美国国家公共电台 NPR How A 1981 Sondheim Flop Turned Out To Be The 'Best Worst Thing'

 

KELLY MCEVERS, HOST: 

A director looks sideways at a musical that goes backwards¹. That's what happens in a new documentary about a Broadway flop² that is now viewed as a classic. The film is called "Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened." Critic Bob Mondello says it has enough twists to give viewers whiplash.

BOB MONDELLO, BYLINE³: Most Broadway musicals that close after 16 performances barely prompt memories, let alone documentaries. But in 1981, the Stephen Sondheim show "Merrily We Roll Along" rolled along so bizarrely it became the stuff of legend, worthy⁴ of a post-mortem and a rummaging⁵ around in archives.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "BEST WORST THING THAT EVER COULD HAVE HAPPENED")

LONNY PRICE: This is definitely film.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: We'll get the film guys on it tomorrow.

PRICE: Wait, there's good stuff under there, and it says tryouts.

MONDELLO: A barely-out-of-his-teens Lonny Price played one of the leads in '81. Now he's a director looking back at his own acting⁶ debut⁷.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "BEST WORST THING THAT EVER COULD HAVE HAPPENED")

PRICE: Oh, here's my interview.

MONDELLO: When he queues it up, the kid staring back at him from the screen is an innocent, thrilled to be cast in the first project director Hal Prince and composer-lyricist Sondheim tackled after their Broadway triumph with "Sweeney Todd."

(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "BEST WORST THING THAT EVER COULD HAVE HAPPENED")

PRICE: You know, I get silly about it. I walk around smiling all day in the street. This show, if I never do anything again in the rest of my life, I will have had this moment. If I get hit by a truck the night after the opening, I don't think I'll care 'cause...

MONDELLO: He was perfect casting for the exuberant⁸ college kid he was playing. You can hear it in his voice on the original cast album.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "OUR TIME")

PRICE: (As Charley Kringas, singing) Something is stirring, shifting ground. It's just begun.

MONDELLO: This song, though, isn't how the show starts. It's how it ends. "Merrily We Roll Along" is about college pals⁹ whose friendship sours over time, but it's told in a way that sweetens over time. And that confused audiences.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "BEST WORST THING THAT EVER COULD HAVE HAPPENED")

PRICE: The big conceit¹⁰ of the show is that it goes backwards. These unhappy characters start in their 40s and in each following scene, it's a few years earlier. They're a few years younger, a few years less bitter, less jaded¹¹ until finally, at the end of the show, they're graduating from high school, optimistic and full of dreams, with no idea of what's to come.

MONDELLO: You could say that about the show's creators, too. Prince and Sondheim were pretty young back then, and an unbroken string of Broadway hits - "Company," "Follies," "A Little Night Music," "Sweeney Todd" - had not prepared them for what was about to happen with "Merrily." Oh, it started out like a song. Nothing but excitement in rehearsals¹², these gods of Broadway working with kids aged¹³ 16 to 25, including one by the name of Jason Alexander, who remembers for the camera the first time there was an audience out front.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "BEST WORST THING THAT EVER COULD HAVE HAPPENED")

JASON ALEXANDER: I don't think anything will ever top being behind the curtain, you know, just before the overture¹⁴ started at the first preview.

MONDELLO: And that's saying something. This is the guy who later played George on "Seinfeld," after all. But halfway¹⁵ through the first act, it all started coming apart. This going backwards thing and kids playing adults? The audience didn't get it.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "BEST WORST THING THAT EVER COULD HAVE HAPPENED")

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: I remember singing to the backs of people walking out of the theater. And someone could say that was not a subtle cue (laughter) that this show had problems.

MONDELLO: This first part of "Best Worst Thing" will be absolute catnip for Sondheim fans - the ecstasy¹⁶ and the agony, as it were. And then in the second half of the film, director Lonny Price does something unexpected. You think he'll chronicle what happened to the show, which is basically that after it flopped¹⁷ the creators figured out how to fix it so that it gets produced all the time now. Instead, he does what "Merrily" does.

He concentrates on what everything from disappointment to wild success did to the people involved. Their trajectories¹⁸ are riveting¹⁹ because "Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened" has all this footage of them when they were just starting out, footage from a TV special that was never broadcast and that includes that interview with the young Lonny Price that the grown-up Lonny Price was watching at the beginning of the film.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "BEST WORST THING THAT EVER COULD HAVE HAPPENED")

PRICE: If I get hit by a truck the night after the opening...

MONDELLO: He plays it again, and this time you watch him watching - couldn't feel more different. I'm Bob Mondello.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "OUR TIME")

PRICE: (As Charley Kringas, singing) Something is stirring, shifting ground. It's just begun. Edges are blurring²⁰ all around, and yesterday is done.

