This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:01] Ben Rimalower: My grandmother died right when PASSION was in previews, and this was her business card from the bank she worked at, but she sent me the New York Times article on Patti LuPone being fired from Sunset Boulevard earlier that spring, which mentioned that Patti had been offered the role of Fosca in PASSION.

[0:21] Ben Rimalower: It was only because she died that I was in New York for her funeral that I was able to go see PASSION on Broadway.

[0:43] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Welcome, everybody, to a musical theater podcast where we discuss the cultural and emotional impact of some of our favorite musicals in theater history. My name is Jeffrey Scott Parsons. You can call me Jeff.

[1:05] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Today we are discussing the musical PASSION by Stephen Sondheim, which was a listener request from both Lydia and Maria. Maria, who wrote in from Russia, wrote, quote, I still feel deeply moved by this score as it provokes such strong feelings equally by ravishingly beautiful music and by the complexity of its characters. Already getting chills, Maria.

[1:27] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I must admit I hated Fosca at the beginning. I pitied her during the flashback sequence, and there is so much happening in the finale. I often praise Stephen Sondheim for his female characters, and Fosca is definitely among the most significant ones and is the most difficult.

[1:52] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Anyway, thank you, Maria and Lydia. Here to discuss this fascinating show that also gives me all the feels is someone whose bio I'm going to read directly from Wikipedia because it's amazing. Ben, I don't know if you've read this.

[2:05] Ben Rimalower: I think I wrote it.

[2:06] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, did you really? Okay, it's even better. Ben Rimalower is an American theater director, writer, producer, and performer. He is best known for writing and performing the critically acclaimed long-running hit off-off-Broadway solo play Patty Issues. He is also a contributing writer for Playbill.com and the Huffington Post. Rimalower is openly gay.

[2:29] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Everyone, please welcome Ben Rimalower. Yay. I'm so happy to be here. That was the full bio. I just love that. Like the button was openly gay.

[2:53] Ben Rimalower: Well, I didn't write that. You know, I think I don't know. I am one of those losers who's responsible for their own Wikipedia page. It's a good Wikipedia, though, because it takes you directly to your website, which is gorge.

[3:12] Ben Rimalower: Which is more updated. I will give myself that. But, you know, like American and like openly gay. Like, I mean, I am those things that I wouldn't necessarily write in my bio.

[3:23] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Ben, so grateful you're here. You are a true renaissance man, for sure. I feel like you've done so many cool projects. And your latest one is this new podcast on the Broadway Podcast Network, shameless plug, called Giants in the Sky, colon.

[3:46] Ben Rimalower: How Sondheim and Lapine went into the woods, which I'm sure I will love and all the listeners of musical theater podcasts will love. But in addition to writing Into the Woods, Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine created Passion, which makes you kind of perfect guest for this. So talk to me a little bit about what attracted you to create your pod and specifically focus on these collaborators.

[4:07] Ben Rimalower: Sure. Well, a thing that I and it's funny now that I'm in the throes of editing, which I'm so sorry. I, I, well, I, the worst part is just that I hear myself repeating the same things, you know, there is nothing more confronting to a gay guy than having to listen to yourself talk for hours.

[4:35] Ben Rimalower: I mean, I'm long ago. I mean, I'm I just turned 47. So I've gotten over like how my voice sounds like I just smelled like, you know, chocolate chip cookies or something. But I just keep hearing myself say to everybody, what's what's embarrassing about hearing myself say this phrase to all my guests on the pod about Into the Woods is that I guess every time I say it to them, I try to act and play it off like I'm just coming up with the idea.

[4:37] Ben Rimalower: And I hear myself say it a hundred times, which is that Into the Woods for many people, especially younger generations, my age and younger has been kind of like a gateway drug to certainly to Sondheim and to musical theater for many of us and even just to theater for many of us.

[4:57] Ben Rimalower: Yeah, fresh. You're keeping it fresh, like an actor.

[5:15] Ben Rimalower: And it's because of that incredible American Playhouse broadcast that James Lapine filmed the cameras. I mean, he was really the screen director for that, in addition to it being obviously his stage production. And that's why it's captured so beautifully. And with this definitive original cast, it's iconic.

[5:37] Ben Rimalower: I mean, so, you know, so many of us, you know, really, in a sense, grew up on that video. And I'm certainly no exception in that I was really in my middle school years coming into my deep obsession with musical theater. And the original thing that I fell for was Patti LuPone and Evita.

[6:05] Ben Rimalower: And I was sort of just branching out from Patti LuPone, the musicals that I would listen to were Anything Goes and Les Miserables, you know. And then there was this right in that sweet spot of my impressionable youth in 1992, when I was 16, there was the Sondheim celebration at Carnegie Hall that Patti was in. And so was, of course, Into the Woods star Bernadette Peters and Liza Minnelli and a million fabulous people, Betty Buckley.

[6:31] Ben Rimalower: That was broadcast on PBS and the double album was released. And I really loved it. And then I discovered the video of Into the Woods. And so that led me to Sunday in the Park with George, which I really, you know, in some ways, I think that obviously Into the Woods was more accessible to me on some levels.

[6:59] Ben Rimalower: But in other ways, I think Sunday in the Park with George, I became more passionate about. Because my in to musical theater always was these sort of diva vocal performances, you know, that's why I was such a fan of Patti LuPone's. And, you know, while I loved Bernadette as the witch, and of course, Joanna Gleeson and everybody else in Into the Woods, Bernadette as Dot, you know, to me is really one of the great, you know, musical theater, leading lady vocal performances.

[7:30] Ben Rimalower: And also, even though it's not James Lapine, exquisitely directing for the screen, it is captured on video with these incredible performances by Bernadette and Evita's Mandy Patinkin. And so I really got into that as well.

[7:55] Ben Rimalower: And Patti LuPone's Mandy Patinkin.

[8:22] Ben Rimalower: Yeah, those were the articles where he first acknowledged in the press, being gay and spoke about having been in this relationship with this man, James Lapine, for the first time in his life. And so I think that's one of the reasons why I'm so passionate about this musical theater.

[8:40] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh my gosh, that sounds like a great time, actually.

