It’s amusing to read about the ruckus surrounding the proposed revamp of Porgy and Bess at the American Repertory Theater in The New York Times and elsewhere. Many people, including Stephen Sondheim, think that putting a new spin on the Gershwins’ celebrated opera (as director Diane Paulus and writer Suzan Lori-Parks are doing with their reinterpretation of the work) is a bad idea.
I don’t object to the concept of artists creating new art out of an existing entity. Just because a work is famous, it doesn’t make it untouchable.
Yet what I find so odd about Paulus and Parks’ reconfiguration of Porgy and Bess is the decision to entitle it “The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess.†This is asking for trouble. It draws attention to the original in a way that doesn’t help the creators of the reinterpretation. The piece is very likely going to be a radical departure from the Gershwins’ effort, so why not give it a completely new title rather than so self-consciously pay homage to the source material?
A new title, with no mention of the Gershwins at the very least, would make much more sense from an artistic perspective I would guess. It probably also provoke less of a backlash from upholders of artistic sacred cows.