Alan Jay Lerner: A Lyricist's Letters (6 page)

        
Anything you’ve heard to the contrary please ignore. There’s obviously a malicious little gremlin loose in the theater.

        
See you tomorrow.

As always,

Alan

    
In spite of Lerner’s efforts to ensure a smooth transition into the new cast,
Paint Your Wagon
only ran until July 19. Then the writers took the opportunity to revise the piece for the national tour. Looking back over the creative process in December 1952, Lerner explained in
Theatre Arts
that his vision had taken a long time to come into focus:

    
I started
Paint Your Wagon
in 1947. I began thinking about it the month after
Brigadoon
opened.
Brigadoon
was my first real success. I discovered after it opened that I was guilty of the success illusion just like anyone else. You somehow expect your emotional tensions of the past to disappear overnight. Well, it just doesn’t work that way. Realizing this, I decided to write about it, and that’s how
Paint Your Wagon
started. My original thought was of the first scene. I visualized two wagons: one going
hopefully
to the gold country, and the other coming back in
despair
. I guess this more or less symbolically represented the reaching for and achieving of personal success. I wanted to tell the story of these two wagons and what lay between their coming and going. Actually, as
things developed, I finally decided to write the life and death of a ghost town, and to do it in a serious tone.

        
I did enormous research. It may be that I did too much for the play’s good. I think that I became so impassioned with realistic values that I forgot that musical theater is not really interested in that kind of truth. I realize now that I was trying to write what the British call a
gutsy
musical: a lusty, bawdy reproduction of an era. I even tried to write realistic, non-theatrical lyrics.

        
The reason for so many changes [to the score] was that as we rehearsed each scene in Philadelphia, the show was fine. But when we put all the scenes together, the show fell apart. From the third week of rehearsals to the third week out of town, we were still making changes. Most of the work was done in Boston—two weeks before coming to New York.

        
One of the problems was a confusion of style. The scenery and the dancing matched; they were both done impressionistically. The music and the book also matched, but they were done realistically. This conflict hurt the unity of the show.

        
Looking back, I realize that the play got watered down by compromise after compromise.…I talked to a lot of people about the show, and I listened to their criticisms. Finally, I sat down and rewrote it. The really important thing is that my original intentions for the show are still valid and worthwhile. I believe in an honest reproduction of life on the musical stage. I believe in the
gutsy
musical I tried to do. What’s more, I believe that musical theatre has to welcome that kind of treatment of earthy people.
¹⁵⁶

But even the revised touring version folded quickly, and
Wagon
never quite repeated the success of
Brigadoon
. Curiously, the London production (1953: 477 performances) ran longer than its Broadway incarnation (289 performances), suggesting that perhaps the exoticism of the Wild West was more appealing to a British audience. Then again, it hardly mattered any more.
Brigadoon
hinted at what was to come from the Lerner and Loewe team, and
Love Life
was among the most ambitious musicals Broadway had yet seen. With the appearance of
An American in Paris, Royal Wedding
, and
Paint Your Wagon
in quick succession, Lerner was now a force to be reckoned with.

    
1
Frederick Loewe (1901–88) was the composer of most of Lerner’s greatest successes, including
Brigadoon
(1947),
Paint Your Wagon
(1951),
My Fair Lady
(1956),
Gigi
(1958), and
Camelot
(1960).

    
2
Alan Jay Lerner,
The Street Where I Live
(London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1978),16.

    
3
Brothers George Gershwin (1898–1937) and Ira Gershwin (1896–1983) formed one of the most successful composer-lyricist teams of the 1920s and 1930s. Their songs were used extensively in Lerner’s screenplay for
An American in Paris
. As one of the leading lyricists of the previous generation, Ira Gershwin was revered by Lerner, while the Gershwins’
Porgy and Bess
was one of Lerner’s favorite works.

    
4
Richard Rodgers (1902–79) was one of the most prolific and successful Broadway composers of the twentieth century, particularly noted for his rich collaborations with Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein II. He also briefly collaborated with Lerner on an aborted project in the 1960s.

    
5
Lorenz Hart (1895–1943) was the first of Richard Rodgers’s two major lyricists. Their hit musicals include
On Your Toes
(1936),
Babes in Arms
(1937), and
Pal Joey
(1940).

    
6
Irving Berlin (1888–1989) was the composer and lyricist of numerous musicals, including
Annie Get Your Gun
(1946) and
Call Me Madam
(1950). Among his dozens of successful songs are “Cheek to Cheek,” “Let’s Face the Music and Dance,” “White Christmas” and “God Bless America.”

    
7
Vincent Youmans (1898–1946) wrote a number of successful musicals in the 1920s and 1930s, most notably
No, No, Nanette
(1925).

    
8
Lerner,
Street
, 17.

    
9
Alan Jay Lerner,
The Musical Theatre: A Celebration
(Glasgow: Collins, 1986)
.

    
10
Jerome Kern (1885–1945) was a prolific composer of musicals including
Show Boat
(1927) and
Roberta
(1933).

    
11
Oscar Hammerstein II (1895–1960) was one of Broadway’s most beloved librettists and lyricists and was best known as the second major collaborator (along with Lorenz Hart) of composer Richard Rodgers.

    
12
DuBose Heyward (1885–1940) wrote the play
Porgy
(1927) and collaborated with Ira Gershwin on the libretto and lyrics for its operatic adaptation,
Porgy and Bess
(1935).

    
13
Lerner,
The Musical Theatre
, 69 and 133.
Show Boat
opened on December 27, 1927, and ran for 572 performances.
Porgy and Bess
opened on October 10, 1935, and ran for 124 performances.

