The following interview transcript with Arthur
Laurents has been carefully broken down into
segments involving a variety of topics. Below
each segment is a link to the corresponding
video clip. Please attribute research sources to
Mike Wood, Interviewer and the William
Inge Center for the Arts.
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A plot scheme |
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Then this girl from the act
suggested that we take a course in radio
writing, at NYU. It cost thirty bucks. So I
thought why not. It was given by a guy named
Bill Robson who was the prototype for the
director in The Way We Were. Wears a
trench coat, a moustache. Went to the Stork
Club. Hell of a lot of fun. He really
existed. So, he didn't turn up for the first
three days. I said, "I want my money back."
Sylvia, that was the girl, said, "Be patient."
So, the next he came, he asked us to write an
adaptation of something. So, I wouldn't do it.
She said, "Why not?" I said, "I don't do
somebody else's work. I want mine." So, the
next time he asked for an original, and I wrote
it. He was one of the heads of CBS's
experimental radio show. He said, "We're buying
it." And the fee was a hundred bucks, which
they did not pay me. They gave me my tuition
back…thirty dollars. However, I wrote another
for him, and then he got me to work for him. I
mean, where he went I went. Through that there
were openings, and I was writing all of these
half hour shows. Lux Radio Theater. And you
have to invent these stories. I have a very
fertile mind, but I thought, "I can't…how turn
out so many plots?" So I worked out a system.
I made a list of the most successful movies of
the time…do you know about this…
MW: I think I know where you're
going, but I want to hear about it…
AL: …and I put down what
elements which in each movie added to its
success…what plot point. I gave them A, B, C,
D, E, and so forth. And then when I wanted a
plot I would say, "I'll take C, G, and J." and
then I would take them and twist them. So I had
an endless supply of plots. Then I got drafted.
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Radio writing teaches economy |
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You learn an awful lot from radio
writing. You learn economy, because it's the
only form that has an absolute, rigid time
frame. You can only have so many minutes. They
do in television too I suppose, but they wobble
a little there. In radio, you just couldn't. I
also learned to write what I called visual
dialogue. There's no way to set the scene for
the listener. So you say, "Oh, could you hand
me that dish that's on the little table over
there?" So, immediately you begin to arrange
the room in the ear of the listener.
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The Army |
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I was drafted. Believe me. My
parents and I just adored Roosevelt, who saved
Capitalism, which the Republicans, in those days
didn't realize. They weren't any brighter
then. Then War. When I was drafted, my mother
switched. She said Roosevelt was a war monger,
‘cause her darling was in the Army now. Yes I
was drafted. I was drafted into the broom-stick
Army. Literally, they had no guns. It was all
topsy-turvy, ass backwards. I went to the
reception center, which they called it, Camp
Upton on Long Island. You were supposed to go
in and get shipped out to wherever. I was there
for a week I think, in one uniform. I didn't
know what to do. They didn't know what to do.
I walked around smoking. I remember one day I
was walking around, and there was a Lieutenant.
He said, "Soldier, salute." So, I went with the
cigarette like that. He said….well I don't
blame him for giving up. Then I went to Fort
Monmouth to be in the Signal Corps. They didn't
know much what to do there either. Everybody
was in a terribly dazed state. This was before
Pearl Harbor, you know. Although people thought
that war was coming, they didn't really believe
it would. It just seemed like what they called
the sad sack in those days. They kind of
laughed at you. I got shipped out of Monmouth,
by mistake, to Fort Benning Georgia, where they
had a sign in the park, which was across the
street from the main gate to the post. It said,
"No dogs, Negroes, or soldiers allowed."
Soldiers, got last billing. I was put into a
photographic company. I couldn't take a picture
with a Brownie, so they made me a truck driver.
And I thought, "Oh God, I can see myself dying
under a truck." And they were going to ship out
pretty soon. Then came the weekend. We were
all getting leave before we went overseas, and I
didn't get leave. And I thought, "Oh they're
prejudiced. They know I'm Jewish or short or
something." They were very grumpy when I asked
them why I didn't get leave. They wouldn't tell
me. Then it turned out, I was transferred to
Astoria, Long Island, where they made training
films. There had been a little guy that I met
at Monmouth who really knew how to finagle
around. He made himself the kingpin of all the
shipping in and shipping out, and he wanted to
prove his system had not gone awry. So he got
me back and got me to Fort Monmouth, where I
wrote training films, and I got an award for
writing one about Ohm’s Law. Do you know what
Ohm’s Law is? It's the law of electricity.
Fascinating. I didn't have a clue. So I wrote
the picture thinking if I could explain Ohm's
Law, so that I understood it, any fool could.
So, when I finished the script, George Cukor,
who was a big director in Hollywood and had been
drafted by mistake. I think he was 45 or
something. They gave him the script to direct.
I went in to see him. He looked up at me and
said, "I don't believe this." So I said, "Did
you believe Her Cardboard Lover?" which
was a lousy picture that he made. He said,
"You're pretty fresh," and we became friends.
