Revivals and Revisals: Paint Your Wagon Any Color You Want

Most recently, there has been some talk of a new production of Paint Your Wagon in which the story has apparently been rewritten to remove the polygamy elements while keeping the characters and basic elements of the original story.

I love my Paint Your Wagon CD. There are so many wonderful Lerner and Lowe songs (I can’t get enough of Olga San Juan’s “How Can I Wait?”), but when I read the libretto a couple years ago, it didn’t quite leave me with the same feeling.

Very few of the revivals to hit Broadway do so without some alteration. In Kiss Me, Kate, John Guare was tapped to make some ghost alterations to the Spewack’s original book, including making major changes to the Ron Holgate character as well as interpolating “From This Moment On” from another Porter show. According to Donna Murphy, there were some nips and tucks to Wonderful Town, while the producers of Bells are Ringing brought in Comden and Green to make some lyrics changes. In addition to her usual new orchestrations to open up shows for more dance, Susan Stroman switched around the order of things for The Music Man. Trevor Nunn got the Rodgers and Hammerstein organization to allow for some changes to Oklahoma!, and The Sound of Music revival added the two songs from the film.

Throughout Ken Bloom and Frank Vlastnik’s Broadway Musicals: The Greatest Shows of All Time, Bloom and Vlastnik make a case for keeping classic musicals just as they are, no re-writes, no updates, no edits. For a long time after reading this book for the first time, I felt strongly about that.

But now, I’m honestly torn.

Broadway musicals, in my mind, are like the plays of Tennessee Williams, the novels of Willa Cather, the short stories of Nathaniel Hawthorne. You don’t mess with great pieces of literature. They act as the signature of the writers, and they should be enjoyed and studied without alteration.

But then the truth is that musicals are collaborative pieces. It’s not just Jule Styne and Leo Robin’s songs, it’s also Joseph Fields and Anita Loos’ book, not to mention John C. Wilson’s direction which no doubt guided the whole effort, plus Agnes DeMille’s choreography. Without any one of those pieces, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes could have become a very different piece.

What changed my mind about Bloom and Vlastnik’s assertions was The Boy Friend. I saw the Julie Andrews tour. I was very excited to see it. Because Julie Andrews was on the CD, I had checked it out of the library several times in high school and copied three of the best songs onto a mix tape. Once I got into Broadway musicals, I bought the CD.

There are a lot of fun songs in that show, and from reading the plot synopsis in the liner notes, I had imagined it to be a funny and romantic show along the lines of Guys and Dolls. I even mentioned this to a friend of mine as a possible show I could direct when I was directing high school plays. She had seen the show and said, “I saw that at a high school once, and there was just nothing to it.” I figured she had just seen a dopey production.

Nope. Nope, she didn’t.

I know the show has fans, but when I finally saw it in production, whatever charms it had on the 1950s audience intimately familiar with the 1920s shows to which it was a valentine, was completely lost to the 2000s me. The plot is paper thin and the characters ½-dimensional.

A show simply must appeal to a modern audience. Theatre is not a museum. So, if that show contains sexist or racial caricatures no longer acceptable or jokes and plotting that wouldn’t connect with a modern audience, then the show needs to either be shelved or altered.

The problem is either when the music is so good or the book is so good except for “that one element” (or is great in summary but not in execution). One could argue that these are the exact reasons why Encores or Reprise exists, to showcase great music from shows that don’t get much play anymore, usually because of out-dated or clunky books.

However, there are millions upon millions of people without access to Encores or Reprise, yours truly being one of them. In its short run, more people saw the Sweet Charity revival (myself included) than could have ever have seen it in an Encores or Reprise production.

That is not to say that all changes are necessary. There is a big difference when “I’m an Indian Too” is excised because it requires Native American stereotypes that will turn off the wealthy, well-educated audience that supports Broadway, and when new songs are inserted in The Pajama Game for no apparent reason.

