Showstoppers! by Gerald Nachman

Author:Gerald Nachman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Published: 2017-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

BACKSTAGE DISH

The list is long of people who turned down an offer to write the Gypsy score—or were turned down. Cole Porter was too ill; Irving Berlin didn’t like the story. Styne said, “All sorts of composers were auditioning for it, I heard. I felt left out. I said to myself, ‘Why are they auditioning composers when Steve Sondheim is there?’” Merrick finally told him Sondheim was reluctant to collaborate with him—or anyone; he wanted to do both lyrics and music. “He collaborated on West Side Story with Lenny Bernstein. Why can’t he collaborate with me?” Styne asked Merrick, who replied, “Steve’s very sensitive.” “So am I,” said Styne. Critic Martin Gottfried wrote that it shouldn’t have been surprising that Styne could write for Merman. “He had been writing one Frank Sinatra hit after another and had already tailored ‘Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend’ to Carol Channing.” When Merman demanded Styne do the music, Sondheim relented and, despite early doubts, was persuaded by Styne’s “enthusiasm with which he attacked the keyboard, and by his nervous good humor.” Styne was apprehensive on meeting Sondheim: “I thought he might hit me over the head, knowing that he wanted to do the whole show. He was young, ambitious, and a huge talent. But he was also very gentle and we got along fine.”

The Styne-Sondheim collaboration was a seamless merging of eras and sensibilities, which doesn’t always work out (like the later disastrous teaming of Sondheim and Richard Rodgers). Styne was a great journeyman composer, an enthusiast who bubbled over with melodies and optimism; Sondheim was a much quieter, painstaking, more skeptical soul who seemed to bleed every note and word. Arthur Laurents didn’t have much faith they would click. “Jule wrote big fat pop hits, great tunes, but Gypsy was not going to be a razzamatazz Ethel Merman show; it was going to be a tough musical with a dramatic range. Jule Styne music? I doubted it.” Sondheim was a dawdler and procrastinator, whereas Styne was so prodigious that, like Cole Porter, he would rather write a new tune than revise one that didn’t work. Like most songwriters, Styne was eager to reuse tunes cut from other shows, a practice that appalls Sondheim, who feels each song should be inspired by its unique moment in a show. He was unhappy to learn that Styne had dipped into his trunk for used tunes.

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