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Cornell: “You’re a writer...” |
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Associate Professor. He was…you
can really understand what a fantastic man he
must have been, because he was four feet
something, and a humped back. He was quite
attractive, but never-the-less. He had gone to
Cornell and he had married the prom queen, so he
really must have had something to him. So, he
said, "Write this essay," and the dormitory…all
the sophomores said, "Now this is college. You
don't bullshit. You do this and this and
this." I said, "Okay." So I wrote it, and the
big day came, and he was handing back the
papers. And he said, "Some of you are
brilliant," and I thought "Ah." And he said,
"Some….this is in The Way We Were, more
or less…"And some of you should take a remedial
writing class." So he handed out all of the
papers and not mine. He called me up, and he
said, "You're not bad enough for remedial
writing, but if you have the time, I suggest you
take it." Well, I ran out of there like Barbra
Streisand did in the movie, which should have
been shot at Cornell where it was supposed to
be, but they wasted so much time fooling around
with the script that they couldn't, they were no
longer able to shoot there. Anyway, I came out
tearing up the essay and ran down the hill to
the dorms in absolute tears. I wanted to be a
writer from when I was ten, and this was the
end. Fortunately, typical of me, I don't give
up. So, the next time, he said "Write anything
you want," and I wrote a short story. Same
business. "Some brilliant; some remedial." I
come up in the end, and he said to me, "You're a
writer." I have never forgotten that. I almost
get tears now when I say it. It’s one of the
few things said to me in my whole life, and you
can imagine how long ago that was; I have never
forgotten what that man did for me. Just saying
those three words. Then he asked me what
happened. I explained. From then on he said,
"Whatever the assignment, you write whatever you
want." I'm eternally grateful to Dr. Raymond
Short. That was his name.
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Home of the Brave:
The genesis |
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I'm writing these shows, and
partying like mad. I began to meet a lot of New
York theater people through the actors who were
on the radio shows, because they wanted to be on
them, which was a great compliment that I half
understood. I tend then, and still tend now not
to believe compliments. I'm very wary of them.
I want to know what the people really think.
Anyway, it was another thing where somebody said
something to me. There was an actor named
Martin Gable. He was sort of like…his voice
was like a road company Orson Welles. Very
stentorian; those pear-shaped vowels. Big
drunk. And he said to me, another drunk, "If
you really want to be a playwright, you better
not come to any more of these parties. Stay
home and write a play." Well, it wasn't that he
said it as much as it was the right time. So, I
stayed home, for nine nights, and there were
nine scenes in Home of the Brave, and I
wrote a scene a night. Which doesn't mean it's
good. When people say I wrote it so fast, it
doesn't mean anything. Besides, a lot of it
came from the radio shows that I'd been
writing. I had just to steal from myself here
and there. Even though I hadn't been overseas,
there was a photograph I'd seen and kept. It
haunted me. I didn't know why. It was a
picture of some GIs in the jungle. I thought,
"What were they doing and feeling?" And that
was the origin of that play.
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Home of the Brave:
Anti-Semitism |
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Then we had the first preview.
And the play dealt with Anti-Semitism. It
wasn't about it, but it was taken for that,
because, again, in my innocence I didn't know
that I was doing something that hadn't been
done. And they used words like "Kike" on the
stage. With the first audience, I heard them
go, "Uhhhh." I thought, at what? They've heard
it before in their lives. I didn't realize how
much pretense goes on, in audiences, as in
life. They think they should be shocked, so
they have to express it. They're not, "Oh, that
again. Yeah, he is one. Anyway, the
Anti-Defamation League came to the producer and
said they were going to picket the play. Here
was a play that was trying to get rid of
bigotry, and they said it was bigoted. So they
closed it. They didn't do the next preview, and
then we had one more preview. It's just like
regional theater today, and the play opened.
And it was what's called a success d’estime,
which means a financial flop. I got a lot of
notice. It's funny the one I remember…there was
a critic named George Jean Nathan who was a big
deal in those days. At the end of the season he
had a whole list of raps and praises. He gave
me an award for being the most over-praised
playwright of the season. I was flattered. I
still am, to tell you the truth. I didn't know
I was praised.
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Home of the Brave:
The film |
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And then came Stanley Kramer, who
bought the play for movies. Suddenly, the deal
had to be done very quickly. I didn't know
why. I think the minute the play closed they
started shooting it. It was all kept very
quiet. He said to me finally--we were doing a
play about a "Negro" (they said then). He said,
“Jews had been done.” I said, "Oh, you mean
Gentlemen's Agreement, which is about ‘be
nice to Gregory Peck because he might turn out
not to be a Jew.’" Anyway, they make
this picture, and the picture was very
successful, with James Edwards as this Negro in
a White unit, which was absolutely impossible.
The Army was totally segregated at that point.
The picture got very good notices, and all of
these intellectual critics carried on about it.
It never occurred to a one of them that the
picture was a total lie. So, another myth in my
book about the brains around. It's amazing to me
how people don't see what they don't want to
see.
