Sondheim's newest musical, Passion which opened this May of 1994, reunites him with James Lapine. Critics are baffled, trying to understand how Sondheim, after all these years of condemnation, would create a love story. Passion combines Romanticism in all of it emotional spender with a Nineties sensibility toward the problems with dysfunctional relationships. The obsessed woman learns to detach a little which captures the passion of her beloved. Once they each have some perspective, they decide to consummate their love.
Passion is difficult to categorize, difficult to understand, but beautiful to feel and see and hear.
This time one must let it happen and be willing to open their senses, rather than judge and analyze. Each musical is a new and different experience, but all the musicals challenge the individual and the society. When an artist challenges societal expectations, and dares to challenge conservative convention and conservative thought, he or she will always have a societal struggle. Sondheim's societal struggle is his art and our nation's treasure. End Notes 1 - Gypsy, Stephen Sondheim, Jules Styne, and Arthur Laurents.