He’s sassy and does a damn good Katherine Hepburn,” Ott said.