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Rope:
Homosexual theme |
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Oh, Hitchcock. He was fun. He'd
make his awful puns. But I got along with him
very well, and I had a great time with him on
Rope. I wasn't…when he hired Jimmy Stewart,
I knew we were dead. He was a nice man, but he
was supposed to be the head homosexual in the
picture, but Jimmy Stewart? Jimmy Stewart has
no sex. The whole idea of the picture was out
the window. Of course they were all very
nervous about it anyway. They never mentioned
the word homosexual. They always talked about
"it." I once said to Hitch, "You know the
original play was an English play. It must have
been based on Leopold and Loeb." He said, "I
don't want to hear." Well, they didn't want to
hear. It's interesting that today the picture
is regarded as being in the forefront of
pictures about homosexuality. It wasn't then.
They didn't know what it was. They got it in
Europe. Not in this country. I don't blame
them. It was hard to tell what was going on.
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Rope:
One continuous shot |
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I think Hitchcock wanted me
because I was a playwright, and it was a play.
He had this thing; it was going to be shot in
nine takes. Each take was a reel. Well I
thought it was silly, because it may have fooled
people, but you saw the break. The camera would
come in on somebody's back. They changed
cameras, pulled back and start all over again.
When you have the fluidity of the cinema, why
restrict it to one…he loved problems. He loved
tricks, and it was a challenge to him. He was
fascinated by it. I remember they had a big
interview with him, the first day. The press
was enormous, because he was a great star, and
he was great copy. He was very funny, and he
was subtle about it. He made fun of them, and
they didn't know it. Somebody was talking about
how long was the rehearsal? Jimmy Stewart said,
"The only thing that's been rehearsed around
here is the camera," which was perfectly true.
Hitch didn't care. It was his toy.
Also, I think he ruined it by
adding the shot in the beginning where you see
the boy murdered. That wasn't in it. He got
cold feet. I thought all of the suspense went
if you didn't know whether there was or wasn't a
body in that chest. But working with him was a
great experience. It was also a sad experience,
because then he asked me to do his next picture
which was Under Capricorn for Ingrid
Bergman, and I thought we were friends. Just
one of the family. That's the way he behaved to
me, and it was quite a family, let me tell you.
Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman, and that sort of
you know family dinner. So, I thought, well you
behave like a friend, and I said, "Hitch this is
a terrible idea. This is no good." He stopped
talking to me, and he didn't talk to me again,
until he wanted me to do something called
Torn Curtain, that I think that they made
with Julie Andrews and Paul Newman. This time
he did it through my agent. I said, "Tell him
I'd love to work with him, but this one's no
good." Nothing.
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Leaning Left |
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When the witch hunt came in
Hollywood, I have always been on the Left and
believed in the Left. It's because I'm partial
to the underdog. The people I've met on the
left were always for things I was in. I think
what motors me is the fight against injustice.
I don't see much of that on the Right…people
fighting against it. I think they are
delivering it. Like Ashcroft is a disgrace. In
Hollywood…well I should say, at the same time,
I've never lost a sense of humor or a sense of
reality. People say to me, "Were you a member
of the Communist party?" I say, "No, they never
asked me to join." And they didn't ask me,
because I was always objecting. I said, "You
can't vote in Russia." They said, "Yes, you
vote." I said, "You vote for one person. It's
not voting." "Oh, you're reactionary." And I
thought, well they’re crazed. Anyway, when it
came into Hollywood, people always say, "Oh, it
must have been terrible." It was very exciting
to me, because life was suddenly very simple.
There were the good guys and the bad guys. What
divided them? The people who informed on their
friends and the people who didn't. I still
believe that. I can understand why some people
informed, because they had families and children
to support. I don't condone it, but I
understand it. I didn't understand, and I don't
understand people like Elia Kazan and Jerry
Robbins
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Elia Kazan |
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I have no respect for Kazan as a
man, but I think he’s the greatest theater
director in America I've ever seen. And he is
responsible for what is considered American
acting. Not the Actors Studio or Lee Strasberg
or Stella Adler. Gage Kazan, because he…I think
in his obituary in The Times the other
day, they said that he…the first job…he came out
of the Group Theater which used the Method. The
first play that he directed had an actor in it
named Osgood Perkins, who was Tony Perkins
father, who was a brilliant technician, but knew
nothing about the Method. Gage realized that
the best acting would be to put the two
together. So, he didn't sneer at technique the
way the Group had. What he did is encouraged
the actors to just burn up the stage. And I
think the style was so enormous that a lot of
plays were lauded that didn't really deserve as
much as they got.
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Blacklisted |
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Anyway, in Hollywood, it was a
very, as I say, exciting time. Then the joke
was over. The Ten went to prison, as I knew
they would. I didn't know what they were doing
standing on the First Amendment. I didn't
believe then. I said, "There's no protection
there. Why don’t they take the Fifth?" Well,
it doesn't matter. They believed in what they
did, and I admire them for doing it. I know
Dalton Trumbo said, "There were no villains.
