e to assimilate the innovations of their predecessors, raising the level of craftsmanship in their chosen genre to an unprecedented high level, while simultaneously exploring new areas of expression and form. It is to this latter group that Stephen Sondheim belongs. While the musical theatre had not been entirely insulated from the social developments of its audiences, realism was still the orthodox aesthetic. Sex and swearing, prostitution, infanticide, incest, and drink distressed the audience, as the New York Herald Tribune said. Audiences attended the theatre to watch the middle class American dream to be told that, ...The best things in life are free, that everything is coming up roses, and that if you dont have a dream how you gonna have a dream come true?# The musical was supposed to be a form of cathartic entertainment. Yet the music was a subliminal advertisement for the sought after American dream. Musicals satisfied the middle class consumer mentality. Stephen Sondheim changed the emphasis of the musical. It was now intelligent and sometimes brimming with disenchantment. He is the conscience of the musical. In West Side Story (Appendix 1 - A) he combined classical music, ballet and straight theatre seamlessly. Its an American Musical. The aim of the mid fifties was to see if all of us - Lenny Bernstein who wrote long-hair music, Arthur Laurents who wrote serious plays, Oliver Smith (designer) who was a serious painter - could bring our acts together and do a work on the popular stage...# West Side Story showed how singing, dancing, acting and design could merge into a single unity. Presenting itself as a social play with a tragic ending, reminding audiences and critics alike about how elusive tragedy had been in Broadway musical tradition. It had been atypical for the hero to die a tragic death in a Broadway musical, but fights and untimely deaths became the fortitude of the commercial musical. Many of the great musicals foc...
