I finally finished my Alan Jay Lerner book, and boy was it a read.
One of the most enjoyable books I’ve ever read, largely attributable to the sheer wit and eloquence of Mr Lerner.
There were three main chapters in the book, and while the first one which chronicled the life and times of “My Fair Lady” was a fascinating read, the other two on the historical accounts of “Gigi” and “Camelot” weren’t any less interesting either.
Basically what we know is that they way Jay Lerner and Fritz Loewe usually wrote songs was that Jay Lerner would first suggest a title, then Loewe would go work on composing the music to the entire song, then Jay Lerner would then write lyrics to the music.
We also know that Jay Lerner could take many weeks just to complete the lyrics to a single song.
We also know that both Lerner and Loewe became so immensely wealthy thanks to the outrageous success of “My Fair Lady” that Jay Lerner once stepped into a Rolls Royce showroom in London and, on a whim, decided to order two Rolls Royces – one for himself and the other for Loewe, who was with him at that time.
Jay Lerner dropped a few pearls of wisdom through the book, and I shall just touch on them in random order.
In the “Camelot” chapter he wrote that “laughter (from an audience), after all, implies involvement and interest.”
How true.
“Camelot” had had been having poor audience reception in Toronto, but when they moved to Boston, on the preview night the audience reception was stupendous, full of laughter.
I guess whenever an audience is laughing at a show, it’s always a good sign because it indicates that they feel comfortable, they are enjoying themselves, and as Jay Lerner says, they are “involved”.
I think there’s nothing which scares a theatre writer more than an audience who is completely silent.
In the “My Fair Lady” chapter he says that “there are rules (to musical theatre) and an audience is preconditioned by those rules. I happen to believe that if a group of spectators came to the theatre expecting to see a musical and instead saw ‘Hamlet’ for the very first time, after five minutes they would grow restless waiting for the music.”
He repeats a similar refrain in the “Camelot” chapter when he says that “preview audiences are in a difficult position. They come into the theatre not quite knowing what to expect and uncertain whether it is permissible to like the play or not. If that sounds like a cynical observation it is not. The fact is that if one knows one is about to see a hit play, one automatically enters the theatre in a hit mood, ready to applaud the ushers.”
So true.
It’s all about an audience’s expectation upon entering the theatre.
The audience will adopt its own set of expectations before the show even starts, based on what little they know about the show.
The less they know about the show, the more tentative they would be, and they would take a much longer time to get a feel of the show (if they do in fact manage to get it, that is).
It’s all a matter of conditioning the audience, in other words.
And that’s an important lesson for arts marketers to remember, I guess.
Always set the tone as early as possible and let the audience know what kind of a show they are in for as soon as you can.
In the “My Fair Lady” chapter, Jay Lerner mentioned that “as a man in business is expected to receive a periodic raise and advance to a higher rung on the ladder, so in the American theatre it is expected that each play a man writes is better than his last. Quite a difference from France, for example, where, as a friend of mine in the French Academy remarked to me one day: ‘A good playwright is a man who from time to time writes a good play.’”
I like that last comment a lot – that a good playwright is a man who from time to time writes a good play.
I guess it could be extended to songwriting as well.
A good songwriter is one who writes a good song from time to time.
You can’t always expect a songwriter’s next song to be better than his previous one.
It’s just unrealistic to do so.
And lastly, a shout out to the incomparable Julie Andrews, whom Jay Lerner had worked with extensively.
He writes: “Julie Andrews is a professional in the proudest sense of the word. In the theatre since she was a child, she meets any challenge with a smile and an unbatted eyelid that makes you wonder how Britain ever lost the Empire. Always gracious, always willing, an amazingly quick study both musically and dramatically, I cannot remember one moment in the almost seven years we worked together that was anything but joy.”
And that’s why she still remains one of my favourite theatre performers of all time.