Everybody was hurt." Everybody was hurt, but
there were villains, and I think you have to say
that. Being above it all is baloney. You get a
picture of yourself being calm and detached, and
you say, "Well, we must all realize…" Must
realize what? How about the truth? There are
villains afoot in the world, and they shouldn't
be let loose. Anyway, I was blacklisted.
Primarily, I think, it was a publication called
Red Channels. I remember Nora Kaye
saying, "Oh, you only have half a page in it."
It listed what organizations you belonged to or
where you gave money to or things like that.
And, I left Hollywood. I must say, I would have
left anyway, because I had a love affair with a
movie star, and that was over. I wasn't
enamored of doing movies, so I would have left.
I came East, and I thought, "Well I'll go to
Paris." Why Paris? Because that's where
everyone who was blacklisted was going. I had
no responsibilities, no family. I was young.
Why not go? Well, why not go…they took away my
passport. So, I went to a lawyer recommended by
Jerry Robbins. I didn't know that Jerry had
been an informer, and the lawyer he sent me to
worked for the FBI. I got suspicious when the
lawyer had me in a room with a stenographer and
said, "Recount everything you've ever done,
politically." So I did. And I had gone to a
Marxist study group in Hollywood. He said, "Who
were members of the group?" I said, "Well, I'm
not going to tell you." He said, "Why not? I’m
your lawyer. I said, "Well that doesn't have
anything to do with anything. You don't have to
know." And he kept pushing. I began to sweat.
I got scared. I said, "I'm not going to tell
you." That was that. He just lost interest in
me. By the way, in the group was Ava Gardner.
Now, you want to see her running around lighting
bombs. Maybe in movies, but not in life.
Anyway, that ended when…he told me to call the
State Department. So I called the State
Department, and they said---it may sound
invented or corny, but it was a Southern voice:
"Your name appears on page so and so of The
Daily Worker. Can you explain that?" Well,
what does it say? "Well, I don't know. You
have to find out." So I get The Daily Worker,
and looked, and it's a review of The Home of
the Brave. So I called them back. "Well
your name appears on page so and so of this..."
And this went on for about two or three months.
And then one day he said to me, "Write
everything you believe. Just write it out and
send it in." So, I said to the lawyer, what do
I do? He said, "You write it, and I'll vet
it." So I wrote it. He said, "I'm going to
send it in this way." I said, "It'll hang me."
He said, "No it won't. It's too idiosyncratic.
You couldn't have belonged to anything." And
this is how closely Hollywood and the State
Department worked. I sent that thing in. The
passport arrived on a Tuesday, I think. I ran
for the boat on Wednesday, and on the boat was a
cable from Hollywood, offering me a job. They
worked that closely. Fortunately, I was
determined to go to Paris, and I did, and it was
marvelous. Just marvelous. I know you were
supposed to be a poor refugee, a political
refugee. I didn't have any money, but you
didn't need money then. The rate of exchange
was so much in America's favor, you could have
bought Paris for a buck.
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Time of the Cuckoo:
Venice |
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Stella Adler showed me Venice.
And she was a marvelous guide. There's
something about that city. I think it's
everyone's fantasy. It's unreal, and yet you
know it exists. I was so naïve. I drove up
there with Farley Granger, in a car, and we
said, "Well, we'll park and see where we're
going to stay." We didn't realize that it was
true. It really was on water. We drove to the
edge. What do you do with the bloody car? You
had to put it in a garage and then schlep the
baggage. But, oh God, that city was
incredible. Still is. Oh, in Time of the
Cuckoo. Yes, I used the gondola. That was
a symbol of sex. I think it is in Venice. The
shape of it is sexual. Those gondolas have kind
of a little canopy over them, some of them.
People do make love in gondolas. I don't know
how much they do today. I don't know how much
they're doing around the world anyway. Alas.
It's also, I think the loneliest city that I've
ever been in. There's something about it that
aches. It was a…the play, I think, is very
lonely. It's about a terribly lonely woman. It
just seemed apt. It's the kind of place that
makes you feel that you're just missing
something.
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Summertime:
David Lean |
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When the play was on, Shirley
Booth played it, and she had become great
friends with Kate Hepburn, when they did
Philadelphia Story on the stage. It was assumed
that Shirley Booth would do the movie, and we
were negotiating with her producer, to buy the
play for her to do as a movie. And then she
announced in the press, the play was lousy, and
she wouldn't do the movie. She didn't know why
anyone would want it. So I went to her, and I
said, "Why did you say that?" She said, "Well I
have to be honest." Well, there's honesty and
there's honesty. Why be destructive? She said,
“Kate Hepburn…” I said, "John Gielgud came back
and said you milk this play. Tour it. Take it
to London. This is a career for you." She said,
"Yes, but Kate Hepburn came back and told me not
to do it." So a couple of weeks passed, and
there it is in the papers: Kate Hepburn is
doing the movie. So, I said to Shirley, "How
did that happen?" She said, "Oh, she came and
asked me if that was okay." Well, I don't know
what went on there. David Lean was to direct
it, and I was to do the screenplay. So I went
to London to meet David Lean. I remember he was
in a very dark house. He was sitting in shadows
as though he was mourning for something. He
asked me questions, and they were all about--not
about the play--all about Hepburn. And I
realized, "My God, he's in love with her."
