Mainly on Directing by Arthur Laurents (read more books .TXT) 📕

It's devastating to Rose. Once again, she is being walked out on. For an uncharacteristic moment, she's down—but only for a moment. What keeps her going is what has always kept her going: her dream. And there it is in big, bright lights: ROSE! Her life; she reaches up for it, the lights start to flicker out one by one, but she chases after them to stop them from going out. She reaches up for them; as the curtain comes down, she still is reaching—she always will be.

That's the ending. It's the only true ending and I kept it. This Gypsy is the first to attract a young audience. The ending is one of the first things they talk about. They didn't expect an ending that true in Broadway theatre.

The call came while I was getting dressed for opening night. “You can't repeat this or someone will get fired,” the friend said. “Ben Brantley is a rave for Patti and the whole show.”

A moment of pure, uncomplicated joy. The New York Times had actually changed its opinion of Patti LuPone in print. She had finally fulfilled her potential. The Times rave wasn't only for her; it was for Boyd and Laura and Leigh Ann and Tony, for the whole company and what I had achieved with them. The holy effulgence shone on this new Gypsy. Proud? Very.

As I went uptown to the theatre, question followed question: Should I tell Patti before the show? Wouldn't she then give the greatest opening-night performance of her life? Could I tell her? Hadn't I been asked not to tell anyone? Or was it just not to tell anyone who would repeat it?

I walked into Patti's dressing room. Only she and Matt, her husband, were there, both running higher-than-normal opening night temperatures. She looked so small next to him. Matt Johnston is big, a big, handsome guy I had become very fond of. He was more nervous, more frightened, more worried, more everything he wouldn't be if he knew what I knew. Patti would look taller; she would be taller. I told them.

“You can't repeat this to anyone,” I said, and repeated what I had been told about Brantley's review. Patti's eyes flooded with relief. She held out her arms and we hugged for so much that was unsaid and didn't have to be said until much later when you relive and keep reliving every moment you never really thought would happen.

Matt was in a very different place. “Did you read it?” he demanded.

“No, but the person who—”

“If you didn't see it, we don't know it's true!” He was passionate.

“Matt—” both Patti and I began. But the stakes were higher for him than for anyone in that room. “Unless we see it, we can't be sure.”

He had lived through her getting hurt before. He was terrified she would be hurt again and he couldn't face the thought. That's love.

The newspapers were unanimous raves for Patti and the show. The weeklies were even better. The box office brought hope to the producers. Work hasn't stopped on the performance, and won't. Patti calls her performance “a work in progress;” I regularly have rehearsals around a table, and the company loves them. The show is a rare experience, certainly in this theatre in this day: it's loved.

About a month after we opened came another prized e-mail from Mike Nichols. This time, Tom read it with me.

FOUR

How To

IN THE THEATRE, billing is more important than money and power is more important than either, because it begets both. When the director of a musical is also the choreographer, his power is absolute; the show is totally in his hands. Or so it would seem if the hands belonged to Jerome Robbins. But what if the producer was of a dying breed? What if he was notoriously intimidating, if his name was David Merrick and his nickname the “Abominable Showman”? Trouble in River City. And Merrick wasn't even the sole producer of Gypsy; he was co-producer with Leland Hayward.

Hayward-Merrick was a marriage of convenience: each had a property the other wanted. Hayward wanted the rights to Gypsy Rose Lee's autobiography, owned by Merrick; Merrick wanted the rights to Jerome Robbins, owned by Hayward. Merrick wanted Jerry because he was the pre-eminent director/choreographer and, subtextually, because Jerome Robbins was the touch of class David Merrick wanted. Both producers wanted me to write the book— which gave me the power, but only until I decided whether I would or wouldn't. Merrick wanted me because the established stalwarts Betty Comden and Adolph Green had come a cropper trying to write about Gypsy Rose Lee whereas I had just come off West Side Story. Never mind that the author of the book of a musical about love destroyed by the bigotry and violence of gangs wasn't exactly type casting for the author of the book of a musical about the striptease queen of America. West Side Story, however, had been an artistic success, giving me a touch of that class Merrick wanted so badly. Hayward's reason was much simpler: he wanted me to write the book because Jerry wouldn't do the show unless I did.

Jerry's insistence on me was an insight into how he functioned as a director. We had begun West Side Story close friends; we ended barely speaking. He couldn't have cared less—I was his choice to write Gypsy. Ironically, the show I wrote was not the show he envisioned. He complained that it was my show, not his; still, it was a success and he accepted due credit—not as much as he hungered for, but the world of entertainment is crowded with the insatiable who can't receive all the credit they hunger for, because it doesn't exist.

With the occasional exception, the most successful directors don't allow personal relationships to get in their determined way. Jerry, as director, preferred repeat collaborators like Betty Comden and Adolph Green or Lenny Bernstein who were also his good