    
14
Reproduced in
Stephen Citron,
The Wordsmiths
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 107
.

    
15
Lerner,
Street
, 19.

    
16
John F. Kennedy (1917–63) was the 35th president of the United States from January 1961 until he was assassinated in November 1963.

    
17
“Awards Bestowed at Choate School,”
New York Times
, May 24, 1936, N10.

    
18
Lerner,
Street
, 24.

    
19
Cole Porter (1891–1964) was the composer and lyricist of musicals including
Anything Goes
(1934) and
Kiss Me, Kate
(1948).

    
20
Copies of the songs were consulted in the Library of Congress’s copyright deposit.

    
21
Benjamin Welles (1916–2002) was a famous biographer and journalist.

    
22
Nathaniel Benchley (1915–81) was a major novelist and children’s author.

    
23
Stanley Miller (1916–77) went on to work as a Voice of America aide in Washington, D.C.

    
24
“Hasty Pudding Show Socks Café Society,”
Harvard Crimson
, February 29, 1938. (Accessed at
http://www.thecrimson.harvard.edu/article/1938/2/19/hasty-pudding-show-socks-cafe-society/?print=1
on January 9, 2013.)

    
25
“Hasty Pudding Goes on National Hookup in Preview Tonight,”
Harvard Crimson
, March 23, 1938. (Accessed at
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1938/3/23/hasty-pudding-goes-on-national-hookup/
on January 9, 2013.)

    
26
“Hasty Pudding’s Graduates See Show,”
Harvard Crimson
, March 29, 1938. (Accessed at
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1938/3/29/hasty-puddings-graduates-see-show-eat/
on January 9, 2013.)

    
27
“Harvard Players Give a Satire Here,”
New York Times
, April 9, 1938.

    
28
Elliot Forbes (1917–2006) was an eminent musicologist, perhaps best known for revising
Thayer’s Life of Beethoven
.

    
29
Francis C. Lawrance (?–2004) was president of J. S. Frelinghuysen Insurance Co. of New York.

    
30
Sherwood Rollins (1919–82) formed his own executive search firm, Sherwood Rollins Company, in New York, and went on to write musical shows for charity benefits as a longtime member of the Tavern Club in Boston.

    
31
Leroy Anderson (1908–75) was a major composer and conductor who specialized in “light” music.

    
32
C. L. B., “Hasty Pudding Theatricals,”
Harvard Crimson
, March 28, 1939. (Accessed at
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1939/3/28/the-playgoer-pin-its-93rd-production/
on January 9, 2013.)

    
33
“Revue Given Here by Harvard Group,”
New York Times
, April 9, 1939, G6.

    
34
Edward C. Lilley (1896–1974) was active on Broadway as a director of musicals and operettas, especially in the 1930s.

    
35
Actor and director Arthur Pierson (1901–75) was born in Norway but raised in Seattle and worked as both an actor and director on Broadway and in Hollywood. His appearances included playing Lorenzo in Hal Roach’s film
The Devil’s Brother
(1933) and Demetrius in Max Reinhardt’s famous production of
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
(1937) on Broadway.

    
36
“News of the Stage,”
New York Times
, October 6, 1939, 35.

    
37
Lerner’s self-entry in the Harvard Class report of 1946 is quoted in
Edward Jablonski,
Alan Jay Lerner: A Biography
(New York: Henry Holt, 1996), 13
.

    
38
Lerner,
Street
, 27–28.

    
39
Gene Lees usefully indicates some of the other versions in
Inventing Champagne: The Worlds of Lerner and Loewe
(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1990), 41–42
.

    
40
Barry Conners (1882–1933) was an actor and writer of a number of successful plays, including
Hell’s Bells
(1925), which featured the Broadway debuts of Humphrey Bogart and Shirley Booth.

    
41
“Revival Tonight for Capek’s R.U.R.,”
New York Times
, December 3, 1942, 34.

    
42
“News and Gossip Picked Up on the Rialto,”
New York Times
, August 8, 1943, X2. Mark Warnow (1900–49) was a conductor and violinist.
What’s Up?
is his only Broadway credit, though he worked with success for CBS/Columbia, including as a conductor and arranger for Frank Sinatra.

    
43
Sam Zolotow, “Warnow Musical Opening Tonight,”
New York Times
, November 11, 1943, 30.

    
44
George Balanchine (1904–83) choreographed more than 400 ballets, including work with Rodgers and Hart on
On Your Toes
and
Babes in Arms
.

    
45
Comedian Jimmy Savo (1895–1960) enjoyed success on Broadway in the original production of Rodgers and Hart’s
The Boys from Syracuse
(1938).

    
46
“‘Land of Fame’ Will Open Sept. 21,”
New York Times
, August 9, 1943, 19. Sam Zolotow, “The Franken Play Coming to Royale,”
New York Times
, October 5, 1943, 30.

    
47
Lewis Nichols, “A Group of Young People Sing and Dance the Measures of ‘What’s Up’ at the National,”
New York Times
, November 12, 1943, 24.

    
48
Sam Zolotow, “Draper and Adler at the City Center,”
New York Times
, December 31, 1943, 18.

    
49
“Ethel Barrymore May Return Dec. 4,”
New York Times
, November 18, 1944, 17.

    
50
John C. Wilson (1899–1961) had a prolific career on Broadway as producer or director of
Kiss Me, Kate
(1948),
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
(1949), and
Make a Wish
(1951), among many plays and musicals.

    
51
Sam Zolotow, “New Musical Play Due in September,”
New York Times
, April 27, 1945, 23.

    
52
Sam Zolotow, “Rights to ‘Spring’ Sought by Metro,”
New York Times
, June 13, 1945, 28.

    
53
Irene Dunne (1898–1990) was a film star whose hits included
Show Boat
(1936),
The Awful Truth
(1937), and
I Remember Mama
(1948).