Well, dear readers, I was pondering the imponderables yesterday, thinking about how different it was to write musicals in the 1970s than now. It’s such a different world now, with rules and readings and workshops and more rules and more readings and more workshops and shows that are a decade old are still billed as new musicals. Back then, the only person who was teaching musical theater writing was Lehman Engel. Lehman was Lehman. I was in his 1969 class in New York. I learned some good things and I learned that I didn’t really care if he thought a show like Stop The Word – I Want To Get Off was poorly written (he hated it) because I saw it, loved it, and it was very important in my development in all sorts of ways (read Kritzer Time – and read There’s Mel, There’s Woody, and There’s You for stuff about Lehman). In other words, I wasn’t having any of these rules, although he didn’t really make with the rules – those came later, much in the same way that those two screenwriting gurus came up with their rules and truly ruined screenwriting for years – it’s never really recovered. Billy Wilder didn’t have rules. John Michael Hayes didn’t have rules. Preston Sturges didn’t have rules. They wrote what they wrote and weren’t conforming to anyone else’s preaching on what works and what doesn’t. I’ve used this example before, but can you imagine if Rodgers and Hammerstein were doing readings and workshops of South Pacific or The King and I? The plethora of producers and pundits would be telling them, “You can’t open a show with the song “I Whistle A Happy Tune.” “You can’t open a musical with a twenty-something minute sequence between two people with multiple songs, the first of which is a little ditty, “Dites Moi.” Those openings are perfect – why? Because they work for those shows. No one shoved “rules” down their throats – they made their own rules. One always hears about the “I want” song in second position, where your lead character states what they want. That’s great if it works – it works in Pippin (Corner Of The Sky). But where is the I Want song in South Pacific? Where is the I Want song in The King and I or Oklahoma? Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.
I had no rules to follow when I wrote my first original musical, Start At The Top. I went my own way and did it the way it felt right. Now, as I talk about in my book, it wasn’t really a very good show, but the structure of it was interesting and has since become something people have used over the years – not that they saw my show, but it’s just that things sometimes evolve that way. My next show, Feast, was a silly show about people who go to a food club for a weekend. Again, no rules to follow, and it was an ensemble musical that was a cross between a book show (it had characters and a simple plot) and a revue (lots of “performed” numbers about food) – and you know what? It worked. It got its laughs, people liked the songs, and it did what it set out to do – entertain. Again, there wasn’t a lot being done with that sort of structure, but it was interesting, and yes, it’s been used since.
Also, both of those were completely original and not based on anything. Back then, that happened occasionally. My next original was Stages – I wrote it specifically for the LACC theater department’s 50th anniversary. Again, it was oddly structured, but it had fun characters and it moved right along – not a brilliant book, but boy did it get its laughs and the cast album did well enough that I got tons of requests from theater groups around the country wanting to do the show. There have been many similar shows since. The amusing thing is that Stages was accused of copying A Chorus Line – of course, nothing in Stages is anything like anything in A Chorus Line, but that was the new baby in town back then and every new show was accused of ripping off A Chorus Line. The fact is, A Chorus Line had two small elements of Start At The Top in it – when I saw Rick Mason after the show, he even said it to me – “We did that two years ago” about those two little things. Again, look at A Chorus Line and tell me about rules. They simply don’t apply and A Chorus Line probably couldn’t even get developed today because asinine pundits would be telling the creators to play by all those rules (“whose show is it” “who are we supposed to follow” and all that malarkey – the movie actually tried to make it more like that, which is why it failed so badly).
Writing Together Again – I just thought it would be really fun to do a musical about a comedy troupe who’d split apart, who get back together because none of them worked for an entire year because their magic was in this group. And the two leaders of the group had also broken up and it’s their story, too. Act One was the creation of the show, and the two leads’ relationship story. Act Two took place on stage during the show and backstage, so you got both performance numbers, and all the plot ends tied up. Back then, there hadn’t been a lot done with that kind of structure, but it kind of worked well and audiences enjoyed the show. Was it brilliant? No. Did it play by the rules? Absolutely not. Would it have been better if we had played by the rules? Absolutely not. And around that time, the ASCAP and BMI workshops were in full flower and the rules started becoming writ large and in stone. Stephen Schwartz was and is a big proponent of “the rules.” I have only these rules – are you writing the show you want to write in the way you want to write it? Is it working? Are the characters interesting? If it’s meant to be funny, is it funny? Is the audience responding to what you’ve written? If not, why? It’s good to know all the rules, but one should not be slavish to them or be forced to be slavish to them – because all you get from all that slavishness is cookie-cutter art. It’s why 90% of the movies I see all look and sound the same. The same script, the same mumbling actors, the same music, all of it. And it’s happening more and more in musical theater, because musical theater is now being run by corporations and movie people – it was bound to happen and it pretty much has. And that is not a good thing. It’s always amazing when an original idea gets presented in an original way without necessarily being slavish to “the rules.”
