To purchase MAINLY ON DIRECTING by Arthur Laurents, click on the image above.
May is a mad month. A month of random musings about various topics related to musical theatre. Feel free to share your thoughts on each topic in the comment box below.
Was Arthur Laurents a Genius?
Since Arthur Laurents died yesterday, the word genius has been thrown around a lot. It made me reflect on the man’s career and, while I know some people aren’t going to like what I have to say, this is what I think.
The career of Arthur Laurents was bookended by the same two great shows, each of which owes least to his particular contributions. His work in between was of varying consistency. As a legitimate and legendary writer, his career was over many years ago, and his choices as a director were sometimes misguided. So his brilliance, his genius, is inconsistent, unlike his ability to hurt people one would assume to be his colleagues and friends, which seems to gave been remarkably consistent over the years. It’s not for nothing that half of New York is singing “Ding dong the witch is dead” even as other proclaim his genius.
In short, yes I am grateful for what he gave to the theatre and I respect his work on the books of West Side Story and Gypsy. Do I think he is worthy of theatrical martyrdom? Do I think his work is unmatched or irreplaceable? Sorry, but no.
Musical Cyberspace 
Nick,
It seems to me that you’ve forgotten that the foundation of your entire point of view on Laurents is that he was a genius. You stated this in your comment on the blog on this site in which his death was announced. The implication therefore is that his works are works of genius, which – barring Gypsy – I don’t believe they are. So the inference to which you so strongly object is not unwarranted.
Speaking frankly, I also don’t think that there is any kind of objectivity in your assessments of the shows. I don’t see any argument based on technique that supports the idea that these musicals are well put-together, “good” pieces of theatre. I think it is clear that you like the shows, but I don’t think it is possible to argue that many of the shows that Laurents wrote after Gypsy are “good” in any kind of straightforward manner, because there are fundamental flaws in the way that they were put together.
Anyone Can Whistle, for instance, lacks coherence and it is the foundation laid by the book that is largely at fault. Nowhere was this clearer than in the recent New York City Center Encores! staging of the show. Do I Hear a Waltz? is frustratingly competent. Stephen Sondheim has been very vocal about why he thinks the show doesn’t work, calling it a “why” musical, a stance with which I only partly agree, although I certainly feel that Laurents did not interrogate his own play thoroughly enough when adapting it for the musical stage. While it is impressive, Hallelujah, Baby! is a show with something of an identity crisis. Is it trying to be uplifting and ebullient or is it trying to be dark and edgy? Of course, it could be all of those things, but I think it is trying to be one and ends up being the other. Nick and Nora has an interesting premise, but ends up being mediocre all round, despite having some fine moments.
With such fundamental flaws so clearly apparent, I would find it difficult to simply label these musicals as being “good” or “wonderful”, let alone as works of genius – or, since you object to that inference – the works of a genius. A true genius would have gotten it right more often.
*****
Thanks for the defence, Dan. It is greatly appreciated.