[9:05] Ben Rimalower: It was an amazing time. And sitting in the audience was Sondheim and Peter Jones. And I was like, I mean, I kind of thought Sondheim was gay. And here he was with this like, hot, like 30 something guy. And I was like, I wonder if that's his boyfriend. And my sister and I were at the time appearing in our high school production of A Funny Thing Happened With a Forum.

[9:32] Ben Rimalower: By the way, you're looking great, Ben.

[9:33] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Thank you, Dom. But you know, when I was a younger kid, there really wasn't any representation at all of gay people on TV. It started to happen in the mid 80s with like Dynasty and stuff. But it was still really, you just never saw it. It wasn't even like we were the bad guys, we were invisible. And all of a sudden, that started changing. And the first place that it was changing was theater.

[9:54] Ben Rimalower: And in the same couple of years, I was seeing Angels in America and Kiss of the Spider Woman and Jeffrey and Love, Valor, Compassion. And, you know, it was all in the theater that I was seeing these gay roles and gay representation by these gay writers. And so it meant a lot that the artists that I probably already was idolizing most of all, at least as a, you know, a creative artist other than, you know, Patti LuPone, coming out in this way in the press and in this personal way.

[10:16] Ben Rimalower: And it was so special because my experience prior to that had been falling in love with musical theater and going out and getting these CDs, you know, of these cast recordings and listening to them backwards and forwards. So, but I'd be buying these albums of these shows that had opened a couple years earlier or decades earlier or whatever.

[10:44] Ben Rimalower: But Passion was really incredible for me because here was a show that I was in the know. I was reading the New York Times story on Sondheim or New York Times Magazine or whatever it was before they even started previews. And then I bought that CD the day it came out. And then when we were in New York in June, I got to see the original cast of Passion just days after they had won the Tonys.

[10:59] Ben Rimalower: And so it was really the first time I'd had this experience of being, actually that's a lie. I'd had that same experience the year before with the Kiss of the Spider Woman and the Goodbye Girl. But it meant a lot more to me with Passion.

[11:29] Ben Rimalower: And he literally writes a musical called Passion. So, in a brilliant way, by being that personally vulnerable as well, he's willing to talk the talk and not just write the words. I'm not just writing this musical to prove that I can write a musical about love, but to actually show in my evolution as an artist who I am and what I believe. I think that's really, really beautiful.

[11:53] Ben Rimalower: The other thing that comes to mind is how similar my entry point into Sondheim was. It was definitely through the PBS recording of Into the Woods. I remember visiting drama teachers because I grew up doing community theater.

[12:07] Ben Rimalower: And usually all of the poor directors who get wrangled into directing community theater for $100 are teachers. And so I'm visiting their classrooms during the summer while they're getting ready to set up for the upcoming school year.

[12:22] Ben Rimalower: And I think in one year I visited two of my friends and both of them had on Into the Woods in their classrooms while they're doing bulletin boards. They just had it playing. And I was like, huh, what's that? Danielle Ferlin looks like a little red riding hood. What's going on?

[12:39] Ben Rimalower: And that was definitely my introduction into Sondheim. I, of course, probably knew who he was without knowing who he was because of West Side Story, Gypsy, etc. But I became obsessed with Into the Woods. I got the cast recording for Christmas.

[12:54] Ben Rimalower: And then the following year, I had notoriously good grades. Goody two-shoes, people pleaser. That was my thing. And my dad, wanting to make me feel like he was proud of me and that he didn't have to worry about my grades, was like, you know what? What would you like for this 4.0 report card?

[13:15] Ben Rimalower: I would like the cast recordings of Sunday in the Park with George, Assassins, and Passion.

[13:22] Ben Rimalower: And God bless, my father was like, cool. Passion, if I'm being honest, was the one I liked the most.

[13:30] Ben Rimalower: I would play it while I was like falling asleep at night. I just found it so evocative and like just the sound of it. I had never heard and empathically felt anything like this score.

[13:41] Ben Rimalower: And I have a lot of friends that I love and trust and respect say that this is probably the most derivative of Sondheim scores. But I don't, even if that's true, I don't care because the way it makes me feel is different from all the other Sondheim shows. There are some just musical motifs that at the moment I hear them, it like sends me somewhere. Where are you with this now?

[14:04] Ben Rimalower: Like do you, because you saw it at such like a young age and at such an important time, do you feel like it transports you a little bit when you revisit it?

[14:09] Jeff Parsons: Oh God, yeah. I mean, and I've seen it so many times over the years in different incarnations. And of course, there's two first-rate video productions of it, you know. And it really is a part of my origin story in the way that those songs, you know, even beyond, I don't even have an objective opinion about them because they just are emotional cues for me.

[14:36] Jeff Parsons: I mean, a lot of music can be that way. It's like, I mean, why do I cry at the overture of Candide? It's not like I'm feeling sorry that Kuniganda is going to have a difficult life. You know, it's just that it just it's things that I that listened to a lot when I was young, just sort of are time portals in this way that is just really powerful. And, you know, passion is very, very much that.

[15:04] Jeff Parsons: And of course, with passion, it is an emo show. I mean, you know, it's not surprising to me that you getting those cast recordings would have the deeper connection to it, because, you know, I think part of the reason I loved musicals by Andrew Lloyd Webber was because I didn't have a speaker system or a stereo. I just had a Discman and headphones.

[15:22] Jeff Parsons: And so I would get in bed at night and turn off the lights and put it on. And that was like my cinema. And if I was listening to Mame, it was like musical number, lots of brass, pause, unrelated musical number, lots of brass, you know, as opposed to those Andrew Lloyd Webber shows that were like a storytelling thing that went straight through.

[15:44] Jeff Parsons: And, you know, and you listen to Sunset Boulevard and the strings come in, you're like, oh, my gosh, where am I? Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, you know, but passion really swirls you up into that. I mean, it just I mean, what you know, I guess in a way it could be called derivative, but it's also once you're out of the gate, you're just on the ride until the even though it's not a sung-through show, it has a lot of spoken dialogue or, you know, a good amount of spoken dialogue.