And what do all these readings and workshops result in? Did the nine years of readings and workshops of Leap Of Faith result in a show that was perfect? No. Good? No. It was terrible. Why? It had had all those workshops to get it right, only they invite their pals, their pals clap them on the back and say don’t change a thing, and they believe it. I think workshops have done more damage to musical theater than almost anything else. Gone are the days when David Merrick would say yes to a show, have it written in six months and be doing the out of town tryout three months after that. Like him or hate him, he was a PRODUCER not a bunch of corporate types who don’t really know anything.
And that’s what I was pondering this day. Prior to my pondering, I’d gotten eight and a half hours of sleep, which was nice. I got up, did some work on the computer, did the four-mile jog, had several long telephonic calls, after which I went and had a Chinese chicken salad at Stanley’s – it was small (I had the large, but boy have they shrunk) and yummilicious. I then did some banking, picked up no packages or mail, and then came back home. I had more telephonic conversations and didn’t quite get to relax as much as I’d wanted to. There were lots of e-mails to answer, and I had to proof some sheet music relating to our web series. After all that, I finally sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I finished watching a motion picture on Blu and Ray entitled High and Low, a Japanese film from Japan, directed by the great Akira Kurosawa and starring the great Toshiro Mifune. It’s adapted from an American police procedural called King’s Ransom by Ed McBain (pen name of Evan Hunter). I think it’s one of the greatest movies ever made and despite its two hour and forty-three minute length I never tire of watching it. The way Mr. Kurosawa stages his scenes and moves his actors is a lesson in great filmmaking. It’s one of the most brilliantly blocked films ever. The story is compelling and the film has three distinct part, each visually different – the opening sequence sets up the plot, what Mifune is dealing with, and a kidnapping and call for ransom. The second part is the delivery of the ransom and the police procedural part, looking for the perpetrator. The third part is ensnaring the perpetrator and catching him. It’s an amazing film and if you’ve never seen it and you love great moviemaking, then I cannot recommend this to you highly enough. The Blu-Ray transfer is really nice – and a big step up from any of the DVD releases (and I have them all).
I then watched another motion picture on Blu and Ray entitled Source Code. While it’s no masterpiece or even great, the premise is fun (it’s sci-fi-ish, and it’s always amazing to me when people won’t buy a sci-fi-ish premise but will buy a preposterous premise in a non-sci-fi film), the director does a good job keeping it all moving along, they don’t waste a lot of time trying to explain it all (thank goodness), and best of all, sans end credits, the film runs about eighty-four minutes. Some have complained about the ending, but I thought it worked fine. Some have complained they got bored seeing the same scenario over and over again – to them I say, go watch Groundhog Day and tell me that’s boring. They both have that similar conceit and, for me, they both work and keep it interesting. The actors are all fine, there’s not too much mumbling going on, and I kind of enjoyed it. Transfer, as you’d expect, is fine.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because these here notes have turned into War and Peace and I really need my beauty sleep.
Today, I shall do the long jog, then I have a meeting with Boswell to go over the sheet music he prepared (some fixes to do), then we’ll do the arrangements and he can begin laying down the tracks with a click track. I booked my New York flight, so everything is set – except certain details about camera and sound people. After the work session, I’ll hopefully pick up a package or two, and then I’ll eat something light and amusing, after which we have a Melody run-through at Screenland. If you’re in the nabe and want to catch this early run, let me know.
Tomorrow, we have our second Gardenia rehearsal, and the weekend is filled with rehearsals and then a performance of Melody’s show at the retirement home.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do a four-mile jog, I must have a work session, I must pick up packages, I must eat, and I must have a run-through. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your thoughts on my diatribe today – thought about “the rules” in art? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, where I shall not play by the rules and I shall hopefully fall asleep quickly.