InDepth InterView: Maury Yeston - Part II: New Words

By: May. 07, 2010
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Today, in honor of the DVD release of Rob Marshall's film version of the 1982 Tony-winning Best Musical NINE, Maury Yeston was gracious and generous enough to grant me a few hours in which I could ask him intimate questions about his life, career and the future of theatre itself. Not one to mince words, Yeston is a veritable font of knowledge and it became clear during the interview that he may be as gifted and talented in his educational and mentorship skills as he is as a two-time Tony-winning composer and lyricist. His stage musicals include two Tony-winning Best Musicals, NINE and TITANIC, as well as: IN THE BEGINNING, GRAND HOTEL, PHANTOM, and the forthcoming DEATH TAKES A HOLIDAY, as well as a full-length ballet of Tom Sawyer premiering later this year. From the handwritten letter sent by Katharine Hepburn to Frederico Fellini after seeing the workshop of NINE thirty years ago to this very day when NINE hits DVD, we will take a look at this magnanimous maestro's starry career in this inaugural InDepth InterView. Enjoy!

Here is Part Two of this two-part interview. Part One is available here.

Cinema Italiano

NINE, etc.

PC: How do you feel about different actors and singers re-interpreting your songs?

MY: So many times I have been lucky enough to be involved with other people's careers and in which, somehow, material I have given them has allowed them the opportunity to showcase an aspect of themselves not seen before. I'll give you an example: Fergie.

PC: Are you a fan of The Black Eyed Peas?

MY: Yes, of course! Absolutely! Here's Fergie, who comes into this film version [of NINE] and steals the movie! Even as a musical theatre star, her performance is fabulous. Her voice and her vocals, it's like having Sophie Tucker and Ethel Merman onstage for you. That was such a lucky moment for me to have someone as wonderful as Fergie show another side of her talent.

PC: Can you give me a history of NINE?

MY: NINE began as a personal project. It expanded. We ultimately did it as a staged reading at the O'Neill conference in 1978, one of the earliest ones that they did. I did not know it, but at the time, Katharine Hepburn, who lived in the area, came to see it and wrote a letter to Fellini and said she had seen this wonderful thing. When I met Fellini to ask him for permission to do the show he mentioned that he had received the letter from Katharine Hepburn so he gave me permission. At the time, at that staged reading of the show, the cast had men and women. When I eventually did the show with Tommy Tune, we were not happy with the male actors we were seeing at the auditions. Except, of course, were in love with Raul Julia. It was Tommy's notion to do the show with all of the fabulous women that we were seeing. We thought that was a great opportunity. As a result of that, my first idea was, "Well, if I have a cast of basically 24 women I can treat them as the orchestra. I can make choral sounds with the women. I can vary that all night." So, my first notion was, "Well, every show has an overture, but since I have these 24 women so why have the band play the overture when I can have the women sing the overture? So, I wrote the women's overture. When Lilianne Motevecchi joined the cast, she was such a wonderful singer that I wrote a song specifically for her, "Folies Bergere". I expanded "Call From The Vatican" when I found out Anita Morris had a high C. I added a lot of things during that workshop that helped to create that production of NINE. When David Leveaux did NINE at the Donmar Warehouse he wanted to make it more intimate, he wanted to make it smaller. He wanted to focus very much on NINE as being fundamentally a story of a marriage so therefore he asked me if he could not include "The Germans At The Spa". So, I said, "Of course!" You see, I believe that change is good. I believe that a show is only as good as it can remain contemporary to audiences. Not only to the historical times it is being done in, but the country as well. I've seen NINE in Japan, Italy, Rio De Janero, Buenos Aires, France, England. These places are very different. When I look at the great dramatists of all time - Aeschylus, Sophocles, Shakespeare, right?

PC: Of course.

MY: ...the lessons we learn from all them is that the reason their work has lasted for, literally, thousands of years is because they were able to express their own creativity in the production of that work.

PC: Yes.