That's why he's doing it. Usually he does these
big epics. So I went off to write the
screenplay in Spain. Don't ask why. It's a
long story. When I came back, they said "Thank
you," and that was that. Then it turned out,
she didn't want to do the play. She only wanted
to do the first act of the play.
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Summertime:
Kate Hepburn |
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First of all, the character in
the play is named Leona Samish. In the movie,
she's called Jane Hudson. That tells you an
awful lot. In the play, she's taking pictures
with a box camera. In the movie, she has a
movie camera. This woman's got money. Well,
the secretary didn't. She wore such fancy
clothes. She was crying every minute. She did
say she thought she had a monotonous voice, and
when she cried, it gave it variety. I just
thought she was really going to drown Venice.
She cried so much. Then the man touches her,
and she jumped. A virgin in the late Forties.
No way. I mean it was…it's a beautiful picture
to look at, and there are a couple of scenes.
The ending is wonderfully done. Lean….having
the man run along the platform with the train.
Beautifully photographed. But, this doesn't
tell the story. There's no conflict, no
climax. They get to the point, and she says
"All my life--something about--I've been the
last one to leave a party. Well now I'm going
home." Well, "All my life…the last one to leave
a party" I wrote, and she wrote, "And now I'm
going home. I know better." So, she went
home. So they loved it.
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West Side Story:
Cool |
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West Side
was originally supposed to be produced by Cheryl
Crawford, who walked out on us. She wanted me
to use "that's how the cookie crumbles." So I
said, "That will be out of date before we even
go into rehearsal." I realized that we couldn't
have real language, because it was a musical.
You couldn't have it too poetic, because it
would break the reality of the thing. It was
tough to find something. So, I invented words.
The one word that was being used was "cool." It
wasn't used in the sense that it is today. The
way I used it in West Side was different
at the time. But it seemed to me, and I've been
proven right, that that was a word that will
always be with us. Now it has an utterly
different meaning today from what it means
then. Today it's so overused. Everything is
"cool." "Cool, man." "Cool this." "Cool it."
The vocabulary is going down the drain with
great speed these days.
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West Side Story:
Lyrics and music |
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He and Lenny would sometimes take
the lyrics and move them into a song, as they
did with “Something's Coming,” but that's
absolutely right, because the most important
thing in a musical is the music. Incidentally,
I think that Lenny's score for West Side
Story is the best score for any musical
that's ever been written, and unfortunately,
it's never been equaled. That's almost fifty
years ago. The score was not at all highly
regarded when the show opened. As a matter of
fact, to show you how it was regarded, we, the
authors, had the rights to the score. The
producers had none of it. Nothing was played
until the movie. The sound track was an
enormous hit, and that was what made the movie a
success. I think what’s made the show a success
over the years has been the score and the fact
that that story is the best love story in the
world.
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West Side Story:
Tweaking Shakespeare |
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I read the play a couple of
times, and I tried--in some ways it was an
advantage in the scene where they meet, all the
language is about hands, which is really what
they talk about in the balcony scene, but then
it got to the "why doesn't the message get
through?" and Shakespeare whipped up a plague.
It's like Anastasia, thinking about the
cough. I thought that's….I remember Jerry
wanted Maria to take sleeping pills, and she
would seem dead. I didn't buy that. She
wouldn't seem dead. You breathe when you're
out. So I thought of what the show was about.
It's bigotry that prevents the message getting
through. Now in this country, nobody made any
comment about that. In England, they always
comment on it, because they know their
Shakespeare. They've been very complimentary to
me, which I do like, because that I'm proud of
doing. It's damn hard to improve on
Shakespeare, and in only that one little way I
did.
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West Side Story:
The 11:00 number |
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The last third of West Side
Story, the second act, has no music. This
is a musical. There's always a big eleven
o’clock number, although it got bigger with
Gypsy. With “Rose's Turn,” then it made it,
you know, on demand, you have to get up and sing
your guts out, about something at eleven
o’clock. I thought that what is Maria's gun
speech, that was a rough draft of a lyric for an
aria. And Lenny said he couldn't hear the
music; he kept trying to find the music;
suddenly we're opened, and there's no music.
We're in Philadelphia, and there's no music.
She's still reciting this dummy lyric. And, to
this day, she's still reciting that dummy
lyric.
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Gypsy:
The writing team |
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On Gypsy, I wanted Steve
to do the whole score and Merman wouldn't let
him. Jerry suggested Jule Styne. Well, I knew
all these pop tunes that he'd written, and I
said, "This isn't going to be that kind of
musical." I should blush. Jule Styne
auditioned for me. He is…he was…I just adored
that man. He didn't care. He came in; he sat
down and played. He was so charming and so
wonderful, and I would have given him anything.