[16:10] Jeff Parsons: But the album really takes you through it. It's a fantastic album. It's one of my favorite cast recordings of all time. They bumped up the like the amount of players on the album. So there's like twice as many strings. You know, they just made the sound huge. And it's really, really beautiful.

[16:28] Jeff Parsons: Let's talk a little bit about kind of what's behind this show. Let's start with history. So we're going to go do some Italian history, everybody.

[16:44] Ben Rimalower: Right. Yeah, exactly. So in 19th century Italy, Italy didn't exist. I did not take European history, AP European history. I was like, get me out of high school. I want to graduate as soon as possible. So I did not, I did not take AP European history. But apparently in the 19th century, Italy was basically conquered by Austria.

[17:06] Ben Rimalower: And so then the latter part of that century was about Italians standing up for themselves and trying to create an Italian state and reunify all of these different areas. So during this time is when passion takes place. There are all these military dudes and their overwhelming goal is to unite Italy.

[17:28] Ben Rimalower: Now during this time period, one of the soldiers that was serving the Italian army was this guy by the last name of Tarchetti. And Tarchetti, in addition to being a soldier, was also a writer. And he began writing a novel based on his experiences, which were essentially that he had been in a relationship with a beautiful woman who was married.

[17:48] Ben Rimalower: And also while that was happening, he began this really kind of twisted, weird relationship with a woman who was not traditionally beautiful at all and very ill. And kind of the push and pull of how he felt about these two women and where his passions led him became the groundwork for this novel that ultimately he didn't get to finish before he died, if I remember correctly.

[18:16] Ben Rimalower: But that book, what was that book called? That book was called Fosca in 1869. This book was also associated with the Scapigliatura movement, which is the Italian version of Bohemia. So it's about people following their intuition, not just like what society tells you, but like what is your heart saying? And it was very scandalous, right?

[18:49] Ben Rimalower: So this movement, this book, it all resurfaces in the very early 80s, in 1981, when a movie called Passione d'Amore is created. And it's this movie that Stephen Sondheim sees. And he talks very, I mean, it's almost like a moment of clarity. He remembers seeing this film, and there's the moment when Fosca, the traditionally not beautiful character, descends this staircase, and she's filmed behind this opaque glass, and it's very moody, very gothic.

[19:29] Ben Rimalower: And then there's an extreme close-up on her face, and she's quote-unquote ugly. And then there's an extreme close-up on the soldier's face. And he said in that brief moment, he realized, oh my gosh, this movie isn't going to be about her falling in love with him. It's going to be about him falling in love with her.

[19:44] Ben Rimalower: And he burst into tears, and he just felt like, I can't wait to see how this happens. Now, that was the moment that he wanted to turn this into a musical. For the rest of the movie, he's like kind of planning in his head how it's all going to happen. And this doesn't happen a lot in Sondheim's career. Usually people brought him the work and said, hey, I think you'd be great at this.

[20:04] Ben Rimalower: But this was one of the few instances in when he was like, this is my idea, and I want to do it. He, at this point, had already been working with James Lapine on Sunday Park with George and Into the Woods, right?

[20:19] Jeff Parsons: From what you've been able to tell so far, what did they like about, or what did they enjoy about each other as collaborators?

[20:23] Ben Rimalower: Oh, I think that I'm fascinated by their relationship. And actually something that, I have an interview on my podcast with Ira Weitzman, who was the associate producer and a dramaturg and an important force in the development of all these Sondheim-Lapine collaborations, as well as a million other shows at Shorts Horizons and Lincoln Center.

[20:46] Ben Rimalower: And Ira talks about an early conversation he had with Sondheim in the development of Into the Woods, where Sondheim got choked up telling him how much, he used the phrase, he said how much James Lapine had done for him and how much he had opened him up.

[21:05] Ben Rimalower: And have you read, James Lapine wrote that amazing book, Putting It Together, about the making of Sunday Park with George?

[21:08] Jeff Parsons: Gosh, dang it, I haven't. I should, I should.

[21:11] Ben Rimalower: Oh, you have to. And first of all, it's such a fun, easy read.

[21:12] Jeff Parsons: I will read it when I do my Sunday in the Park with George. Unfortunately, because of the podcast, I can only prioritize what episode I'm going to create.

[21:21] Ben Rimalower: But it's an incredible book. I mean, and even just as a coffee table book, it's great to look at. But he really shows the sort of courtship. I mean, not that it was romantic, but the beginning of their relationship.

[21:32] Ben Rimalower: And here's Sondheim, who was coming out, you know, Sondheim was the, I guess you would say, bohemian kid artist who, because of his talent and his intelligence and his position, had been in the sort of mainstream establishment of musical theater from his very young age, even though he had been sort of the black sheep and not really accepted by them and always not emotional, always not melodic, always not commercial.

[22:06] Ben Rimalower: And, you know, kind of treated like an ugly redheaded stepchild all throughout the 50s and 60s, you know, despite working on some very successful shows.

[22:12] Jeff Parsons: Some of the most legendary.

[22:16] Ben Rimalower: Some of the most legendary, you know, and then he gets into this amazing collaboration with Hal Prince that, you know, really, you know, just galvanizes all of musical theater.

[22:27] Ben Rimalower: And they had this longstanding friendship and this incredible, you know, collaboration and copacetic sort of complimentary dynamic. And, you know, they come from the same world and I think understood each other in a deep way.

[22:37] Ben Rimalower: But they were also very different in that, you know, Hal Prince is such a kind of big picture type artist and, you know, and Sondheim is so much about the devil and the details. And I mean, among I'm sure a million other differences.

[22:54] Ben Rimalower: And then it comes after all these huge landmark successes, it comes crashing and burning down with Merrily We Roll Along. And I think it's even hard for us to understand looking back, because to us, it's like, well, A, we all love Merrily. I mean, and then B, we're like, so you had an unsuccessful show.

[23:11] Jeff Parsons: Oh, I'm so sorry that after Company and Sweeney Todd, you had one show that didn't work.

[23:18] Ben Rimalower: Yeah. And so why didn't, you know, why wouldn't they keep working together? But I think that there was this sense of like, something had been broken, you know, and that-

[23:26] Jeff Parsons: Something just broke, to quote another.

