| re: Well, sorta | |
| Posted by: Michael_Portantiere 12:44 pm EDT 07/28/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Well, sorta - MockingbirdGirl 11:02 am EDT 07/28/20 | |
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| "I think his letter should have noted his objection to DuBose Heyward's omission and left it at that. One of the great joys of theatre is seeing how familiar shows can be reimagined. Does it always work? Absolutely not. But that doesn't mean it isn't worth the attempt. And has already been pointed out, Sondheim didn't write a similar letter about Oklahoma, which does rather point up the gendered aspect to his original critique." My interpretation of Sondheim's letter was that he had two main points: (1) he wanted to state that, based on Paulus and Parks' (and McDonald's) own words about what they were going to do to PORGY AND BESS, the piece should not be represented in the title of that production as the work of "The Gershwins," and (2) he wanted to state his strong objection to that title as well, if only because it doesn't acknowledge the huge, invaluable contribution of DuBose Heyward, who wrote the play on which the opera is based as well as about 90 percent of the libretto and lyrics. (That's my own figure, gleaned from what I have read about his contribution over the years.) "And has already been pointed out, Sondheim didn't write a similar letter about Oklahoma, which does rather point up the gendered aspect to his original critique." No, it doesn't necessarily mean that AT ALL -- unless you're prepared to state that Sondheim felt comfortable criticizing Parks, Paulus, and McDonald BECAUSE they're female, but didn't feel comfortable criticizing the work of Fish because he's male. I suspect maybe the reason he didn't write a similar letter about OKLAHOMA! is that he received so much negative blow-back over the PORGY letter, even if I happened to agree with every word of it. P.S. Not mentioned so far in this discussion is that, aside from all the other changes and radical reinterpretations of PORGY that were made for the Paulus-Parks production, it turned out that there was some actual REWRITING OF THE LYRICS as well. Not a tremendous amount, but there were several ill-advised and/or unnecessary rewrites that came screaming out at me. All of which amplifies my feeling that, if there are major things you dislike about a show, to the point where you feel you need to radically reinterpret it and even go so far as to do some rewriting, then maybe you have simply declined to revive it in the first place and just written your own show instead. |
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