MY: You know, tomorrow, some brilliant British director may give us HAMLET on motorcycles. With leather jackets, and it will be great. If that's the lesson, I think, for myself as an author, I should be very open-minded about how people want to do productions of my work. That's what will keep it alive. That's what will keep it surprising. Let them find their own wonderful ways of presenting my work. So, I tend not to be not terribly over-controlling and I tend to encourage the idea that they explore new ideas. So, if a director comes to me and says, "I have an idea of doing that show without that number," I'll say, "Sure!" I believe nothing really effects or destroys the original work. Nothing is ever going to change the show.

PC: What about putting the film songs in the stage score of NINE? At one point it was announced that the Westchester Broadway Theater was going to include "Cinema Italiano" and maybe some of the others?

MY: Well, we talked about that, but, at the end of the day, once I had gotten the chance to have studied the film and studied the play, I realized what I loved about the play was that it was written so specifically for the stage. What I loved about working with Rob Marshall was that the things he asked me to do were things he felt would help adapt the piece cinematically. But, I felt, "Well, that's the movie." But, what necessarily will work on the stage wouldn't work in the movie. Let's keep the stage version the stage version. That's exactly what we should do.

PC: What about all the material that didn't make it into the film?

MY: Let me take that one step further. For example: When the David Leveaux Donmar version came to Manhattan and when - suddenly - we have Chita Rivera, well, obviously if we have Chita Rivera and Antonio Banderas I'm going to write them a tango. I have to write something special for them. I watched it stop the show in the middle of the performance! You know, I'm not a dead composer, I'm very much alive. If I have two people like that, how can I not? Seize that opportunity to let them show their great talent! OK, so now we're talking about cut songs...

PC: Well, the "Take It All" trio version...

MY: That's a very easy one. Listen, I feel my job had to be so radical, so theatrical in adapting a Fellini film to the stage. I think we were able to do that. Everything about the original was pure, pure theatre. You have a white tile set. It's completely abstract. The story takes place 90% inside the mind of the main character. There's an orchestra of women in his head who are supposed to be invisible and they are on stage all the time. You couldn't possibly make a movie of that! It would make no sense, no visual sense! But, it makes brilliant sense onstage. I mean, talk about the difference. You know, if you want to make a movie and put somebody on the beach it's going to cost you $280,000 to get a second unit to go on the beach... You know the opening of the second act of NINE?

PC: Yes. "A Man Like You"...

MY: When Claudia comes out and looks at Guido and says, "Why did you bring me to this beach?" and there's no set! There's just a light on a bare stage, but the audience now thinks it's looking at the beach. So, of course, if we had done our job so well that the stage show was so fundamentally theatrical that you couldn't imagine it being a film again, how was Rob Marshall going to restore it and make it cinematic again? I said to him, "I have to give you complete carte blanche to make this as a film. Film is a director's art." I simply said, "You can't point a camera at the stage and expect it work as a film. Otherwise, why didn't you just make a video of the Broadway show?"

PC: Then it's THE PRODUCERS. Or something.

MY: That's not what a movie is. So, Rob came with a series of very specific requests and recommendations to ask for.

PC: Was "Take It All (Trio)" there?

MY: It wasn't "Tale It All (Trio)" then. What Rob said was that, "What we find is that there are a lot of ballads in the second act in which the actors just stand there and sing." You can't do that in sequence in a movie, there's no action. I said, "I agree." You can't have "Simple", "Be On Your Own", "I Can't Make This Movie", "Getting Tall", one right after the other. I mean, you know...

PC: Talk about four knock-outs in a row!

MY: Talk about knock-outs, they bring down the house! But, there's no cinematic action. What are we watching? So, Rob said, "We have this notion that Luisa Contini, in the mind of Guido, is on the runway." She's furious at him. It's his nightmare. He's humiliated because, in his mind, the worst thing a man can imagine is that he has stripped his wife bare and she is being ravaged by other men. But, that's really what he has done to her. He has revealed such intimate things about her and he's been so emotionally abusive about that. I said, "Gee, I think that can be a really powerful moment". So I wrote "Take It All".

PC: Right. The version we know?

MY: No, not necessarily. That was the version of "Take It All" that we went ahead with in the script. Back when Rob had brought Anthony Minghella in to do a polish of the script, Anthony sent me a message which was, "Wouldn't it be an interesting idea if all three women left him [Guido] at the same time?"