[23:29] Ben Rimalower: Thank you. Thank you, Assassins. And I think for Sondheim, having, you know, being at a sort of point of midlife crisis, in a sense, and as an artist, you know, needing to find somewhere, maybe softer, or more nurturing, safer, somewhere different, in order to have that creative spark, to want to do something else, it wasn't going to be the next Hal Prince show, you know.

[23:58] Ben Rimalower: And he had seen Lapine's work and enjoyed it. And the idea of this very different direction of being in this nonprofit space. And here's Lapine, who comes from a visual art background.

[24:11] Ben Rimalower: And even though at that point, he was already somewhat established as a playwright and director, it's a really huge departure for Sondheim to go into that collaboration. And the style of James Lapine, both on in terms of what his work is, and in terms of his style of working, was so different than Hal Prince.

[24:30] Ben Rimalower: And I think Sondheim was so drawn to that, and the relationship that they forged as these two sort of sensitive, in a way, quieter artists, you know, smoking weed and sort of exploring without, you know, I think with Hal Prince, any show began with like a meeting in the office, and we're thinking this is going to be for next spring's Tony season, and you know, get the girl in here, she'll get us coffee, and she'll take notes.

[25:00] Ben Rimalower: You know, this was just like Sondheim and Lapine, like going to museums and listening to music and like having weird conversations and just kind of freeform, you know, and I think that that was revolutionary for Sondheim.

[25:07] Ben Rimalower: And I think it opened him up, well, to use the phrase that Ira quoted about him, that to create these shows and to do this work that was such a departure from everything he had done before.

[25:20] Jeff Parsons: Wow, that's so cool. I'd never considered that. It reminds me of my family's like a tennis family. And I remember at some point, like Andre Agassi was like, he's going to make his next comeback using like a wooden racket. After being this legend, he was going to go back in time and get like back to basics.

[25:40] Ben Rimalower: And in some ways, like, Hal Prince's next huge hit was Phantom of the Opera, which could not be more different than, say, like, an approach to Sunday in the Park with George or Passion.

[25:52] Jeff Parsons: And yet, weirdly similar to Passion on certain levels.

[25:57] Ben Rimalower: Well, good point. Right. No, in terms of gothic, for sure.

[26:03] Jeff Parsons: Yeah. Well, and the ugly person falling in love.

[26:07] Ben Rimalower: Thematically, you're exactly right. I mean, wow, good point. So, you know, I mean, obviously, that's a common thing. That's Beauty and the Beast. That's many things.

[26:13] Ben Rimalower: Which was the same season as Passion.

[26:19] Jeff Parsons: Oh, yes, yes. Okay, this is this is so fascinating. I'm so glad you're here. Sondheim brings the idea to Lapine, because from what I understand, Sondheim's like, this guy's a romantic, he'll understand what I'm going for. They feel like it's only going to be a one act.

[26:30] Ben Rimalower: Right. Right. It's not going to be a two act musical.

[26:31] Ben Rimalower: And Lapine at this point was already thinking of creating a one-act musical himself called Muscle, which was based on this autobiography by a bodybuilder. Somebody who was really scrawny and then put on all of this muscle and was trying to become a man. And then when he was at his biggest, he still felt like he was small and insignificant and insecure. And so they thought, oh, this is going to be a great companion piece. Muscle eventually goes away because Sondheim felt like it needed more of a contemporary score, like a William Finn type situation. And all of their energy then decides to just stick with Passion, which remains a one-act, but is almost two hours long. So even though it's a one-act, it's not a 90-minute show at all. When it opens on Broadway, I mean, you were there amidst the press. How did everybody respond to this show?

[27:28] Matthew Feeney: Well, the word on the street or whatever was so bad during previews. There were all these stories about people laughing inappropriately at Donna Murphy. Well, not so much at Donna, but at Fosca's overbearing desperation.

[27:55] Ben Rimalower: Desperation. Verging on pathetic.

[27:58] Matthew Feeney: Totally. There was also people were complaining. I mean, Into the Woods and Sunday in the Park with George in so many ways were such departures from not only the Hal Prince collaborations, but from Hello, Dolly!

[28:13] Ben Rimalower: Just from musical theater in general.

[28:15] Matthew Feeney: Right. But they still had like normal sort of form and applause breaks and all that.

[28:21] Ben Rimalower: And songs.

[28:21] Matthew Feeney: Yeah. And Passion was really this sort of swirling song cycle that had no applause break until the curtain call. And yet it was produced unlike Into the Woods and Sunday in the Park with George that both began either off-Broadway or regionally. Passion just opened cold on Broadway. But at the same time, there was also press coverage. I remember seeing on whatever local TV news, clips of Donna singing. Oh, because this was the beginning of the Internet. It wasn't like it is today. There was no Broadway world. There was no talk in Broadway, but there was these things called news groups. And there was a thing called rec.arts.theater.musicals, which was the original theater message board.

[29:14] Ben Rimalower: Oh, gosh.

[29:15] Matthew Feeney: And I was like in college, and I would go religiously reading that stuff. But so I had been disappointed because I had been thinking, oh, well, this is perfect. Even though Patti won't do Sunset on Broadway, I was sad about that. Maybe she'll do this new Sondheim musical, which I was excited about. And then I was like, Donna Murphy? Who the hell is Donna Murphy? But then the word on these message boards was that Donna, from the very beginning, was giving the performance, you know, a star-making performance.

[29:45] Ben Rimalower: A performance that I feel changes musical theater forever, by the way.

[29:51] Matthew Feeney: I want to hear more about that, but I can see that, you know, why you would say that. Tell me.

[29:57] Ben Rimalower: I mean, we'll talk more about it when we go through the show. But the fragility that she's bringing to some of the most highly dramatic moments, it is not a histrionic performance because of how weak the character is. So she's like singing at the top of her range while sitting while in pain. And like, you don't do that in musical theater. If you are having a breakdown as Mama Rose, you are downstage center, physicalizing every moment and she is upstage, sitting behind a table, struggling to stir her coffee because she's in so much pain. And it's still seeping out of her. You didn't see that in musicals, period. So even whether you like it or not, it takes the art form into a completely new area.

