On Apr 16, 3:33=A0pm, Robert Bouton <mprov...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> The show it bested at the Tonys, Follies, has an annoyingly stagnant
> book. =A0Oddly -- but lucky for the audience -- all semblance of plot is
> suddenly abandoned during the second act. =A0We then get a string of
> entertaining songs that distract us from the realization that we never
> much cared about these characters and who ends up with whom.
I'll have to check exactly how Sondheim put it, but in the little
interview piece tagged onto the recent TV COMPANY, he commented about
the non-plot of COMPANY, saying something to the effect that many
people weren't sophisticated enough to appreciate the plotless
structure. Maybe he didn't put it quite that way -- maybe
"sophisticated" wasn't the word he actually used -- but that's the
impression he left me with, at any rate, and I found it quite
condescending. A play with a strong, integrated plot is much harder
to write than a plotless show, no matter how brilliant individual
elements of a show might be, so why is an audience member more
sophisticated if he or she doesn't care about plot?
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