1 backwards   

adv.往回地，向原处，倒，相反，前后倒置地

参考例句：

• He turned on the light and began to pace backwards and forwards.他打开电灯并开始走来走去。
• All the girls fell over backwards to get the party ready.姑娘们迫不及待地为聚会做准备。

2 flop   

n.失败(者)，扑通一声；vi.笨重地行动，沉重地落下

参考例句：

• The fish gave a flop and landed back in the water.鱼扑通一声又跳回水里。
• The marketing campaign was a flop.The product didn't sell.市场宣传彻底失败，产品卖不出去。

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 worthy   

adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的

参考例句：

• I did not esteem him to be worthy of trust.我认为他不值得信赖。
• There occurred nothing that was worthy to be mentioned.没有值得一提的事发生。

5 rummaging   

翻找，搜寻( rummage的现在分词 )； 海关检查

参考例句：

• She was rummaging around in her bag for her keys. 她在自己的包里翻来翻去找钥匙。
• Who's been rummaging through my papers? 谁乱翻我的文件来着？

6 acting   

n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的

参考例句：

• Ignore her,she's just acting.别理她，她只是假装的。
• During the seventies,her acting career was in eclipse.在七十年代，她的表演生涯黯然失色。

7 debut   

n.首次演出，初次露面

参考例句：

• That same year he made his Broadway debut, playing a suave radio journalist.在那同一年里，他初次在百老汇登台，扮演一个温文而雅的电台记者。
• The actress made her debut in the new comedy.这位演员在那出新喜剧中首次登台演出。

8 exuberant   

adj.充满活力的；（植物）繁茂的

参考例句：

• Hothouse plants do not possess exuberant vitality.在温室里培养出来的东西，不会有强大的生命力。
• All those mother trees in the garden are exuberant.果园里的那些母树都长得十分茂盛。

9 pals   

n.朋友( pal的名词复数 )；老兄；小子；（对男子的不友好的称呼）家伙

参考例句：

• We've been pals for years. 我们是多年的哥们儿了。
• CD 8 positive cells remarkably increased in PALS and RP(P CD8+细胞在再生脾PALS和RP内均明显增加(P 来自互联网

10 conceit   

n.自负，自高自大

参考例句：

• As conceit makes one lag behind,so modesty helps one make progress.骄傲使人落后，谦虚使人进步。
• She seems to be eaten up with her own conceit.她仿佛已经被骄傲冲昏了头脑。

11 jaded   

adj.精疲力竭的；厌倦的；（因过饱或过多而）腻烦的；迟钝的

参考例句：

• I felt terribly jaded after working all weekend. 整个周末工作之后我感到疲惫不堪。
• Here is a dish that will revive jaded palates. 这道菜简直可以恢复迟钝的味觉。 来自《简明英汉词典》

12 rehearsals   

n.练习( rehearsal的名词复数 )；排练；复述；重复

参考例句：

• The earlier protests had just been dress rehearsals for full-scale revolution. 早期的抗议仅仅是大革命开始前的预演。
• She worked like a demon all through rehearsals. 她每次排演时始终精力过人。 来自《简明英汉词典》

13 aged   

adj.年老的，陈年的

参考例句：

• He had put on weight and aged a little.他胖了，也老点了。
• He is aged,but his memory is still good.他已年老，然而记忆力还好。

14 overture   

n.前奏曲、序曲，提议，提案，初步交涉

参考例句：

• The opera was preceded by a short overture.这部歌剧开始前有一段简短的序曲。
• His overture led to nothing.他的提议没有得到什么结果。

15 halfway   

adj.中途的，不彻底的，部分的；adv.半路地，在中途，在半途

参考例句：

• We had got only halfway when it began to get dark.走到半路，天就黑了。
• In study the worst danger is give up halfway.在学习上，最忌讳的是有始无终。

16 ecstasy   

n.狂喜，心醉神怡，入迷

参考例句：

• He listened to the music with ecstasy.他听音乐听得入了神。
• Speechless with ecstasy,the little boys gazed at the toys.小孩注视着那些玩具，高兴得说不出话来。

17 flopped   

v.（指书、戏剧等）彻底失败( flop的过去式和过去分词 )；（因疲惫而）猛然坐下；（笨拙地、不由自主地或松弛地）移动或落下；砸锅

参考例句：

• Exhausted, he flopped down into a chair. 他筋疲力尽，一屁股坐到椅子上。
• It was a surprise to us when his play flopped. 他那出戏一败涂地，出乎我们的预料。 来自《简明英汉词典》

18 trajectories   

n.弹道( trajectory的名词复数 )；轨道；轨线；常角轨道

参考例句：

• To answer this question, we need to plot trajectories of principal stresses. 为了回答这个问题，我们尚须画出主应力迹线图。 来自辞典例句
• In the space program the theory is used to determine spaceship trajectories. 在空间计划中，这个理论用于确定飞船的轨道。 来自辞典例句

19 riveting   

adj.动听的，令人着迷的，完全吸引某人注意力的；n.铆接（法）

参考例句：

• I find snooker riveting though I don't play myself.虽然我自己不打斯诺克，但是我觉得它挺令人着迷。
• To my amazement,I found it riveting.但令我惊讶的是，我发现它的吸引人处。

20 blurring   

n.模糊，斑点甚多，（图像的）混乱v.（使）变模糊( blur的现在分词 )；（使）难以区分

参考例句：

• Retinal hemorrhage, and blurring of the optic dise cause visual disturbances. 视网膜出血及神经盘模糊等可导致视力障碍。 来自辞典例句
• In other ways the Bible limited Puritan writing, blurring and deadening the pages. 另一方面，圣经又限制了清教时期的作品，使它们显得晦涩沉闷。 来自辞典例句