[30:47] Matthew Feeney: Well, I certainly fell in love with her and that performance. I mean, you know, as did almost everyone. It was so, you know, whatever rivalry there was between Passion and Beauty and the Beast, there was no question, I think, on anyone's mind that Donna was going to win that Tony.

[31:06] Ben Rimalower: Oh, for sure. For sure. So Passion opens on Broadway, same season as Beauty and the Beast. So, I mean, God bless Disney for in many ways, pumping some money back into the old Broadway machine.

[31:20] Matthew Feeney: You know, Beauty and the Beast was so looked down upon because, you know, in a way with Lion King and Julie Taymor, Disney has sort of has like a trace of like, well, they're just another producer. Every producer is corporate nowadays. Maybe they will do something interesting or maybe they won't. But with Beauty and the Beast, people really acted like it was just like a theme park, like Disney on ice, you know?

[31:46] Ben Rimalower: No, and people held their noses as we tend to do in theater. I didn't even see it because I was such a snot when I was 17. And now I'm like so mad at myself that I didn't see it.

[31:56] Matthew Feeney: Well, that's why, okay, so this Tony Awards was the first Tony Awards I ever tuned into, and it was because of Beauty and the Beast because, hello, obsessed with Beauty and the Beast growing up. Didn't want my parents to see this like musical number of two people in bed from Passion, but like we were there for Beauty and the Beast. So I remember seeing this. I remember Passion winning. I remember even though I didn't know anything about it, I was like, oh, well, it's obviously the more serious choice. Like this is just how it goes, right? Like if you're doing the cartoon musical, it's probably not going to win. I was pretty young, but I remember just kind of understanding that. And that's what happens. Beauty and the Beast only wins best costume design. Passion wins best musical book, music, or score, actress. Carousel is the revival with Audra Ann McDonald making her big.

[32:48] Matthew Feeney: Did you? Oh, my gosh. It was the other big kind of thing. A lot of sex being introduced in some musical theater in the 90s because Carousel was like infamously sexy. This was like a sexy revival. Then you also had Passion, Hello Again, all of the Michael John LaChiusa stuff. So like, there's a lot more heat in musical theater at this point as well. Despite all of that heat, Passion still holds, I think, the record for the best musical winner that runs the shortest. It only ran about 300 performances, which isn't terrible. I think it recouped its budget, but still did not run long as most on-time shows unfortunately did.

[33:31] Ben Rimalower: Did Passion recoup? I would be surprised. I thought most on-time shows didn't recoup.

[33:36] Matthew Feeney: Well, I mean, I thought I read that it did, but maybe not. Maybe with only 300. I mean, it's just such a sparse looking show that I thought maybe, well, the production values didn't require too much of it. Maybe it didn't, though.

[33:50] Ben Rimalower: I mean, I think a lot of them recoup long term because they're produced elsewhere and all that.

[33:57] Matthew Feeney: Yeah. But I don't think it was considered a failure or a flop.

[34:02] Ben Rimalower: Well, it's in that weird Sondheim category that kind of all his shows are. I mean, my understanding was that the only show of Sondheim's that recouped was, besides West Side Story and Gypsy, was A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. And yet, I mean, people use the phrase success d'estime, and that's the difference they draw between something like Merrily, which is just like an out-and-out flop, even though we all kind of esteem it anyway, and something like Sunday in the Park with George that literally wins the Pulitzer and is so acclaimed, even if it's polarizing, but loses money.

[34:41] Matthew Feeney: Isn't that interesting, though? Because then on some level, this may be controversial, but I think maybe as artists, then we start to esteem shows that aren't successful financially and look down upon the ones that are.

[34:56] Ben Rimalower: Well, I think we have to be careful. Even growing up, I tend to roll my eyes at Phantom of the Opera because it was the show that everybody had seen. And I was like, if you're going to go to New York, see something that you could only see in New York, right? Phantom, you can see anywhere. But looking back on it, but I've also completely changed my mind. Because if you want Phantom of the Opera to be your first show on Broadway, who the hell am I to say you shouldn't do that?

[35:19] Matthew Feeney: Totally, totally. Well, listen, everyone should do what they want. But I mean, I think it goes both ways. I mean, I think that we have to, you know, I think it's important that artists push the envelope of what theater can be. And then we who are artists and theater lovers, our taste is what elevates the form. But at the same time, we need to not be like Pat, you know, rejecting shows because they're commercially successful. Because of course, a good show can be a hit and certainly a bad show can be a flop.

[35:52] Ben Rimalower: Amen to that. That's so true. And luckily with Passion, I mean, they were so inspired to record it and record it so beautifully on film. Because that has certainly extended its cultural footprint for me, I think for both of us.

[36:05] Matthew Feeney: Yeah. If not everybody. So let's talk through this really interesting show, because there's so much here, and we're already running out of time. So the show opens with maybe one of the most beautiful pieces of music I think Sondheim wrote called Happiness. And the irony here of how he uses music to access emotions within us as an audience is fascinating. Because this song, obviously talking about the throes of Passion, that first spark when you feel like you have met the person that you will always love forever. And these two lead characters, Giorgio and Clara, are in bed. Beautiful people. Clara, played originally by the glorious Marion Mazzie, who, I mean, in this recording is just constantly walking back and forth, sounding beautiful in these amazing costumes.

I don't know how she did it. I mean, honestly, walking and singing is not easy. There's pretty much no one I want to hear sing Clara instead of Marion Mazzie. I mean, she and Donna were both a new sound in musical theater. They were both understudies at this point, right?

[37:27] Ben Rimalower: Yeah. But they really had their own vocal style. And Marion, there's just nobody. I mean, some people are kind of in the neighborhood of her, like the Carolee Carmelos and Barbara Cooks, and in some ways Audra, who also played Clara. But the fullness and sensuality of Marion's voice in that role, and that opening number where they're just the two of them in that stage, you're not at all disappointed not to have a hundred high-kicking chorus girls. Marion's voice is that alive. And I don't care if you have Kathleen Battle, Rebecca Luker, nobody could sing it more beautifully than Marion Mazzie. And yet it's also so full and so exciting and so dynamic. I mean, it's just so expressive and conversational. It's an ideal Sondheim voice.