Honestly, there are many changes made for artistic interpretation of the director. That’s where I have issues. Nobody takes a great modern play, like The Crucible, and begins to add re-writes and switch things around because of their own artistic interpretation. This classic piece of literature, particularly now that Arthur Miller has died, is considered “locked.” Tennessee Williams isn’t around to makes alterations to Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, so nobody else will be allowed to. The director works to interpret what the playwright has given him or her. Like all great literature, it still leaves room for interpretation—is Brick gay or is he straight?—but it does so within the intents of the playwright.

I think of the Trevor Nunn Oklahoma! preserved so beautifully on DVD. As far as I can tell, the changes to that production were essentially interpretative changes—Trevor Nunn saying, “If I had originally directed this, here’s what I would have done.” But, I would say, “You didn’t, and you are compromising the playwrights’ intentions.”

That is really one of the key problems with much of the criticism on message boards. The harshness often comes not from “Where did this production go wrong” as much as “Here’s what I would have done, which is obviously infinitely better.” The problem arises when it results in the compromising of great American works of art.

But then you do have a problem when the shows become museum pieces. Should no one ever hear those great Cy Coleman and Carolyn Leigh Wildcat songs live because the libretto is reportedly weak?

A good example of this is with Richard M. and Robert B. Sherman’s Over Here!, which has a libretto by Will Holt. If you read the synopsis in the liner notes, the show sounds like tons of fun. However, if you read the libretto—published by Samuel French, so you can actually order it and read it—the show is written to the people who lived during World War II. It has a “remember the good old days” aura about it.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t remember the good old days. The good old days to me are Saved by the Bell. And, I don’t think there are tons of people who remember those good old days left to fill a theatre for a long run.

It would be my dream to write a modern musical comedy libretto for Over Here! using the old songs (and probably needing a few more added) to make it palatable for modern audiences, allowing audience to hear that great music again.

Did I mention I would love to see Paint Your Wagon on stage in an entertaining form?

But there I go contradicting myself. Bad, bad Broadway Mouth.

In the end, it’s all about money. Who wants it and who is willing to sacrifice grandpa’s work to get more of it? If I ever get a show or eight on Broadway, I hope to God my grandchildren aren’t bastardizing my work to send their children through college. But then, I also hope I write shows that are timeless enough to survive decades untouched.

the Broadway Mouth
September 26, 2007

From the Mouth of Alan Jay Lerner

When I wrote the blog entry “A Hundred Million Miracles,” I did so because I wanted to share something exciting I had found with the people who read my blog. I am very thankful to those who upload footage onto You Tube and Blue Gobo because it’s all about education. The more I can see of, say, Gwen Verdon from the original Sweet Charity, the more I can learn. Theatre is a living art form. You can gain much from reading about the great performances and from hearing first hand accounts, but until you see Heather Headley and Adam Pascal singing “Elaborate Lives” or see Gower Champion’s original “Before the Parade Passes By” choreography, you can never fully understand.

So below, I’ve scanned in the foreword to the published Paint Your Wagon libretto from which I quoted in my “Hello and Faux” blog entry. It is entitled “Advice to Young Musical Writers” and is written by Alan Jay Lerner himself. Reading this article really gave me perspective on a number of the current trends on Broadway.

The longer I study Broadway, how true it seems to me that the more things change, the more they stay the same. In the Rick McKay documentary Broadway: The Golden Age and on the DVD bonus features, a number of significant theatre folk acknowledge that people have been bemoaning the state of Broadway since the 1970s. In looking at this article, it’s clear that people have been bemoaning the state of Broadway much longer . . . even in the midst of the great Golden Age.

So I propose that we limit complaining, continue learning, continue creating, and continue to fight the good fight of getting a great show on Broadway.


