cover image Stephen Sondheim and Andrew Lloyd Webber: The New Musical

Stephen Sondheim and Andrew Lloyd Webber: The New Musical

Stephen Citron. Oxford University Press, USA, $60 (464pp) ISBN 978-0-19-509601-9

Third in Stephen Citron's Great Songwriters series, Sondheim & Lloyd-Webber: The New Musical (preceded by Noel & Cole and The Wordsmiths) demonstrates how musical theater ""has done a total about-face"" since its inception. Just compare classics like Anything Goes, Oliver! or Guys and Dolls to Hair, Jesus Christ Superstar, Tommy, Rent and The Full Monty, says musicologist, composer and lyricist Citron, to notice the glaring differences between shows made between the 1920s and '60s (""It was a time when plot was secondary"") and those made since that time, which have ""gone in several directions"" including the ""oversize theatricality"" of Lloyd-Webber and the ""intellectual stimulation"" of Sondheim. Tracing the two lives from childhood through early careers (initially, Sondheim was solely a lyricist, Lloyd-Webber solely a composer) to the present (the phenomenal, longstanding success of Cats; Sondheim's receipt of the Kennedy Center Honors Medal from then-President Clinton), Citron trains telescopic and microscopic lenses on the two most important living musical theater luminaries. B&w photos. (Aug.)