SONDHEIM, BOOK II: ONCE MORE, WITH FEELING

Imagine being on the phone for four hours. Nonstop.

Imagine Stephen Sondheim being on the other end.

Imagine the conversation.

“All about commas,” confided Craig Zadan, the wizard kid movie producer (“Footloose”) who’s just published a revised, enlarged, updated version of “Sondheim & Co.,” his 1973 volume on the shows and times of the composer-lyricist-legend. The book, with commas approved but otherwise without censorship from Sondheim, isn’t merely a labor of love. Obsession is closer to the mark.

“I haven’t articulated this before, or even realized it,” said Zadan late one recent afternoon, “but Stephen Sondheim represents a fantasy for the most surprising array of people. And I think I know why. Steve hasn’t compromised himself. I can think of almost nobody else in mainstream show business of whom this is true. Steve hasn’t listened, ever, to the people who told him to be commercial. He was able to fail on Broadway, on his own terms, try again, fail a little less or succeed wildly, then start anew on something else. He has paid for not compromising, and he has the scars. But he remained true to himself, and people are drawn to him.”

And, especially lately, to the work: Next week, Sondheim’s 14th musical, “Into the Woods,” begins performances at San Diego’s Old Globe (see Dan Sullivan’s adjoining column). Friday, his cult flop “Anyone Can Whistle” is being revived at Hollywood’s Roland Dupree Studios. Last month alone saw three California productions of “Sunday in the Park With George.”

And then there’s the road: Zadan just returned from Chicago, where he got a shock. The Windy City is having a Sondheimfest. Five of the composer’s shows were opening or closing, in dinner theaters or campus theaters. Clearly, Sondheim is now drawing crowds, not just cults.

Zadan was first drawn to Sondheim 15 years ago when the then-journalist, age 21, met the composer, age 41, in the lobby of the Alvin Theatre during the run of “Company.”

“One night earlier, I’d gone to see Lauren Bacall in ‘Applause,’ and thought, ‘Well, this is Broadway, this is what a well-crafted piece of musical theater looks like.’ The next night, at ‘Company,’ I was on the edge of my seat. I rethought everything I thought I knew about Broadway. I hadn’t known Steve’s work that well. He wasn’t yet truly famous, and he’d come off some flops (“Do I Hear a Waltz?,” “Anyone Can Whistle”). So when I asked for an interview, after a while he said yes.”

The “yes” was only a first. Zadan had then (and has now) the kind of persuasiveness of which producers are born. In his Hollywood Hills house that was built by Rudy Vallee, Zadan still sits on the edge of his seat, for hours. He’s savvy about Sondheim without being slavish. It was within a year of meeting Sondheim (and turning 22) that Zadan co-produced the first star tribute to the composer, got a live double album of the evening recorded by Warner Bros., and even convinced Sondheim himself to sing a solo (“Anyone Can Whistle”).

“I remember a month before, Steve’s music publisher Tommy Valando calling me into his office,” remembered Zadan, waving his arms to show panic. “Tommy said: ‘Who do you think you are? You told Angela Lansbury she would be recorded live! No record company will do this!’ I didn’t have Warner Bros. yet, I was humiliated, and I called Steve. He said, ‘Don’t be humiliated. Prove him wrong.’ ”

To tackle a book is different from tackling a one-night tribute, however. Zadan needed a “yes” from major Sondheim collaborators to acquire material. The book, after all, is called “Sondheim & Co.” and it is not by any means a whip-and-tell biography. It’s a show-by-show, topic-by-topic look at how Broadway musicals are built from the ground up (or down). That meant cooperation from names like Leonard Bernstein, Ethel Merman, Jule Styne, etc.

Recalled Zadan: “It came about so circuitously. A book editor I met at a party said, ‘The new book on Cole Porter is remarkable. We want to do a book on whomever the contemporary guy is who’s closest to Cole Porter.’ ” When Zadan first approached Sondheim, the response was swift: “Who’s going to read it, my mother?”

Zadan set about proving Sondheim wrong by writing an outline and chapters for what he conceived as “an eavesdrop on Broadway, a kind of spy-documentary look at insiders working. I wanted you to feel you were in the room with Steve and, say, Arthur Laurents when they made choices about ‘Gypsy.’ Or ‘West Side Story.’ I wanted you to see the egos and temperaments. I wanted the ‘Rashomon’ quality of differing points-of-view.”

After Sondheim told his friends to talk to Zadan, nobody demurred. “Oh, Jerry Robbins got fanatical and made it so difficult,” cringed Zadan. “Finally he did talk to me, but I used the material as background rather than quoting him directly.”

