*

"Finishing the Hat," one of the strongest and most incisive songs in Stephen Sondheim's canon, is not about "finishing the hat"; it is more precisely about the artistic act of making (creating) a hat "where there never was a hat." A theatre song starts with a character (like George, in Sunday in the Park) and a situation (he is immersed in his sketches, his lover/model having just left him as he always knew she would). "We need a song here," says the librettist, or he writes in his first draft, or perhaps the songwriter long ago mapped out the spot. In any event, the songwriter faces a blank canvas, as it were; in Sondheim's case, as he has told us repeatedly, he typically lies supine on the couch in the living room of his Turtle Bay townhouse with a legal pad and a clutch of sharpened Palomino Blackwing 602 pencils. He stares at the page, cognizant of the space he needs to fill but at a loss as to how to do so. And then comes an idea; many ideas, perhaps, which are quickly discarded (or slowly discarded after hours or days of effort). But finally, magically: "look, I made a hat — where there never was a hat."

Sondheim last fall gave us a monumental book called — not coincidentally — "Finishing the Hat." This was a survey of his lyrics, beginning with the legendary West Side Story and Gypsy; continuing with the Shows That Changed the World, Broadway-wise, namely the legendary Company and Follies; and taking us through the end of the so-called Sondheim/Prince years, with the legendary Sweeney Todd and the initially notorious Merrily We Roll Along. The lyrics were the bricks of the book; the commentary on the lyrics and shows was the cream, and the observations-in-passing on matters diverse was the schlag. (The Master would no doubt complain bitterly at the imperfect combination of bricks and dairy, and rightly so.)

As with Volume One, this is required reading for us all. Us meaning anyone with an interest in anything musical, in the theatrical sense. Reading through page after page of lyrics can be interesting, but not necessarily meaty — especially if the corresponding melody isn't rattling around in your brain. Which is why, I suppose, Sondheim has layered his tome with so much more. The purpose of each song within the context of the show and the plot; how and why he wrote the song, perhaps; and why it worked or didn't, or should have but stubbornly refused to cooperate.