College Essay係列（五十二）：2024 哈佛成功文書（7）

第七篇，Lauren 的《Sondheim’s Musicals》

Lunch and recess were opportunities to ‘play’ Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd, so we murdered our friends. We’d bake the dead into meat pies and scream cacophonously, “WE ALL DESERVE TO DIE!” Nine-year-old me even teased my hair, donned my Mrs. Lovett costume for Halloween, and rambled on about Australian penal colonies and how dead fiddle players make for “stringy” meat. You cannot imagine my disappointment when everybody thought I was Frankenstein’s Bride.

Like Gypsy Rose Lee, my siblings and I spent our formative years at rehearsals and performances, where I was indoctrinated into the cult that worships Sondheim. In our household, Sondheimian theatre was a religion (I’m not sure how I feel about God, but I do believe in Sondheim.) My brother and I read Sondheim’s autobiography, Finishing the Hat, like the bible, reading the book cover to cover and returning to page one the moment we finished. At six, he introduced me to Sondheim’s West Side Story, which illustrates the harms of poverty and systematic racism. Initially, I only appreciated Jerome Robbins’ choreography (Sorry, Mr. Shakespeare). When I revisited the musical years later, I had a visceral reaction as I witnessed young adults engaging in deadly gang rivalries. Experiencing Tony’s gruesome death forced me, a middle-class suburbanite, to feel the devastating effects of inner-city violence, and my belief in the need for early intervention programs to prevent urban gun violence was born.

I began to discover political and historical undertones in all of Sondheim’s work. For example, Assassins whirlwinds from the Lincoln era up to Reagan’s Presidency. Originally, I simply thought it was hysterical to belt Lynette Fromme’s love ballad to Charles Manson. Later, I realized how much history I had unknowingly retained from this musical. The song “November 22, 1963” reflects on America’s most notorious assassination attempts, and alludes to each assassin being motivated by a desperate attempt to connect to a specific individual or culture to gain control over their life. Assassins awakened me to the flaws in some of our quintessential American ideals because the song “Everybody’s Got the Right” illustrates how the American individualism enshrined in our Constitution can be twisted to support hate, harm, and entitlement. I internalized Sondheim’s political commentary, and I see its relevance in America's most pressing issues. The misconstrued idea of limitless freedom can be detrimental to public health, worsening issues such as the climate crisis, gun violence, and the coronavirus pandemic. These existential threats largely stem from antiquated ideas that the rights of the few outweigh the rights of the majority. Ironically, a musical about individuals who tried to dismantle our American political system sparked my political interests, but this speaks to the power of Sondheim’s music and my ability to make connections and draw inspiration from unlikely sources.

Absorbing historical and political commentary set to music allows my statistical and logical brain to better empathize with the characters, giving me a deeper understanding of the conflicts portrayed on stage, almost like reading a diary. Theatremakers are influenced by both history and their life experiences. I internalize their underlying themes and values, and my mindset shifts to reflect the art that I adore. I’m an aspiring political changemaker, and Sondheim’s musicals influence my political opinions by enabling me to empathize with communities living drastically different lives from my own.

I sang Sondheim melodies before I could talk. As I grew intellectually and emotionally, Sondheim’s musicals began to carry more weight. With each viewing, I retained new historical and political information. This ritual drives me to continue studying Sondheim and enables me to confidently walk my own path because Sondheim’s work passively strengthens my ethics as I continue to extrapolate relevant life lessons from his melodies. Sondheim’s stories, with their complex, morally ambiguous characters, have solidified my ironclad set of morals which, together with my love of history, have blossomed into a passion for human rights and politics.

 

作者是一個音樂表演專業的女生。從兒童時代的閱讀興趣中發現桑德海姆，再從桑德海姆中找到城市問題的解決方案，這是一個簡單的敘事結構。讀到它，我好像讀到了一篇上好的ELA英語課或者AP Lit Comp課的homework essay。英語老師會給她A+，哈佛的AO也會給她A。這，也可以嗎？

除了有關桑德海姆的知識外，我確實沒有讀出什麽Surprise來。即使有人讀出個知識上的Surprise，它還局限於主觀性範疇。沒有客觀性，所以我最多能給這篇A-。

其實，作者隻要寫出一個以桑德海姆投身到inner-city intervention的活動中，用它去影響了一個人，完成了一項任務，都會促使我把這篇的評分提升一個檔次。如果你想了解怎樣提升這類選材，可以_______的文書課。在大學申請文書中，以文學、戲劇、表演、音樂等內容為主題的故事，是一個越來越常見的題材。寫得好，不容易。