[38:27] Matthew Feeney: Yeah. I miss her so much. And she's just absolutely fantastic in this. As Giorgio and Clara are in bed, there's this feeling, I don't know if you feel this, but for me, there's this feeling of this is going to end, right? There's an inevitability to this happiness because they almost preach a little too much. Endless happiness, endless happiness is how the song ends, right? Like this couldn't possibly end with the way that I'm feeling, but it does because he follows, I mean, the end of the song is basically him saying, I've been moved. I am going to serve in the military somewhere else, but we're going to write each other letters. Now, little do we know, she is married. Clara is married. So this is an affair.

When he goes to his new post, he's surrounded by men, only men. And Sondheim has this really great juxtaposition in the score of there's either drums or there's lush music. And so whenever he's around all of the soldiers, we just, it's all military, military madness. And here within this military group is the colonel whose cousin Fosca lives with him. She is very, very ill. She has this kind of full-time doctor who's always taking care of her. And she suffers from these kinds of seizures. So they'll be going about their business.

[39:46] Ben Rimalower: Just hear this like guttural scream from upstairs, kind of like in a Jane Eyre sort of way. And everyone's used to it. But for someone as sensitive as Giorgio, I think that it's difficult for him to kind of deal with that. He hears that Fosca is really interested in books. So as an avid reader, he allows her to borrow his books. And this becomes the connection for those two. She finally comes down the stairs in a very grand operatic way to thank Giorgio for the books that he gave her. One of the ones that we find out, she says, thank you for the book by Rousseau. Julie is a great mystery. So I looked this up, the book by Rousseau. Have you read it? This is not something I do. I do not read these books.

No. The character Julie is a total mystery. She's a big mystery. So I did some research because I was like, okay, what is that? There has to be a reason they picked this book. This book was specifically incredibly scandalous because it was instructing people to follow the customs and traditions of society as long as it felt authentic to you. And the character of Julie is someone who ends up following her passion. So even right here is this cool little planted moment. They are connecting over a character, over someone who is willing to follow what their heart says more so than maybe what society tells them. Now, how do you feel about this beautiful, ugly sort of thing? How do you feel like that has aged?

Because Clara, which the word means light, and Fosca, which the word means dark, are definitely supposed to be opposites. One's beautiful, one's ugly and ill. I think that's a kind of universal, eternal plight. And I think it's aged very well. Honestly, even the most beautiful people have ways in which or times when they don't feel beautiful or they feel ugly, whether that's something internal or external. I think that everyone has that kind of insecurity. And so in the sort of fable aspect of the story, it just really resonates. It's very Italian. It's very European, right? This idea of exploring it through the carnal, I guess, expectations of what it means to be human. I will say, though, that even though Fosca is traditionally ugly, they've given her one palette.

They just caked her down with one makeup base and have a big old nasty mole on her. But what's incredible, and I don't know. Don't forget the unibrow. Oh, the unibrow, of course, of course. But I will say that she gets more beautiful throughout the show. And I don't know if they change that. I don't know if in an Elphaba way, they start adding elements to make her look more glamorous. Maybe so. I'd be interested to hear Donna talk about that. Yeah, the more that we see her, I think the more she becomes beautiful. And the more that we see Clara, the more that everything we thought was perfect about her begins to fall away. And there's something kind of profound about that. Yeah, no, I think that's maybe what we're supposed to experience.

Yeah, 100%. So as they connect, by the way, got a shout out. I read one of my favorite Sondheim songs of all time. There's a flower with nectar at the top, delicious nectar at the top, and poison underneath the butterfly that, what is it? The butterfly who stays too long and drinks too deep is doomed to die. The amount of information we get about Fosca by hearing about why she reads, how she does it not to explore humanity, but to escape from humanity, is kind of unparalleled. This is a true soliloquy that is absolutely phenomenal. Totally. And also, I mean, people talk about Sondheim songs don't work out of context, but here is like, people have not written many or any songs about reading. Here's this incredible ode to it.

And also, I mean, certainly for me, as someone who was buying that album, like the day it came out in 1994, being like, what is it going to be? Is there going to be another Losing My Mind or Not A Day Goes By, another Broadway baby? And wishing that it was Patti LuPone. And then hearing Donna Murphy just belt her face off in this thrilling and really emotional and unique and authentic way, I was immediately hooked.

[44:38] Ben Rimalower: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And this is what I was talking about beforehand. I read, she's sitting down the entire time upstage, just letting these cracks show forth, if you will. And I think that that is what is so challenging about Fosca is that she's so willing to let all of the ugly out. Yeah. Not just in terms of she's not plucking that unibrow, but she's willing to kind of show warts and all, oh my gosh, all the puns just keep coming out. And I think that that's incredibly confronting for us. So much that I think the moment that I realized that Passion, it's almost like the more important thing about Passion is what we discuss after seeing the show than what we experience while we're seeing the show.

Thank you, John Bucchino. Is when I heard, exactly, is when I heard the song Playbill by John Bucchino, which many people may not have heard it. Basically, what he's done is created a song in which somebody has seen Passion, has the Playbill, and then meets somebody. And the person singing the song hates Fosca, feels like she's pathetic, and then slowly, in a very Sondheim way, reveals how similar they are to Fosca. I love this song so, so much. And funny enough, it was introduced to me by Patti LuPone in her Matters of the Heart album. So like, how beautiful is that?

[46:28] Ben Rimalower: As Giorgio and Fosca get closer, she begins to, like we said, really let all of her true self be seen, not just her ill self. And we learn why she has reached the point where she is health-wise. It's due to this really traumatic past in which she was raised to believe she was beautiful. She had these parents who were like, oh, our beautiful princess, you're so amazing. And then she grew up and reached puberty and realized, oh, I'm not. And then in that moment of insecurity and kind of discovery, this dude, Count Ludwig of Austria, comes in and he's a total slime ball. And he says, you are the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. Her parents are thrilled that this man wants to be with her. So the colonel, her cousin, invites them all over to his place.

