Alan Jay Lerner: A Lyricist's Letters (44 page)

    
Critical reactions to the piece improved in Washington, where the
Washington Post
’s appraisal was complimentary to the show’s overall aims while admitting that “the play is still in a state of flux.”
¹⁶
The
New York Post
even went so far as to announce that “The Potholes Are Gone from ‘1600 Penn Av.’” and reported that the opening night performance in Washington on March 24 “won enthusiastic audience acclaim.”
¹⁷
The article continued: “It has had its troubles, but most of them appear to have been surmounted.…Both the book and the score were extensively reworked, and an official opening at the capital’s National Theater was delayed twice to allow for more changes in the production.” Suddenly, the show was deemed “light-hearted,” “tuneful,” “brisk,” and “brightly colorful,” and the article ended by stating that “Both the singing and dancing are superior to most musicals’ opening nights.”

    
But the New York critics disagreed when it finally reached Broadway on May 4, deeming it “a colossal embarrassment” (
Women’s Wear Daily
) and “an impossible enterprise” (
Daily News
). The concept and staging never quite
worked, and in reply to a supportive telegram from his friend Katharine Hepburn, Lerner admitted defeat:

    
To Katharine Hepburn

    
May 6, 1976

    
Dearest Kate,

    
It was a lot better than when you saw it, but I guess all work and no play closes Saturday night.

        
Thank you so much for your telegram. I’ll call you next week. I’d love to see you.

Always,

Alan

The show lasted just one week, and on closing night Lerner wrote a poignant note to his collaborator, communicating his grief at the disastrous reception the show had received:

    
To Leonard Bernstein

    
May 8, 1976

    
Dearest Lenny,

    
I’m sad this show has been the agony it has been for you. I have loved working with you, being with you—and I shall treasure our moments of excitement together always.

        
I can’t say anymore. This day is a killer. And tonight a pogrom.

        
I hope we can work again—I do.

Love always,

Alan

    
Though
1600
had experienced a rough road to Broadway, Lerner did have something to celebrate. March 1976 saw a major New York revival of
My Fair Lady
, produced by Herman Levin, with whom Lerner had patched things up after their disagreements in the latter stages of the first Broadway run. The original designs, costumes, and orchestrations were adopted and only lightly tweaked for the revival, and both the original direction and choreography were revisited. Even Robert Coote returned to his old role of Pickering. Commenting on this approach, Levin said: “Outside of the fact that intelligent actors interpret their
parts according to their particular abilities there is no change.…This is the classical musical show of the American theater. I think a classical musical has every right to be done over, just as a classical play is done.”
¹⁸
The critics agreed with Levin’s opinion: Clive Barnes said that the show “can still dance all night—and does,” while Walter Kerr declared that there was “no reason why this shouldn’t run as long as there’s justice, and a thirst for lilting bewitchment, in the world.”
¹⁹
Only a few weeks later, these same critics would describe
1600
as “tedious and simplistic” (Barnes) and a “moralizing bore” (Kerr), but at least Lerner could be proud of the continued success of his indisputable masterpiece from 1956.

    
Perhaps ready for something nearer the lightness of
Fair Lady
after the severity of
1600
, in June, Lerner hit upon the Melvin Frank
²⁰
film
Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell
(1968) as the basis for his next musical. The plot concerns an Italian woman who has slept with three American GIs within ten days during the War and is unsure which of them is the father of her daughter. She convinces all three to contribute toward the child’s maintenance, but encounters problems when the men return to her village for a reunion and discover the truth. To write the score for
Carmelina
, as it would be called, Lerner turned one last time to Burton Lane, and Herman Levin came on board to produce, following their reconciliation during the
Fair Lady
revival. “I think his new lyrics are the best he’s ever done,” commented Lane of Lerner’s initial work on the show. They had decided to finish the score and then write the dialogue afterward, so that “the score won’t be cemented into the book,” Lane continued. “And dialogue does come rather easily to Alan.”
²¹
Work began in the fall of 1976, but in the winter Lerner departed for Australia to attend a conference on musical theater at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music; Stephen Sondheim
²²
and Harold Prince
²³
would be among the other participants.
²⁴
During the journeys to and from the conference, he started another project, which turned out arguably to be his masterpiece of
the decade: a memoir about writing
My Fair Lady, Gigi
, and
Camelot
, which would eventually become
The Street Where I Live
. The book was dictated to his secretary and later edited by Lerner in print form; this approach perhaps explains why some factual slips made their way to print, including a misquotation of part of his own song, “I Could Have Danced All Night.”
²⁵

    
Back in New York, in mid-February 1977 he participated in a tribute to Ira Gershwin with various colleagues including Arthur Schwartz. Then in March Lerner and Lane announced
Carmelina
to the press, by which time about half of the score had been completed. Lerner had reverted to writing the lyrics after the music had been composed, in contrast to his approach with Bernstein, though he would not sit in the room while Lane wrote the music, which was his procedure with Loewe.
²⁶
Bernstein came back into Lerner’s life briefly when Goddard Lieberson, the beloved record producer, died of cancer on May 29. A close friend of both Bernstein and Lerner, Lieberson had also produced the original cast albums of
My Fair Lady
and
West Side Story
, among many others, and the composer and lyricist were devastated, as is clear from the following letter:

    
To Leonard Bernstein

    
[Undated; early June, 1977]

    
Dearest Lenny:

    
Your letter touched me so. I can’t tell you how happy I was to hear from you. I have thought of you often and lovingly and only kept away because I did not want to remind you of last year’s pain in the middle of this year’s.