Advice to Young Musical Writers
by Alan Jay Lerner

In recent years there has been an ever-increasing number of adaptations in the theater and, by consequence, a steady decline of original works. This has been especially-true of the musical play (musical play as opposed to musical comedy). There have actually been only three successful original musical plays in the last decade. This dearth has frequently been mentioned in the press, and when it has been, it has always been accompanied by a mournful cry for more fresh creation. As one who has written four originals, the one between these covers included, let me hereby warn all aspiring authors and composers to stuff their ears with cotton and pay no heed to this soulful wail. No one, neither critic nor public, is clamoring for originality. The only desire is for something good. And to be good is quite original enough. If you create a total work that finds general acceptance, no mention will be made of what you have done. If it's unsuccessful, no one will commend you for your effort and encourage you to continue. All this I can state as a positive fact. And though it may seem edged with bitterness, I can assure you it is not. I have always been fully aware of the folly of that end of my endeavor and have often cursed the ambition that drives me. But with it all, my rewards in the musical field have been far in excess of what I truthfully feel I have contributed. No, my reasons for the above advice are sound and practical and come from one who loves his trade and has deep respect for it as a medium of expression.

The lyric theater is the one, and only one, true invention that has been made in theatrical form for many years. It is also a purely American creation; so American, in fact, is this subtle interweaving of word, song, and dance, that no other country has even been able to approach it. Because it is new, it also has great possibilities for development. And with a public that is searching for escape almost more avidly than it did during the war, there is a large, waiting audience. But there is also a problem. And this problem is a serious one. The spank in the machine is that there are very few people writing musicals. I don't believe there are more than a dozen composers, librettists, and lyricists in all who are regular practitioners and who have committed their careers to the musical stage. Not only that, but of that number no more than three, possibly four, have been developed in the past ten years. The rest have been the backbone of our musical theater since the twenties and early thirties.

There are a myriad of reasons why this should be so. The most important one, however, is economic. Although there are many struggling neophytes composing musical plays, the cost of production these days is so astronomical that investors are reluctant to trust their funds to any but the tried and true. The hazard is further increased by the fact that the cost of attending a musical has risen so that although there is a public longing for entertainment, people are unwilling to risk the price of a ticket unless they have been assured by the press that the evening will be a rewarding one. This means there is no room for the moderate success. A musical show is either a smash hit or it will invariably be a financial failure. And to increase the hazard even more, favorable notices by a majority of the eight New York critics are not sufficient. There are two of the eight writing for the daily press who must be pleased above all. Survival without their blessing is relatively impossible; even though survival with their blessing is not absolutely guaranteed. All of this naturally has immediate effects on the economic and emotional plight of the author and composer. How long can they continue writing without seeing production of, and receiving remuneration for, their efforts? Where do they make mistakes and thus learn? And how long can anyone endure without some sign of encouragement?

And so I return to my early thesis. With the risks being what they are—and I have only mentioned a few of the multitude—your chances not only of reaching production but achieving success will be inestimably enhanced if you begin with a book, a short story, a motion picture, or a play that has already been approved by public and critic alike. The value of the basic story cannot be exaggerated. There is often a general tendency to regard the book of a musical as of little consequence. This is especially true when the musical is a success. But let the opening night be a two and a half hour wake and you will read the next morning how neither the cast, the music, the scenery, nor the dancing was able to overcome the inept plot. I can tell you the book is all-essential. It is the fountain from which all waters spring. So start off on the right foot and select a story that is all prepared for you. The translation of that story to musical form is quite complex enough. Within that frame you will find more than adequate challenge to your originality and enough on which to experiment.

January 25, 1952



Originally published as a foreword to the published libretto of Paint Your Wagon

MLA Citation Information:
Lerner, Alan Jay. Foreword. Paint Your Wagon. Coward-McCann, 1952. vii-ix.

(Blogger doesn't allow for underlining, but please be aware that MLA requires titles of plays to be underlined instead of italicized.)

Please Note: I would just like to acknowledge that I am a big fan of copyrights, having ownership of a few of them myself. My intent in posting this piece of copyrighted work is solely education. I make no money from this blog. Since it has been long out of print, I trust that by posting it, I am not taking away from any earning potential from those who own the copyright.

I would be a happy camper if I got an email saying that this essay was going to be collected into a new collection of articles about Broadway over the past century, and therefore, I needed to remove it; however, since that seems sadly unlikely, I make it available. If you are the owner of this copyright and would like me to remove it, please contact me.


Broadway Mouth
July 1, 2007