They all hit it off. And in no time, the count has asked for her hand in marriage. The parents have paid the dowry. He gambles the dowry away. And now her parents are left destitute. She's alone. He's somewhere. Nobody can find him. And she feels ruined. She feels completely ruined and suffers this enormous emotional and physical breakdown in which now the doctor describes her as having all of her nerves on the outside of her skin. I love that so much. Where we have skin that protects our hearts and our feelings, and she doesn't have anything. It's all exposed all the time. The colonel, that's why he has invited her to live with him is because on some level he feels responsible for her because he allowed this meeting to happen in his place with the count.

And so ever since, she's just been battling and battling this pain, this deep, deep pain. The only reprieve from all of that pain is this new connection with Giorgio. And he doesn't feel comfortable with it. He's constantly writing Clara to be like, there's this crazy, ugly girl. All she does is make me think of you and how much I miss you because she's kind of obsessed with me and I don't know what to do with her. The doctor, on the other hand, is telling Giorgio, can you please give her a little kindness? Can you please just play along with Fosca? It's innocent, it's fine, and it will make her feel better. As the doctor, I'm asking you to give her this medicine, which is your time and attention.

Unfortunately, it just keeps escalating to a place of almost obsession. Have you ever been, Ben, either Fosca or Giorgio in this situation? I got it. It's sad to say I've been Fosca more than I've been Giorgio, but I've been both. Me too. Which I think is why this show is so confronting. We can hate the characters so much because on some subconscious level, I think we see ourselves in everybody. This obsession culminates one night kind of on a cliffside where Fosca is asking for a kiss and he's like, is this what you call love? He really confronts her and puts her in her place. She falls over, she basically faints, which just feels almost manipulative. He picks her up and takes her back to the room, but it's a very stormy night and he falls ill and has a fever.

A fever dream, by the way, of Fosca on top of him taking advantage. This illness allows him to have a leave of absence. I'm kind of skipping a little bit, but to take 40 days absence. He uses that time. A whole 40 days. A whole 40 days to go visit Clara. The thing is, though, is that she is still married. She's still very practical. 40 matinees because it's only one night. Exactly. They can't spend an evening together because she's married. On some level for Giorgio, he's like, this is all very convenient for you, isn't it? I'm just this guy that you can have in the afternoons and then you go back to your regular life. When he looks at that from the perspective of Fosca, who is anything but convenient, she does whatever she feels no matter how stupid she may look.

It really challenges what he thinks love is. He then puts the challenge back on Clara, leave your husband, come with me, and she can't do it. She can't do it. She says, when my child grows and leaves home, maybe we'll have a chance. Until then, maybe this is goodbye. In the process, Fosca has many opportunities to express her love. Do you have any of them that you'd like to talk about? They're all incredible and gripping. The one that really has been my favorite from the very beginning is I Wish I Could Forget You, which is before one of the times he leaves. She forces him to write this letter as though he loves her. Because he's pressured by the doctor, he goes along with it. It's her singing what she wishes he would say to her.

But in a way, it's Fosca's I Want song. I love songs like that because it's a letter. It's really, I guess in a way, it's more presentational because it has a very clear structure to it. I think it's a gorgeous song, and I'll never forget watching Donna do that for the first time. Just feeling the way that her voice would just build and build and soar into the passion that she feels. It's like she allows herself to live in this fantasy, even though of course it's a fantasy. But he's indulging it. It feels so powerful and real.

[53:02] Ben Rimalower: A reflection of that kind of relationship because so much, you know, I mean, she says to him at another time, like, oh, how indulgent you are with me. I mean, to some extent, you know, these relationships are like that where the person who loves less or loves not at all, but in, you know, on some level, they're encouraging this because it's convenient for them or they enjoy the attention or or they're afraid to not to. Yeah. You know, and so they play a role and this is kind of just like that taken to an extreme level. My favorite part of I Wish I Could Forget You is that he's, you know, sitting there dictating or writing everything that she dictates. And the only time he sings is he echoes something she says, which that doesn't mean I love you.

Yeah. Yeah. She is she right. She tells him to write that doesn't mean I love you. And that's the only time he sings as though to say, this is the part that I want you to remember. Yeah. Right. So great. When he comes back now, kind of being fully haunted by the love of this woman will also to have that someone is so obsessed with you, who's wants your love and with more than anything in the world more than life itself, to then go back to the matinees with the woman who's like, okay, you know, are you going to come soon? Because I got to pick up my kid at, you know, soccer practice or whatever, you know, fill in the 19th century Italy version. But it's like, it's one thing to be in the first scene, you know, like endless love, and it's so hot, and it feels like it'll last forever.

But then to be seeing it in contrast to maybe you don't want this love from Fosca. But you want that kind of love from somebody you want it from. Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's just, it's truly a perspective shift, right? Everything that you thought was love, might just be lust. Everything that you thought was lacking, true passion is actually the deepest form of being loved and being seen. Yeah, anyway, oh, when when Giorgio comes back to Fosca, after kind of cutting his sick leave short, I think the doctor feels incredibly guilty about what he's done, because he thought that this was just, you know, a way to make Fosca feel better. But he is possibly ruining two lives by continuing the charade and pleads for Giorgio to like stop.

But at this point, he's in too deep. And he feels this deep responsibility for someone who loves him this much. That, unfortunately, comes to a head when the colonel finds out about their relationship. He finds this letter that we have discussed. And Giorgio very well could have said, she made me write it. But out of her honor, he decides to not say that. And what the colonel does is challenges him to a duel, says, all right, you know, we're gonna hash this out like men. Eye roll. Before the duel, however, there is this now famous love scene where he goes to Fosca's room and wants to do the deed. He wants to seal it. And he says that he loves her. And I don't question it. I don't know. It's complex.

It's interesting that this is like, the romantic show of Sondheim's because it also feels claustrophobic and tragic and like, love will ultimately kill you. Yeah. I mean, people have often talked about like, the love songs in Sondheim are always sung by an idiot. I mean, in a little bit, happiness and passion is kind of an example of that. But you know, they often talk about and funny thing happened with the forum, or the young couples in Follies or the lovers in Sweeney Todd. And it's like, well, maybe they don't have to be an idiot, but they have to be a little out of their mind. Yeah, yeah. Well, but maybe we are. Yeah, right. Maybe we are a little crazy to, to put ourselves through all everything that requires to love and be loved.

But like, at the end of the day, if you feel that it's worth it, then you're a romantic. Yeah. So they do the deed. He basically sexes her to death. The feeling is like, so great. But he then has to go to this duel. The colonel and him do their, you know, paces, turn and shoot. The colonel has a, like a wound, but isn't, it's not fatal. And what happens to Giorgio? Like, why does he, why does he pass out? Does he have a worse wound? Maybe? God, I don't even remember. Now I'm trying to remember the specifics. But for whatever reason, he passes out and doesn't come to for a few days. Yeah. When, when he does a Fosca has passed away. Yeah. But not before she wrote him one more letter. So many letters in this show, where, and I love this so much.

She says in this letter that for the first time in her life, she wants to live. And like reflecting on that, after you've had so much pain in your way to love, you've had so much pain and you're waiting for death. It's only that when you want to live, it's because of love. And when you want to live, then you can die. And if we all need to pause and eat some chocolate after that, that's okay. Cause that's kind of intense. But Fosca passes away saying, I now love, I know what it feels like to be loved. You gave that gift to me. And now that love will live in you. It will live in me and it will live forever. And Sondheim did this beautiful kind of round with all of the voices of the cast, a lot helping us feel that this love lives on.

Right. And I think there are a lot of powerful musicals out there like Parade, like Cabaret, where we see the reverberations of hate, but we, we don't always have something so poetic showing the reverberations of love. No. The shows that are about love tend to take a more superficial view of it. And this, that is actually like a true introspection on the meaning and the role and the nature of love is really, you know, special. Yeah. Maybe the, the most quote unquote love song of the score is called, is a song called Loving You, which was the last song that Sondheim wrote for the show. Yeah. They felt like they needed one more, just like, I don't know, song, song. Yeah. And do you feel like this passes the test in terms of the criticism you were speaking of earlier?

It's not maybe a stupid person talking about love? Yeah, I do. I think it's a, it's a, it's part of the reason that I would say passion achieves that. I mean, truthfully in that moment in Loving You, we're not supposed to think she's pathetic and we're not supposed to, well, I don't know, we're supposed to think, but the, I don't think the intention is empowered. She's empowered and it's not that she's sick, you know? So maybe that's Sondheim's most naked, pure love song, you know? Well, and going back to how we started the conversation, you think of the words of this song from the place of a gay man who's realizing his own sexuality. Loving you is not a choice, it's who I am. Yeah. Loving you is not, is not in my control, right?

But loving you, I have a goal for the rest of my life. I will live and I will die for you. Now, granted, we should probably never hang all that up on one person, but the idea, the idea of self-expression and the freedom to do so is incredibly empowering for Fosca, as it would be for anybody discovering their sexuality. And it's, it also, I mean, it's not that, well, she does say you are why I live, but, but all that, like, loving you, I have a purpose for what's left of my life. It's not that you're my purpose. It's that loving you is my purpose. So it is at least a little bit more self-actualizing in that. Yeah. And also she's sick and has been through a lot of trauma. So like, if it's a little blurry, it's okay.

What are you left with, with this show? How did you walk out of the theater? Were you like on cloud nine? Were you like, what did I just see? It was that one. You're pretty young at this point. Yeah. I was, I was, I had just turned 18. I was, I mean, it's the way I always feel when I see this show. It has that sort of romantic Romeo and Juliet, you know, tragic love where it's like, you know, the romantic in me wants love with all, even with all that baggage and danger. So, you know, I don't walk out. I mean, I'm sad because yet another love story has come to an end. That sounds like a lyric, but, but I'm mostly just smitten with the idea of this, this great love, you know? And that's why Passion is not a show that I'm always in the mood for.

Amen. You know, I have to want to like, I can't watch Passion casually. I have to be in a place to be like, okay. And like, just get sort of like, you know, swirled up into this rapture. Can I say something weird? And I don't know if you want to be my therapist and tell me what this means, but I am. Tell me what you dreamt and I'll tell you what it meant. I am rarely in the mood for Passion with other people. Yeah. Like I remember being in San Francisco doing a show and I was riding the BART a lot, the public transit. And it was in those rides that I was like, I am going to listen to all of the cast recordings of Passion and figure out which one's my favorite. And so for like three days straight, I just listened to all of the different recordings of Passion to see what I liked about each one.

And I don't think I would do that in a car with someone else. You know what I mean? Like I have to be on my own reflecting in a car on the public transit with my headphones in whatever to kind of really get into this. I just don't, I can't picture myself like holding my lover in bed, sobbing, listening to Passion like that. I just I don't need that drama in my life. Yeah. I don't think it would be like that, you know? Well, it's very, it's very personal. It's very personal. That's that, that is, that's it. That's the thing. Ben, thank you so much for doing this with me. How much fun? Can you believe we've already talked this long? Thank you for having me. It was a pleasure. And I love your, your conversations about musicals and all the angles you come from. It's wonderful. Thank you. Appreciate that.

[1:04:56] Ben Rimalower: More than anything, I just want you to know that you are loved. And I'm so grateful you're part of this great podcasting community. Hey, Mr. Ben, how do we follow you? And anything you want to plug? Well, you can follow me on all social media at Ben Rimalower. That's only one M, only one L. R-I-M-A-L-O-W-E-R. And you can find my new podcast, Giants in the Sky, How Sondheim and Lapine Went into the Woods, on Broadway Podcast Network and everywhere that you get your podcasts. Everybody check it out. Ben is a true joy. And check out his social media too. You're kind of killing it. I'm a little jealous. Thank you. Truly, truly, you got you got cute stuff on there. Everybody, thank you so much for listening. And remember, and remember...

[1:05:50] Ben Rimalower: You're someone to be loved.

[1:05:52] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: You are someone to be loved. I was going to say, read a book.

[1:05:56] Ben Rimalower: But you're right. You are someone to be loved.