Arthur Laurents

December 13, 2004

Interview by Matt Howe / Barbra Archives

Matt Howe and Arthur Laurents

I was going to meet a theater legend. Not only had Arthur Laurents cast Barbra Streisand in her first Broadway show (I Can Get It For You Wholesale) and written The Way We Were for her, but he was also the man who wrote West Side Story, Gypsy, and Anyone Can Whistle, not to mention the film The Turning Point with Shirley MacLaine and Anne Bancroft.

Laurents was in Washington D.C. at our local theater, Arena Stage, directing a new version of the musical Hallelujah, Baby! On the evening of December 13, Arthur Laurents sat down in Arena’s Old Vat Room for a question and answer session with a small but enthusiastic audience.

When he entered the Old Vat Room, he was small but bright. Laurents is 86 years old and still working in the theater! He told us he decided to go back to work again because he was tired of seeing musicals that disappointed him. He had the opportunity to take Hallelujah, Baby! off the shelf, dust it off, and bring it back to the stage. He wrote the show in 1967 for Lena Horne, who ultimately abandoned the production. Composer Jule Styne and lyricists Betty Comden and Adolph Green wrote the music. In an interesting example of “six degrees of separation,” Barbra Streisand once recorded a song from Hallelujah, Baby! She worked with Comden and Green on lyric changes for “Being Good (Isn’t Good Enough)” in 1985 for The Broadway Album, but ultimately decided against using it.

Arthur Laurents spent the next hour relating stories of his time in Hollywood during the 1950’s Communist witch hunt, otherwise known as the black list. The Way We Were, “which they cut the hell out of,” he said, was based on these experiences.

He also regaled us with stories about Gypsy. Jule Styne, who also wrote the music for Funny Girl, was “adorable,” said Laurents. On Gypsy, “he used to walk in with the lead sheet to a new song and say, ‘May I say another hit?’”

Of Ethel Merman, he lovingly but honestly said, “She wasn’t swift, God knows.” To explain what he meant, Laurents told a hilarious story about Ethel Merman asking her Gypsy costar Jack Klugman if Tab Hunter was gay. Klugman replied, “Is the Pope Catholic?” To which Merman answered: “Yes.”

There were those of us in the room who were dying to hear the Streisand stories. Laurents began speaking about musical comedy, however. I found that many of his comments were applicable to Streisand, who started her career in musicals. Laurents thought that being a musical comedy performer was an innate talent, much like a great comedian who knew how to work a crowd. “There is something ineffable that has to be in you about a musical,” he said. “It’s almost vanished, by the way,” he explained, commenting about today’s performers. “It’s a feeling — like an alarm clock in your gut. When you hit the stage it goes off. There is a rhythm to the show and the scene. You can’t learn it. You can’t teach it. You can’t acquire it.”

As for performing or directing a successful musical, Arthur Laurents elaborated that “Everything is based in reality. People think because it’s a musical you can forget that—but you can’t.”

I asked Mr. Laurents if he could please relay his experience of working with Barbra Streisand in the early years of her career. Laurents good-naturedly rolled his eyes as if he’d been asked that question a million times. “Do you want me to tell you about her audition?” he asked. “Sure!” I said, wanting to hear the famous story directly from the man who was in the theater that day in 1961 when Barbra auditioned for Wholesale. Laurents, who directed the show, got a twinkle in his eye and said her audition was “calculated spontaneity,” which made the audience in the Old Vat Room laugh. Barbra, he recounted, came on the stage with a stack of music, which she placed on the upright piano. She took out one piece of music and proceeded to cross the stage. Well, the music unraveled across the stage to comedic effect. Barbra, Laurents reminded us, was a 19 year old neophyte, hardly a star at that point. When she got to center stage she summoned the stage hand to fetch her a chair! Laurents smiled at the memory of her audacity. Then, he said, “she sat in the chair and interviewed us! It was like the Barbra Streisand talk show.” Again, this elicited more laughter from the audience. He asked her if she’d care to sing something for him, as it was an audition. When he heard her voice, Laurents said, “I kept her singing.”

There was no part for Barbra in Wholesale. The only suitable role was written as a 50-year-old spinster. Laurents then very carefully explained that “at 19, Barbra was a spinster. Two years later her look became chic — Nefertiti. But at 19, she looked like a homely Jewish-girl spinster.”

Finally, Arthur Laurents remembered her drive and ambition. “She knew she would be a star, and so she is.”

End.

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