Actually, the writing in that show was the
fastest. That was fast because we were all on
it. Steve and Jule and I; nobody around; no
director, no producer. We wrote it in three
months. That was it. Jule would come in
here…they would come down here, and Jule would
have the sheet music, lead sheet, and say, "May
I say, another hit."
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Gypsy:
Madam Rose |
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All of them are different. Every
one who has played Rose….people call her Mama
Rose. You know she's never called Mama Rose
once. She's Madam Rose. She would die at the
thought of somebody calling her Mama. That
would make her an old bag. They're all
different. Directors get into trouble, because
they want to make it their show. It's Rose's
show. What makes each production different is
who plays Rose. You have to use those
qualities. Somebody said, "It is the Lear
of musicals." She is….you know it's a
family…it's about…actually, people argue about
what it's about; whether it's growing up to be
your parents or parents trying to lead their
children's lives. To me, it's about the need
for recognition. It's very clear, in the last
scene, when Rose finally admits; she says, "I
guess I did do it for me." And the daughter
says, "Why?" She says, "I just wanted to be
noticed." That's public recognition. Then the
daughter says, "Like I wanted you to notice
me." That's from the parent. The child wants
the parent's love. And that, I think, is more
real than the other. I think since television,
but even more so, rock and roll, there's been an
obsession with being noticed, with being a
celebrity. You know if you pick up People
magazine, there are names, I don't know who they
are, and the next week they are gone and there
are new names. People want so much to get their
name in something. It's a dead end. It's the
wrong goal.
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Gypsy:
A Catholic critic |
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There's a line in Gypsy
which is a joke, and I knew it was a joke, and I
knew it was a good joke, where Rose, the mother,
is having a little argument with Tessie Tura,
the stripper. Rose says, "We've been playing
Vaudeville all of our lives." And the stripper
says, "Where, the Vatican?" It's a big yuk. I
hesitate, because even in this production where
I don't want…never mind…opening night in New
York, they begged me to take that out. I said,
"Why?" Well, because Walter Kerr, who was the
chief critic, was a Catholic, and they thought
it would offend him. I thought that was
nonsense. I wouldn't take it out. He laughed
as much as anybody else. Actually, I did
something that really should have offended him,
but it didn't. On opening night, at the end of
the strip, he came up the aisle to walk out. I
said to him, "Get back to your seat. It's not
over." And he did, to my amazement, and then
gave us a rave.
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Hallelujah, Baby! |
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I wrote a musical with someone in
mind, which turned out to be a disaster. Lena
Horne was a great friend of mine, and I wrote
Hallelujah Baby for her. She was thrilled,
and she wanted Comden and Green to do the lyrics
and Jule Styne to do the music, and I got them.
And we had David Merrick producing, and I got
them. So forth and so on. Then she walked
out. She hadn't heard a note or read a word.
It was personal why she walked out. At the time
I was angry, but I'm not now. We've become
friends again. She's a wonderful woman. But, I
wrote it specifically for Lena Horne, and that's
a risk, because when you get that kind of a
star, that presence they have, their own
personality--and I knew her strengths and her
weaknesses--it's taking a big chance, because
nobody else can do it. So, she didn't do it,
which is when we should have stopped, which you
never do. We got Leslie Uggams who is one of
the nicest women I've ever encountered in the
theater. She was very young. She got the
Tony. The show got the Tony. I didn't like
it. We had to soften it. The whole thing sort
of wobbled. It was like watching Jello shake on
a plate. I didn't even go to the ceremony to
get the Tony. I think awards are kind of
ridiculous anyway, forgive me.
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The Way We Were:
Studio cuts |
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They did the first preview of the
picture, and they called me and said, "We're
cutting the politics. The public doesn't want
it. They want it to be a love story." On one
preview. They just took a hunk right out. The
story doesn't make sense. You see Streisand in
their house in Malibu; she's pregnant. He comes
in from the studio. She says something about
"Willy nilly circumstances make you do what you
should do and so I'm going to divorce you."
What they cut out was, he came back from the
studio and said, "The studio says I have a
subversive wife, and unless you inform, they're
going to fire me." Then she says, "Willy
nilly circumstances….and I will give you a
divorce and you won't have a subversive wife."
Well the picture was released and nobody said
boo about it, and my heart was broken. I cared
so much about it, and no one even noticed.
Maybe it wasn't as important as I thought.
Well, I told this story the other day. Somebody
was interviewing me on films, some study of the
20th Century. After that was over, a
woman who had been working with the camera
people came to me and said, "We got it. You
didn't have to say it. We got the whole thing
about being a subversive wife. We knew he
wouldn't stand up to the people." Well, I
blessed her. And don't you tell me it's not
true. I don't want to know that it's not true.
I want to go with that woman and think they
knew.
