Sondheim and Weidman’s Unintended Trilogy

Abstract

In November 2023, Pacific Overtures opened at the Menier Chocolate Factory, a ‘comparatively pocket-sized’ South London theatre famous for producing musicals. While serving as a tribute to Stephen Sondheim who had died three months earlier, the revival of his 1976 play had been planned for a long time: the intention – as the theatre announced – was to complete ‘the Menier’s trilogy’ of Sondheim’s collaborations with John Weidman. Their three plays had been staged there in reverse order of their writing: Road Show (2008) ran in 2011, followed in 2015 by Assassins (1990), and rounded off by Pacific Overtures. (FIGURE 1). In each case, Weidman wrote the libretto, and Sondheim the songs. But this essay does not simply draw attention to their common authorship; rather it takes its cue from ‘a playwright friend’ of Weidman’s who pointed out that they had, however unintentionally, created a trilogy about the United States: ‘its aggressive tendencies, its culture of disenfranchisement…its pioneering inventiveness and economic fecklessness.’