Letter from America
Gerrit Henry New York Apart from E. L. Doctorow's best-seller, Ragtime, the major cultural events of the autumn season—which runs from September, when New Yorkers are returning from vacation, to New Year's, when they go into hibernation until the spring season—have not been literary ones. In fact, the most widely talked-about phenomenon of the last nine months or so has been the musical comedy, A Chorus Line. It was introduced by the experimental producer, Joseph Papp, at his downtown Public Theater last year but is now playing to sold-out houses on Broadway at the Shubert Theater. A Chorus Line details, in words, song, and dance, the travails and triumphs of a group of young and not-so-young "gypsies" (Broadway dancers who go from show to show hoping for the 'big break') over the course of an audition. It is also the first musical in the history of American theatre to have become a local industry. So far, no on has made a hit record of any of the songs from the rather weak score by film composer Marvin Hamlisch and lyricist Edward Kleban, but we do have A Chorus Line towels, bags, and t-shirts (some.of the last so arcane as to simply have song titles or catch-phrases from the show printed across them), A Chorus Line bars and discotheques, A Chorus Line posters for home display, and a new dance fad called—yes, you guessed it—The Chorus Line.
The show is distinctive in other ways, since it is one of the first commercial musicals to have been funded partially from taxpayers' money (during its extended 'try-out' at Papp's publicly-funded Public Theater), and it is one of the first Broadway shows to have become a huge success months and months before it opened (which only happened officially this autumn after it had moved to the Shubert and after the Broadway musician's strike finally ended). A Chorus Line is not particularly distinctive in book, lyrics or music; and though its direction and choreography by Michael Bennett (he also choreographed Company and Follies, and so has himself become something of a star) are arresting, these features alone don't seem to justify the public's crazed reaction to the show. Its main appeal lies in the way it grabs, and won't let go of the heartstrings—who wouldn't choke up over the true confessions of a talented dancer who failed in Hollywood and wants to start all over ,again in the line, a former female impersonator trying to make it in legitimate theatre, et al? Although this kind of sentimentality may be what financially and spiritually beleaguered New Yorkers are desperate for, is it what godd musical theatre (like Company and Follies) is about ? Many of us are reserving final judgment on it until we see what Stephen Sondheim and Harold Prince are bringing to the Great White Way this winter in the form of an all-male, Kabuki styled musical called Pacific Overtures. But be forewarned: there is talk of the formation of a London company of A Chorus Line.
The main literary event of the season was undoubtedly the 'Tribute to Edwin Denby,' which was held in the downtown studio of the painter, Elaine de Kooning, in late December. Denby is a New York poet of no little repute; his verse, witty and lyrical, celebrates the large and small ironies, the difficulties, and beauties of
urban existence. Denby has also been a dance critic (for the Herald Tribune in the
'forties), and a friend, and confidante of many of the New York avant-garde for
over thirty years. So he was long overdue for a tribute. To double his glory, this one coincided with the publication of his Collected Poems by the newly-established Full Court Press. On the evening, Denby was honoured by John Ashbery and Michael Brownstein, who read from their poetry; by Andy de Groat, who did a dance to words by playwright Robert Wilson; and by the Warhol superstar turned actor, Taylor Mead, who—dressed in a Boy Scout suit—simply turned to Denby and saluted him, his only good deed of the evening. Edwin Denby's old friend and collaborator, Rudy Burckhardt, was also there, and he presented a montage of clips from films in which the versatile Denby had appeared—Inside Dope, The Richest Man In The World, and 145 West 2Ist—which also starred Aaron Copland, the composer. It was, all in all, a lavish tribute to a man of the arts from the people who love and respect him. As one guest noted, "Edwin stayed later than anybody."
Another bright light of the last few months has been Patti Smith. Smith used to be a poet of the Late Beat variety, giving readings at St Mark's Church on the Lower East Side with the rest of us. Then, in the early 'seventies, she started giving rock-music style recitals of her work at that haunt of the younger New York art crowd, Max's Kansas City East—cultivating a rather larger following than she had been able to attract at St Mark's. Eventually, as in all good success stories, she was 'discovered'. Now Patti is on her way to becoming a real, fully-fledged rock star, words to her songs by her, music by others. Patti's first record album, Horses, has sold close to one hundred thousand copies and her record company, Arista, is giving her the all-stops-out and no-holdsbarred publicity treatment. Those involved with Smith and her career believe that young Americans have been college educated to the point where they can now accept, and embrace, a singing idol who claims she's Rimbaud revividus, who dresses in shirt and loosened tie with hat cocked over one eyebrow a la Sinatra, and who performs songs with Lesbian themes. Perhaps they're right. Although Smith's lyrics are, by turns, abstruse, surreal, symbolistic and, generally, 'difficult', her rock 'n' roll musical settings provide the necessary bounce and energy to make them appealing to a wide audience.
As for Patti's defection from literature to show business, who's to blame her?
Homer wanted to be heard, not read, and so did Walt Whitman, and so, probably, do a lot of contemporary poets who are just bursting to get out from beneath our layers of modern diffidence and 'alienation'. But Patti Smith has got a group behind her and gone and done it—that takes pluck. Also, I hear, she would like to be rich. Well, as a juke box hit from a few years back had it, "everybody is a star"—even, now, a poet.
Previous page