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The Way We Were:
A bug in the living room |
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The screen
from the projection in the living room, that
came from Irene Selznick's. I saw pictures
there. They were all mad to see pictures in
their own projection rooms. They would break
for drinks and dinner and all of that. I was at
Clifford Odet's house, and Charlie Chaplin--he
would do a great bullfight, in which he would
play both the bull and the matador. It was
sensational. He went crashing into the wall,
and Clifford Odets had a great collection of
paintings, and this painting came down, and
there was the bug. It didn't rip the painting,
thank God. I put that in. Maybe over the top,
but more effective.
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Directing La Cage Aux Folles |
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They ask me to do it, and I said,
"Yes," never thinking it would be done. Then
they got Jerry Herman--everyone wanted to do
it--and they got Jerry Herman, and they got
Harvey Fierstein who had written Torch Song
Trilogy. And I thought, "Oh, he has the
sensibility of this generation's gay people.
Good." They didn't have the rights to the
picture. They had the rights to the play, which
was very different, let me tell you. There was
a lot of stuff we couldn't use. So I had a
meeting with Harvey and Jerry. It was really
good. Jerry had written “I Am What I Am,” which
impressed me, which was much tougher than his
usual stuff. We started with that. The idea
was that this character was going to sing it. I
thought, "Why would he sing it?" We had to set
it up. Then you had the opening of the show,
because they sang “We Are What We Are." The way
the story developed, they were trying to raise
money. The three of us would meet and talk
about, and then we would have auditions. And I
would invent. If there was a good reaction from
these would-be backers, it stayed in. If it
didn't, it went out. That's the way the thing
was done. Then we started casting. It was
impossible to find somebody to play George, the
so-called man of the two; and along came
Gene Barry, who was a dear man and very funny,
because he had great Vaudeville style, which I
liked. He thought he was being continental--it
took place in France--because he would do this
(flings hands). I said, "Keep it in," because
that was campy, but he didn't know it.
Rehearsing the show also was testing what to
do. I would do a scene. It was the first
musical where two men sang a ballad together on
stage, and one kissed the other one’s hand. The
first time that the company saw it, I saw some
of them starting to cry. I thought, "That's
right." I also thought, "No sex," because that
would make it distasteful. This was in the
early Eighties. They wanted to fire Gene
Barry. They didn't. We opened in Boston, and
that first preview…well that was canceled,
because the scenery didn't work; but the second
one was even more exciting than West Side
Story, because with West Side Story
we knew what we were aiming for. With La
Cage, nobody had a clue. I was just flying
blind and hoping that I had made the right
choices. It was very delicate, you know,
whether you would get too far out, too gay or
too straight. And, particularly at that time
when things were at an edge. And, we were in
Boston, which is very puritanical. That first
preview audience, they went wild. I remember
Jerry and Harvey crying, saying, "They get it.
They get it." At the end, they were even
standing in the second balcony. It was one of
the most exciting nights in the theater, to have
done something and you think, "My God, they get
it." The rain in Spain. It was thrilling.
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A writing hiatus, and then… |
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I hadn't written a play in 12
years. A wonderful thing happened. I had an
enormous flop, a musical called Nick and
Nora, which…what an experience that was, a
nightmare. I learned much too late that I'd
made a terrible mistake. It was about Nick and
Nora Charles of The Thin Man.
They don't exist as characters. It's Myrna Loy
and William Powell. If you don't have them, you
have nothing. Anyway, when it flopped, they
blamed me for everything. I did write and
direct it, but they blamed me for the music, the
lyrics, the costumes, the works. I felt
relief. I suddenly thought, "I'm out of that."
My friend, Tom, had said, "Oh, everything
happens for a reason, and something good comes
out of it." Well that can sound a lot of
Pollyanna, but in this case, I thought "Yes,
something will." What it was, I went back to
writing plays, and ever since then, I've written
more plays than I had before. And I've written
them differently, much differently. Before then
I had outlined them. That all came from the
A,B,C,D, that kind of a mind. I was very much a
control freak, in life, and in writing. The
play was organized. This would happen here;
this would happen here; and so forth. No more.
I knew what I’d want to write. I would start
with whatever…the impetus was always something
different. With this last play, Attacks
on the Heart, I started with a picture of a
woman sitting at a table in a sidewalk café, in
a coat, with a glass of wine and a book. I had
no idea why. That's where the play began.
Sometimes the play ends up not to be what I
thought it was about. What I do now is…I start
with the characters, and I let it happen, and
they begin to have a life of their own. I know
this sounds like absolute balls, but it is true,
and it’s marvelously exciting not to know. I
don't know until the end what's going to
happen. Sometimes I have to go back and change
of course, but when you do it based on
character, you're much safer than any kind of
contrivance. People talk about writer's block,
or they say how lonely it is. I don't think
it's lonely. The people I'm working with--I'll
put it that way--are much more interesting than
most people I know. And I'm dying to see what
they're going to do next. So, it's always
exciting. I'm never really happy if I'm not
writing. So let's get this over with.
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Two Lives |
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You won't believe this. That
play started out to be about this woman who
wouldn't admit what she was to this man, who was
Tom. I began with them. Then I thought what is
she doing there? Who did she come with? Whose
house is it? It turned into me. There it was.