For the new edition (Harper & Row: $27.95), Zadan entrenched himself in his trilevel view-of-the-world house, not leaving from Friday nights until Monday mornings, for months on end. Zadan, no longer 22, had half a dozen film projects developing, and for him the timing had to be now .

“The publisher said ‘Maybe next Christmas’ and I said ‘Not on your life.’ It had to be this year. It was about timing. And about the success of Barbra Streisand’s ‘Broadway Album.’ And ‘Into the Woods,’ and the upcoming touring revival of ‘A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum’ with Mickey Rooney.’ And the Pulitzer Prize for ‘Sunday in the Park. . . .’ ”

And, in a way, about a new subject. Clearly Zadan was now dealing with a different Sondheim on some levels. The composer’s heart attack in 1979 at age 49 was a turning point. So was the temporary split of the longtime symbiotic team of producer-director Harold Prince and Sondheim after the flop of “Merrily We Roll Along.”

Since “Sunday in the Park,” he (and others) has noticed in Sondheim a “certain . . . rebirth,” Zadan said, “Before he tended to fat, smoked too much, and dressed badly. Steve could look like he just got back from Vietnam. Now you see him with this marvelous beard, clear eyes and he’s trim from exercising. He doesn’t smoke or drink much. He looks happier. I think the turmoil is still there, but it no longer shows.”

The turmoil is the one missing piece from either version of “Sondheim & Co.,” and that’s on purpose. “I wasn’t interested in Steve’s private life, and he wasn’t interested in my writing about it,” said Zadan flatly. “Someday a biographer will do that.” But doesn’t a singular image of Sondheim--standing in a doorway at Boston’s Ritz-Carlton looking tortured 10 minutes before writing “Send in the Clowns” in one sitting--count for something? Don’t the artist’s personal conflicts create the art?

“Yes, but the answers to every personal question are in his lyrics. The lyrics from ‘Sunday in the Park’ are more revealing of Steve than any interview could ever be. Especially ‘Everybody Loves Louie,’ which I believe is Steve’s answer to those people who suggest he should write hummable melodies like Jerry Herman (“Mame,” “Hello, Dolly!”). The song about Louie is revealing in the same way that having dinner with Steve is revealing; at dinner you realize that in an age where people are routinely called ‘genius,’ this man really is one. And most of the others aren’t.”

But to press a point--what of Sondheim’s demons? Is Zadan merely toeing the party line by ignoring Sondheim’s dark side? “Again, go back to the lyrics. Steve’s teacher, Oscar Hammerstein, wrote ‘Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’!’ and Steve, the pupil, wrote ‘Every Day a Little Death.’ The dark side is not exactly hidden. “ ‘Finishing the Hat’ comes closest to explaining Steve’s life, his dedication and its price. At the end of ‘Merrily We Roll Along,’ there was this sense of disappointment. Then came ‘Sunday,’ which began as a workshop--something new for a Broadway baby like Steve--and new colleagues like (writer-director) James Lapine, who teams again with Sondheim on ‘Into the Woods.’ From ‘Sunday’ came the song ‘Move On,’ which is what Steve has done and is doing.”

But in what one way has Sondheim most changed? “He’s calmer now most of all, and less intolerant,” decided Zadan. “I see Steve now and I think, ‘Who is this? This is a whole new person. I don’t recognize this.’ Even the clothes are terrific.” Thus the new Sondheim deserved a new edition to the only book yet written about him.

Yet Zadan too had changed: Formerly a production vice president at United Artists (crunched out by “Heaven’s Gate”), he’s since formed his own company, Storyline Productions. In March, he’ll again team with “Footloose” collaborator (and longtime friend) Dean Pitchford on a musical for Tri-Star called “Sing,” to be directed by Richard Baskin.

How does a movie producer play Boswell to a Broadway legend 3,000 miles away? “You do it by becoming obsessive yourself. If I pick up the book now and find a quotation mark missing, I can’t sleep all night. I think Steve’s not compromising, ever, is what kept me interested for 12 years. I never wanted to write a book about anybody else, and probably won’t, but what I’ve learned is invaluable for a producer.”

Example: A non-musical line of Sondheim’s has become a signpost for Zadan. “Steve said his idea of ‘great’ was when an audience screams with laughter for two hours, then goes home and can’t sleep.”

But can Zadan put Sondheim to bed now? Is there another sequel in the works? Would Zadan do anything thrice?

His grin was awfully boyish. “Well, when Steve signed my book, he wrote: ‘Let’s hope there are enough shows--and enough life--for another go in 1996.’ ”