West Side Story and Romeo and Juliet

SHAI<ESPEARE and the American Musical IRENE G. DASH INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS Bloomington & Indianapolis This book is a publication of Manufactured in the United States of America Indiana University Press 601 North Morton Street Library of Congress Cataloging- Bloomington, IN 47404-3797 USA in-Publication Data www.iupress.indiana.edu Dash, Irene G. Shakespeare and the American Telephone orders 800-842-6796 musical I Irene G. Dash. Fax orders 812-855-7931 p. em. Orders by e-mail [email protected] Includes bibliographical references and index. Q 2010 by Irene G. Dash ISBN 978-0-253-35414-3 (cloth : alk. All rights reserved paper) - ISBN 978-o-253-22152-o (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Musicals-United No part of this book may be reproduced States-2oth century-History and or utilized in any form or by any means, criticism. 2. Shakespeare, William, electronic or mechanical, including 1564-1616-Intluence. I. Title. photocopying and recording, or by ML2054.D37 2009 any information storage and retrieval 782.1'40973-dc22 system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of 2009026873 American University Presses' Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only 2 3 4 15 14 13 12 11 10 exception to this prohibition. e The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992. THREE The Challenge of Tragedy West Side Story and Romeo and Juliet Sharply jarring music plays; the curtain rises on a group of teenagers seen near steps leading up from irregular pavement in the left rear of the stage. Wearing dungarees and black sleeveless tops, they slowly move into a dance, leaping across the space with their arms fully extended. Here come the Jets, a gang from the streets of New York, who declare that they own the territory. As another teenager moves in, the group ob- structs him with their bodies. He halts. They continue, at times leaping diagonally, then moving in a circular pattern that covers the stage. They snap their fingers. They own the space. Finally they allow the intruder to pass. He's the leader of the rival gang, the Sharks, and this is the prologue to West Side Story, told through dance. It's 1957, and this musical, based on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, has finally reached Broadway. It was a long time coming. Jerome Rob- bins, the choreographer, had first mentioned it to Leonard Bernstein, the composer and lyricist, eight years before: it seemed a "noble idea" worth pursuing. In Bernstein's "log" of the musical (which was not in fact written during production, but much later), he noted, January 6, 1949. Jerry R. [Jerome Robbins] called today with a noble idea. A modern version of Romeo and Juliet set in slums at coincidence of Easter-Passover celebration. Feelings run high between Jews and Catholics.... Street Brawls, double death-it all fits. But it's all much less important than the bigger idea of making a musical that tells a tragic story in musical-comedy terms, using only musical-comedy techniques, never falling into the "operatic" trap. Can it succeed? It hasn't yet in our country.1 77 78 · S HAKESPEARE AND THE AMERI C AN MUSI C A L Although this account may be fabricated, Bernstein did understand how challenging it would be to tell the "tragic story in musical-comedy terms." Here was a task worthy of his considerable talents: not merely telling a story with musical accompaniment, but dramatizing it in the new form of the organic musical, where all the parts-dancing, song, and plot-belong to an organic whole. Bernstein's language in this diary reveals the challenge. Both Bernstein and Robbins had worked on musical comedies before. They knew the form of the organic musical from their earliest venture, On the Town (1944), a hit musical about sailors on a one-day pass who try to take in all of New York before being deployed overseas. Now they sought to expand the genre to tragedy, although no example of a musical tragedy existed. Unlike musical comedy, the norms of tragedy mean creating a work that will evoke an emotional response of pity and fear. The characters must be worth caring about. Their lives at the moment we meet them must contain the potential for success. And yet, elements of the environment and of the characters themselves must con- tribute to their ultimate failure. Despite their strengths and intentions, a happy ending eludes them. Always the ending is inevitable, no matter how accidental it may, at first, seem. The tragic hero must have great potential for good, yet be aware of the hazards he or she faces. Shaped by the world and by society, the hero is defined not only by language, but also in