        
Oh, how terrible it is about Goddard. I was away for a week and only heard last night at midnight when I returned. Dear, dear chum—be happy. We are at the wrong end of time and I am determined not to waste a moment or miss an opportunity. We must, we must, we must.

        
Yes, I have gotten over
1600
because I am writing furiously. I have sold a book to Viking and I’ve about 1/3 finished a new musical. I’ll tell you about it when I see you—after this agonizing week is over.

        
I’ll be seeing you any minute, I suspect, but I wanted to write you first.

        
Thank you again for your sad, darling note. What a year!!

Always,

Alan

    
In July, Levin approached legendary Broadway director-choreographer Jerome Robbins to direct
Carmelina
. Although Robbins was ambivalent about the idea, he agreed at least to develop the show with them. But over the summer, Levin and Lane clashed, and the producer walked away. In October, Lerner wrote to Robbins to update him on the situation, and to propose Roger Stevens—who had been a staunch ally on
1600
—as a replacement for Levin:

    
To Jerome Robbins

    
October 19th, 1977

    
Dear Jerry,

    
Here is the play in its last version of the summer season.

        
The opening is still the way you first heard it, but that is only because I have not finished the new lyric. The way I am doing it now, it is exclusively Vittorio’s number. I will quote the first two lines because they may give you an indication:

        
Twilight in San Forino—thank you, dear Lord.

        
All day in San Forino I am so bored.

        
He curses his fate having to stay in this poor excuse for a village, indicates the house wherein lives the reason he is there—then ends under her balcony imploring her to emerge. Instead, Fat Rose comes out. Then it goes on roughly the same.

        
In Scene 4, because the song for the three Americans is still vague, the dialogue leading up to it is also. That whole moment needs a total conception. I have a few notions, but we have not addressed ourselves to them as yet.

        
Without going into unnecessary detail, the question of management is now open. It was neither of my doing or desire, but unfortunately there was, shall we say, a clash of personality between Burt and Herman, and Herman decided as much as he loved the show, and as happy as he and I were to be working together again, he cared more for the level of his blood pressure.

        
If by any blessed happenstance we could join forces—meaning you, Burt and I—I am certain we could make an arrangement with Roger Stevens to take care of the sordid business. That is, of course, if you like him as much as I do. I believe he would give us the maximum support with the minimum of interference. I have never known anyone to behave better than he did when my recent ship went down.
²⁷

        
I was sorry to hear you were not feeling well and I hope it is both trivial and brief. I also hope reading the play will not dampen your enthusiasm. We can meet any day next week (or night) that is convenient for you. Until then—

Faithfully,

Alan

Stevens came on board as producer, and Robbins continued to discuss the show with Lerner and Lane, but in February 1978 he abruptly pulled out, citing lack of time and the fact that what he called the “light Mozart-Goldoni” aspect of the piece, which is what had interested him in the show, had failed to emerge.
²⁸
This was a setback, and with the addition of casting problems, the show was not ready to open until 1979.

    
Meanwhile, Lerner had continued to send and receive his usual mix of business and personal letters. For instance, in October 1977 he received a request from Lotte Lenya, Kurt Weill’s widow, to allow her to instigate a revival of
Love Life
, a piece of which she was apparently very fond. In his reply, Lerner admitted to having doubts about his own work on the show, perhaps compounded by its conceptual similarities to the recent
1600
, but made his affection for her, and for Weill’s music, very clear:

    
To Lotte Lenya

    
October 27, 1977

    
Dearest Lenya,

    
I wish I loved the book and lyrics as much as I love the music.

        
What do you want to do with it? I ask only out of curiosity and not because your answer will condition my judgment. I could never say “no” to you, so automatically that means yes.

        
I will be in New York for the indefinite future and I am available to be consulted or ignored with equal affection.

Love,

Alan

    
He also replied to a request from fellow lyricist Sammy Cahn,
²⁹
who was evidently planning a book on lyric writing and wanted to know what Lerner’s favorite rhymes of his own writing were. Though Cahn did later publish a
Songwriter’s Rhyming Dictionary
, it did not contain contributions from other lyricists, so it is interesting to see which of his own couplets Lerner was proud of:

    
To Sammy Cahn

    
January 24, 1978

    
Dear Sammy,

    
I don’t know what to say. I have been moving and somehow your letter got put somewhere and I only read it over the weekend—two months late.

        
Am I too late to join the club? In the hopes that I am not, I am enclosing a one-page bio and a photo.

        
As for my favorite rhymes, I have never thought of myself as being particularly skillful at “clever-cleverness.” If backed against the wall, however, I suppose I would choose:

        
“Besieged/Noblessly Obliged” [from “What Do the Simple Folk Do?,”
Camelot
]

        
“Sport/Rigor Mort’” [from “The Seven Deadly Virtues,”
Camelot
]

        
“Budapest/Ruder pest” [from “You Did It,”
My Fair Lady
]

        
I think the idea for the book is marvelous. I hope to see you soon.

Faithfully,

Alan Jay Lerner

    
In April, he heard that Felicia Bernstein, the composer’s wife, had been suffering from lung cancer and wrote to offer his sympathy (tragically, she died soon after on June 16):

    
To Leonard Bernstein

    
April 26, 1978

    
Dear Lenny: