The Leonard Bernstein Letters (64 page)

Dear Lenny,

I'm sending a copy of this letter and the enclosed to Jerry. Obviously, it is the barest of skeletons – but it is on the line we worked out and agreed on. And will, I hope, be some sort of basis for all of us to do some thinking on before we meet again.

I don't know whether you've been so busy that you've missed all the juvenile gang war news.
¹
Not only is it all over the papers every day, but it is going to be
all over the movie screens. Arthur Miller, or so I read, is doing an original drama on the subject for the movies.
²

By accident, then, we have hit on an idea which is suddenly extremely topical, timely, and just plain hot. For this reason, I hope we can get to serious work on it as early as we planned. But more than that, if there is any way of getting the thing done this season, I hope we can find it. To my way of thinking, it would be perfect timing to present this on Broadway early in the spring. I don't know if it's possible but with all this splurge of interest in the subject, I think we would be missing a big opportunity if we didn't capitalize on it.

Incidentally, I hope you noticed I didn't say “East Side Story”.
³
This was because of our mutual feeling that the locale should not be specific or definitely placed in any specific city.

Love to Felicia, your brood and yourself.

Arthur

Dear Leonard,

This, frankly, is an all-out attempt to get you to come out here for a week. And Jerry and I are going to phone you later this week. I would not write this if I did not really think it was important. I wouldn't be staying out here myself, for that matter, no matter how pool-lush the life is. Let me explain.

The Comden–Green–Styne show
⁵
has bogged down. For many reasons; maybe you know them. Beginning with Leland [Hayward]'s exit, with Jule's [Styne's] productions, with Betty and Adolph's movie work. They don't know how much more work they will have to do on their latest, when they can get back to their show, etc. Furthermore, they spoke to Jerry about doing the lyrics for ours. I understand you spoke to them, about the lyrics. Jerry told them you and I planned to try ourselves. If you and he feel they are right and would like to have them join the project, I am, you know, willing to go along.
⁶
I don't know how right they are but Jerry seemed to think they could be guided and helped and even pushed – as, he says, they never really have been into doing a good job.

But that is secondary. The point is that Jerry's decks are clear
at this moment
for the spring. He and I have been working very well together. By the end of this week, we should have a pretty good outline to go over with you. His concern about the spring is: Will the show be ready? You know him and how he wants his commitments committed well in advance. If you came out, I am absolutely convinced a) the show would be ready and b) we could convince him that it would be ready and thus he would commit himself for a spring production. He would also take it as an evidence of your faith and more, we could actually wind up all the preliminary work we have all talked about and that is so damn necessary. It would not take more than a week. The fare is inexpensive now and you could stay here. There is plenty of room, he has a man who cooks and cleans (lush life), a big pool (lush life), you and I could work during the day and hash it over with him at night. I admit: no social life. One big party, Jerry says. Unless you make your social life quite late at night or in the afternoons. But what are the words, what can I say to urge you to please come out? None I suppose beyond the fact that I – again – am convinced that the outline would be set and the show would be set for spring. Which is really what we all want. Please think very seriously about all this and then make your reservation to come out Sunday night and start work Monday. One week, that's all.

As for production contracts, that's no part of this really. Except Bob Joseph has really been shooting off his wild mouth rather stupidly, and what he hasn't mucked up, Arnold Weissberger has done, and brilliantly. The plan is now for a collaboration agreement between you, Jerry and me to be drawn up, and
then
proceed from there. But I suppose David Hocker, whom we just spoke to, will or has informed you about all this.

Lenny – again and again: please do come out for the one week. It is terribly important if you want a spring production. I know I do.

My love to Felicia and your brood and, obviously, to you.

Arthur

Dear Lenny,

I saw
It's Always Fair Weather
last night; it was very disappointing. True, there were many funny moments, but they didn't add up. For me it was a slick pastiche without any integration. But more than this, what actually disturbed me was the New York-ese evocation. I should think that after
On the Town
and
Wonderful Town
Comden and Green had had their say on the subject. It seems that this gold mine doesn't exhaust itself for them. Don't they ever have pangs about using the same kind of subject matter? – three soldiers instead of three sailors, the New York stereotypes, etc. Besides repeating themselves, I also felt that at several points they veered dangerously close to
Guys and Dolls
. As for the music – [André] Previn may be a great pianist, but really now!

What this is leading up to is
East Side Story
. If I'm not wrong, this is supposed to be a Bronxite version of
Romeo and Juliet
. The basic idea is novel (as was
Carmen Jones
); so was
Fair Weather
. When I think of what might have really been done with the idea of three war buddies meeting again after ten years – what a truly great drama (
not
musical) could have come out of it. Similarly,
East Side Story
– are you sure this is stuff for a
musical
, and, if it is, are the now familiar gimmicks of the floating crap game, chewing-gum drawl, subway rendezvous (
S
[
ain
]
t of Bleak
[
Bleecker Street
]), etc., ad nauseam, going to be rehashed again? I hope not. Enough metropolitana! Also, don't forget that there are historical connotations involved in
Romeo and Juliet
. When Blacher's version was done at Tanglewood (e.g.) from the historical orientation, how fully could one accept a Negro as Romeo and a white girl as Juliet – even though the whole medium is, to begin with, artificial?

For the past two weeks I have been taking my Doctorate entrance exams – harmonic and formal analysis, ear training and dictation, counterpoint, history, and an English exam and the Miller Analogy Test. I am exhausted! If nothing else, these exams point up how really ill-equipped I am! I still can't write a fugue à la Gedalge; my dictation is abominable. It's quite sickening. Actually, I am nothing
but an animal in music. I work and respond with emotions; the craft is negligible. One other person is taking the degree with me – Kenneth Gaburo – a Gershwin award winner who has just finished a Fulbright in Italy. He is about 33 and is certainly far advanced in relation to myself. If there were ten of us, I wouldn't mind, but it is so easy to make comparisons when only two are involved. He won the Gershwin award along with James Dalgliesh, who has since died.
⁸

It's a good thing that no one else but myself eats my food. I make enough spaghetti for ten people, pot roast like rubber, stuffed pepper like the stones. For anyone else it may be amusing; for me it's just a pain. At least I keep the pots clean – so there's [no] chance of my developing dysentery. If I could only cook – !

Three times a day – morning, noon, night – I journey back and forth to school. That is the extent of my contact with the world. From 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. I keep busy at the desk and piano. I practice about 5 hours every night, plus accompany dance classes 1 hour per day. I knock myself out, so that there will be no time to wallow in self-pity. The only misery comes when I try to fall asleep – it's so damn difficult. I enjoy my students, but, at the same time, I resent their drain upon my time which could be spent composing – preparing lessons, correcting assignments and tests, private coaching sessions; ugh! I'm sorry to say that the main trouble is that my body is in Urbana, Illinois, but my heart and mind are on W. 57th St in Gotham. If there were only someone to talk to –

Love,

Jack

Dear Arthur and Lenny,

I am dictating this in 15 minutes I have free during lunch, so I'll get right to it. Excuse the directness, but it's the only way I can get this off to you.

It concerns the outline, but before I tell you my objections I want you to know that I think it's a hell of a good job and very much on the right track, and that these differences are incidental to the larger wonderful job you are both doing.
⁹

I don't agree with the 3 act division. I feel strongly that this negates the time pressure connected with the whole show and mitigates against the tenseness of the story being crammed into 2 or 3 days. Moreover, there's not sufficient material in Act II or III to stand up by themselves. And it's a serious mistake to let the audience out of our grip for 2 intermissions.
¹⁰

Act I, Scene 2. Would like to suggest that the meeting between Romeo and Juliet be more abrupt rather than an observing of each other from a distance at first. In general, suddenness of action is something we should strive for,
¹¹
beginning with the tempo key in which we establish Scene 1. Its violence and excitement should cue us for all our dramatic moments; i.e. the suddenness and horror of the murders at the end of the rumble, the discovery of love, etc. etc.

Act I, Scene 5. You are away off the track with the whole character of Anita. She is the typical downbeat blues torch-bearing 2nd character (Julie of
Showboat
, etc.) and falls into a terrible cliché.
¹²
The audience will know that somewhere a “my man done left me” blues is coming up for her. Furthermore, this puts the girl above the age limit and experience that the gang should have and completely disturbs the adolescent quality.
¹³
If she's “an-older-girl-kicked-by-love-before-experiencing-the-worst” (and I'm quoting you) she's much too experienced for the gang, or else is sick, sick, sick to be so attached emotionally and sexually to a younger boy of a teen age gang. I can't put the above strongly enough and at the risk of offending you, Arthur, forget Anita and start writing someone who is either older (like Tante) or younger with the same emotional timber of the rest of the gang.

Act I, Scene 6. The jitterbug dance should finish completely and then start again as an encore with Bernardo entering,
¹⁴
otherwise we kill the hand, the dance and the audience's pitch. You might consider the reading of the headlines here because this will tie in with second drugstore scene after murders have been committed. (See later note in Act III, Scene 5.)

Act II, Scene 1. I again object to Anita's downbeat note, the “oh-God-am-I-suffering”.
¹⁵

Act II, Scene 2. I wonder about “
children
playing games and marrying themselves”. Just as long as it doesn't become cute, coy or silly, okay.

Act II Scene 3. There are extremely wrong things here. First, it's another reprise of the Bernardo-Romeo-Juliet scene of Act I, Scene 2, the first time they all meet: and either the fight scene must be provoked immediately or else we're
boring the audience and stalling.
¹⁶
Don't understand why Bernardo doesn't plunge into the scene that follows with his provoking Romeo to a fight. In other words, rather than heightening the following scene, I feel it lessens it and robs it. The only thing I like is the character color of Juliet's strength. I thought the version of Romeo steering someone away from the rumbles was a better idea.

Act III, Scene 2. I am starting to feel we're in serious trouble with the so-called love ballet. (See note on dancers at end.)

Act III, Scene 3. Want to know why Juliet doesn't go with Romeo immediately.
¹⁷

Act III, Scene 5. There are a couple of things I can't adjust here. The boys are jitterbugging to avert suspicion from the police – but what has happened about the death of their beloved Mercutio? In other words, how do you make compatible the effect of the murders on the boys with what you have written?
¹⁸
I think this
can
be one, but isn't indicated at all in the outline. Here's where the newspaper headlines, with references to the teen-age gang war and murders could be used. The “hey that's me” effect.

Act III, Scene 6. From the outline I'm inclined to feel that it's all a little too goofy. Juliet becomes Ophelia with the reeds and flowers and is playing a “crazy” scene.
¹⁹
I had to read the whole thing a couple of times to find out why Romeo died
²⁰
and I also think it's too right on the head placing it back in the bridal shop.

As for the all-over picture, we're dead unless the audience feels that all the tragedy can and could be averted, that there's
hope
and a wish for escape from that tragedy, and a tension built on that desire. We must always hold out the tantalizing chance of a positive ending. Romeo and Juliet particularly must feel this and be sure of it. It's another reason why I dislike qvetchy Anita so much. Let's not have anyone in the show feel sorry for themselves.
²¹

About the dancing. It will never be well incorporated into the show unless some of the principals are dancers. I can see, easily, why Romeo and Juliet must be singers, but Mercutio has to be a dancer, maybe Anita, and for sure some of the prominent gang members, otherwise, if any of the dance sequences do take place over the stage, your principals will move to the side and a terrible separation happens.
²²
Practically, it's easier to rehearse with separate units, but with all
the experience I've had it's by far most beneficial to the unity of the show to have the principals do everything. It's a sorry sight and a back-breaking effort, and usually an unsuccessful one, to build the numbers around some half-assed movements of a principal who can't move. Think it over.

I'm sending this off as fast as possible, so please excuse the abruptness. Let me hear from you both.

Love,

Jerry