Few letters to the editor have stirred up as big a fuss as the one that Stephen Sondheim sent to the New York Times apropos of American Repertory Theater’s new production of Porgy and Bess. In my “Sightings” column for today’s Journal, I talk about that fuss and the reasons for it. Here’s an excerpt.
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Stephen Sondheim pulled the pin on a jumbo hand grenade when he sent a letter to the New York Times last month in which he took issue with American Repertory Theater’s Broadway-bound production of “Porgy and Bess,” which opened this week in Cambridge, Mass. To be sure, Mr. Sondheim hadn’t actually seen the show, but that didn’t stop him from blasting the “arrogance” of Diane Paulus, the show’s director, and Suzan-Lori Parks, a Pulitzer-winning playwright who has done what by all accounts is a drastic rewrite job on the book.
What made Mr. Sondheim’s letter possible was the fact that the creators of the new version had already discussed it at length with reporters. As Ms. Paulus explained to Playbill, their purpose in rewriting DuBose Heyward’s libretto was “to strengthen the piece dramatically….filling out what’s never been explored, taking the characters steps further, completing them, fully realizing them.” Given the fact that “Porgy and Bess” has a long and hugely successful production history, it may come as a surprise to its admirers that it requires strengthening. It certainly surprised Mr. Sondheim: “Ms. Paulus says that in the opera you don’t get to know the characters as people. Putting it kindly, that’s willful ignorance. These characters are as vivid as any ever created for the musical theater, as has been proved over and over in productions that may have cut some dialogue and musical passages but didn’t rewrite and distort them.”
The new “Porgy” is a work in progress that will continue to be revised between now and January, when it’s scheduled to open on Broadway. For this reason, the Journal has decided not to review the show until then, just as we chose not to review “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” while it was still in previews. That said, Mr. Sondheim’s letter set me to thinking about how and why the great Broadway musicals of the past have been revised after the fact.
Rightly or wrongly, it’s become customary for a musical to undergo a fair amount of tinkering prior to being revived on Broadway. The score is usually reorchestrated for today’s smaller pit bands, and it’s equally common for the book to be revised. In most cases the goal of these latter revisions is to make the show more accessible to modern audiences…
“Music has a face: leave it alone. If you don’t like it, don’t play it; but don’t change it.” So said Paul Hindemith, one of the 20th century’s foremost classical composers. That’s what I think, too—up to a point….
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Read the whole thing here.
Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City