I didn't realize, until an awful time, that I
had killed off Tom, who is the most important
person in my life, and you can imagine how I
felt not too long ago when it turned out he had
cancer. It was almost as though I did it. He's
fine now. Very strange.
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Attacks on the Heart |
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Well, we are a nation that began
in dissent and protest, and we've always honored
it. A lot has come through because of it. It
took a long time for the protests about Vietnam
to get through, but they got through. As I say
in this play, Attacks on the Heart, I
believe in this country. I think we’ll overcome
anything, but it's taking too long. Finally,
you have to learn from something. We don't seem
able to.
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The George Street Playhouse and David Saint |
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Well, the George Street
Playhouse. David Saint became the artistic
director six years ago. I had met him at
Seattle Rep. I was there for a play of mine
called Jolson Sings Again (which got a
very bad production there.) And I was walking
along the street, and I had met David, and we
started chatting. And I thought, "I like this
guy." And then I had another play called My
Good Name which was going to be done at the
Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor on Long
Island. So I suggested David as director.
That's how we got together. He did a wonderful
job. It's hard to do a wonderful job in
regional theater 'cause you don't get time--you
never really get much time in the theater unless
it's for an elaborate musical, and then all of
the time is going on moving the scenery; least
of all on the acting, and it shows, I think. In
the regional theater, it's also hard to get the
best actors. It's not only the money. They
just think they'd rather do television. That's
where they die…on television. Right in front of
your eyes, very often. Anyway, he became the
artistic director of this theater which had its
30th anniversary this year. But he
changed it totally. He started doing new plays,
and this play, Jolson Sings Again, which
had been done badly at the Seattle Rep, he did
there. And it was like finding the theater all
over again, because the theater had changed so
much since I first went into it. Everybody there
is trying, for that goal to be good. The most
recent collaboration was with Attacks on the
Heart, which I think is the best directing
job that David has done. In the six years, he's
matured enormously. He's become a great
director. His theater has gotten on the map,
because it's one of the few places that takes
the risks of doing new plays. It is a risk. It
is a risk for the actors, because you have a
short rehearsal period, comparatively, but then
an almost non-existent preview. Two previews
and you open. The stage manager for this play
said--at the Saturday matinee, and it closed
Sunday night--"They are brilliant; now the
production is going; now they're ready to
open." Well, it'd been playing for almost four
weeks. That's what you have to live with.
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Two minorities |
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I've had a terrific life, because
I've been a member of two minorities. I'm
Jewish and I'm gay. Two strikes. Fortunately,
I'm not Black. I would be out. I use one to
help me deal with the other. Actually, it became
quite easy to deal with my sexuality, when I
went to an analyst. He said, "Why are you
here?" I said, "Well I'm concerned about my
sexuality." He said, "Why?" I said, "Well you
know that being a homosexual is dirty and
disgusting." He said, "I don't know anything of
the kind. I think if you lead your life with
pride and dignity, it doesn't matter who or what
you are." Another thing I have never
forgotten. And that man changed my life. And
so then I thought, "Okay, I will do that." And
I have done that. And if people didn't like it,
it was there problem, not mine. I didn't flaunt
it, but I did not hide it. I'm not going to
hide it for anybody. I also used to have a chip
on my shoulder about those things, and I got
bored with myself being so sensitive. It was
the same thing. What are you carrying on so?
You're not going to convert people by arguing.
You really aren't. You can get on the debating
team. You convert people…I wish logic could do
it, but I don't think it can. You do it by
example. We have a White House that talks about
democracy. They won't give the papers up for
9/11. They won't give the papers up for Cheney
and his Enron shenanigans. What kind of
democracy is it? Show us. Don't tell us the
things you don't do.
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Transitions must be emotional |
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Then, where I learned some of the
best advice a writer can get was when I was
writing all of these crappy half-hour shows, and
the man who was the editor--his name was Dick
Digs--he was the editor for Ropes and who was
the director--and he called me in one day, and
he said, "You have talent, but you're too
facile." I said, "What do you mean?" He said,
"You can use words too easily to make a
transition. Transitions must always be
emotional." Well, I hope that everybody who
wants to write knows that. It's not easy. But
it's what makes it true. And the audience can
tell when you trick around with false
connections with words or visuals; it's the
emotional, which is all that counts in anything
anyway. End of lecture.
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The rhythm of dialogue |
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The musical form is always some
place in my head in the structure of the whole
piece and in the scene. And within the scene
within sentences. They're written in a rhythm.
When the actor tries to fight them, it's a
disaster. I remember in Gypsy, with one
lady who shall be nameless, I had to read it for
her. I’d say, "I thought you did it for me,
mamma." She was doing, "I thought you did it
for me, mamma." I said, "Read it. Just get the
rhythm: I thought you did it for me, mamma. I
thought you did it for me, mamma. I thought you
made a …" It's there. You just say it, and
you're home. But you fight it, and your lost.
"Here she is boys." "Here she is boys.”
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