this case by song, dance, and setting. All must conspire to dictate the tragic ending. Only a certain type of artist would want to try something so new and different, something so different there wasn't even any language to describe it. Both Bernstein and Robbins were such artists. Each had already won accolades in his individual field, and both loved pushing the boundaries separating classical expression from popular culture. Robbins had been named associate artistic director of the New York City Ballet in 1949 and had also created the dances for On the Town. He had since choreographed dances or directed such Broadway musicals as High Button Shoes (1947) and Look Ma, I'm Dancing (1948), and in the classical field had choreographed The Cage and Fancy Free for the City Ballet. Thus he was, at this point in his career, an important young choreographer who moved easily between popular director and classical dances. Favored by Balanchine, who by then was leading the City Ballet, T H E C H A L LEN G E 0 F TRAG E 0 Y · 79 Robbins had dreams for the future of dance in this country. He believed that classical ballet should be combined "with other theater forms in order to experiment and achieve a wider horizon."2 Leonard Bernstein, the composer of the music for Robbins's dances in On the Town, was also a young man of much promise, who similarly moved between Broadway and the world of classical music. In August 1943, Artur Rodzinski, the conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, had offered Bernstein the position of assistant conductor. His job was to sit in on rehearsals and learn the scores so that, at a moment's notice, he could substitute for his boss or for any guest conductor of the Philharmonic. That moment came sooner than Bernstein expected. On November 14, 1943, Bruno Walter, a guest conductor, took ill. At the time, Rodzinski was snowbound in Stockbridge and gave the order to have Bernstein take the podium. He was a tremendous success.3 Bernstein's career as a conductor blossomed, although he always had his hand in a multitude of endeavors. By 1949, when he received the call from Jerry Robbins proposing a tragedy based on Romeo and Juliet using musical comedy techniques, Bernstein was already well known and open to the suggestion of a new project. The third of the collaborators, Arthur Laurents, had also been successful in his field, which in his case was the legitimate theater. His moving play Home of the Brave, produced in 1945, focused on four Gis, one of whom, a Jew, is the victim of his buddies' anti-Semitism even when on a dangerous mission in the Pacific.4 The drama explores their interaction and illuminates the problems men face in trying circumstances. It sug- gests that each of us is different in some way. Hailed for its honesty, tau- rents's play reflected his own wartime experiences of prejudice, although he did not serve in the Pacific. Like Robbins and Bernstein, Laurents did not restrict himself to the legitimate theater but also worked in Holly- wood as a scriptwriter. Robbins suggested that Laurents be brought in to write the musical's book, and Bernstein agreed. "I didn't know Arthur very well," Bernstein observed later, "but I had been terribly moved by his play Home of the Brave."5 Only the fourth collaborator, Stephen Sondheim, focused his efforts entirely on writing musicals. Not interested in blurring the distinction between classical expression and popular culture, Sondheim sought to work within one field, expanding its possibilities. Eventually he came to 80 · SHAKESPEARE AND THE AMERICAN MUSICAL dominate it. Not until1955 did he join the others. In that year Sondheim, who had at one time auditioned for Laurents in another context, met him again at a party. Making small talk, Sondheim asked what Laurents was doing. When told the writer was beginning to start work on a musical, the young composer-lyricist asked, "Who's doing the lyrics?" According to the story, Laurents smote his forehead with his hand and exclaimed, "I never thought of you and I liked your lyrics very much." 6 Laurents then explained that originally Leonard Bernstein had planned to write both music and lyrics, but the music had expanded greatly. As he noted, it included "ballet music, symphonic music and developmental music.''7 In addition, Bernstein was finishing his work on Candide, a musical with operatic ambitions. Sondheim played some of his songs for Bernstein, who was impressed and asked Sondheim if he'd be interested in col- laborating on the lyrics. Sondheim consulted with his mentor and neigh- bor, Oscar Hammerstein II, by then a successful composer of Broadway musicals.

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