PC: Claudia, Luisa, Carla...

MY: Yes. And I said, "Well, gee, I will absolutely think about that and I will absolutely think about writing a version of that." Because, after all, if we could make that work, then it would be a 1-2-3 punch: he loses all three women in his life at once. Not to mention the fact, but you have Nicole Kidman, Penelope Cruz and Marion Cotillard! On three runways, at the same time! My God, just in terms of the description this begins to sound like this could be an iconic moment in film! So, I wrote it. They recorded it...

PC: It was recorded?

MY: I saw the rehearsal version and it was choreographed on a mock-up of the set. Then they recorded the song. They sent me a lot of the versions of the roughs mixes that were recorded. "Take It All" wasn't there. I said to myself, "Oh, they're still working on mixing it." After a while, I still hadn't heard it and I began to say, "Gee, that song might not be working like it's supposed to." Ultimately, I had a wonderful meeting with Rob and I looked at him and he looked at me and I said, "You know, I have a question for you, we were talking about "Take It All" as a trio," and he said, "Somehow, we have questions about that." I think the big question is, "Let's look at it from the point of view of story. If three women are leaving a man at the same time and only one of them has invested twenty years of her life in him, only one of them is utterly devastated because it really is destroying what she thinks is the love of her life, how can the other two women participate in and share that moment?" He said, "You know what, I think that's right. So, what we should be really thinking here is restoring this, and really making this Marion's solo moment." Which was Rob's original idea. But, here's the thing: in the course of making it a trio, I had picked up some additional musical ideas and additional lyrical ideas which flowed into the final solo version for Marion Cotillard. So, once again, the process of re-writing is crucial because in the process of going through the experiment of making it a trio it had improved the song. So, we ended up with a solo song that was better than the original solo song. The process of keeping an open mind in re-writing. At the end of the day, the trio version sounded better than it actually was or could have been. At the end of the day, this is a moment for the wife.

PC: So, "Be On Your Own" was never considered?

MY: No, "Be On Your Own" was considered, but the question was... I mean, "Be On Your Own" takes place in NINE after we have seen the GRAND CANAL [the film musical within the stage musical].

PC: Which isn't in the movie at all.

MY: Yes, the Grand Canal is a nightmare for Guido. So, by the time his wife is leaving him, he has already experienced a hideous nightmare of seeing everything he had put into his work come to nothing. In the film of NINE, there is no GRAND CANAL. We don't see his movie fail. Therefore, the song that his wife sings to him must simultaneously be a nightmare to him. That's why something about "Take It All" is so gritty, so nightmarish; it's such an awful, devastating blow to him that it performs double-duty. I know that sounds very subtle, but the truth is, I'm not sure that "Be On Your Own" would have the same impact in the film that "Take It All" does. You really have to let these things work on their own terms. The film is the film; the show is the show. Believe me, I understand the people who love the show miss that song but the people who don't know the show don't necessarily miss that song, all they are responding to is the emotional moment of "Take It All" in the film. And, you know what, I'm really very gratified that, of all the things, that got nominated for an Academy Award. Frankly, I think Marion Cotillard does an extraordinary job in it.

PC: She's the only woman that gets two songs in the film.

MY: That's why I say, once again, "Keep an open mind." "Take It All" in no way at all eliminated "Be On Your Own" in the stage show. The song is being sung right now at the Weschester Broadway Theatre by Glory Crampton. She's doing a wonderful job and Cuccioli is a revelation. The first Italian to play the role!

PC: Could you see it working onstage with both songs, ["Be On Your Own" and "Take It All"]?

MY: The truth is, I think it would be either/or. I really think, from my point of view, that the mediums are so different that I pride myself in doing the job that's defined. I think the job as is defined in the stage version is answered by "Be On Your Own". I think that the same is true with "Take It All". I think "Take It All" belongs in the movie and "Be On Your Own" belongs on the stage.

PC: You couldn't imagine "Cinema Italiano" as the act one finale onstage?

MY: I don't want to say the song is misunderstood but, let me say from the point of view of the author: "Cinema Italiano" is fundamentally a character song. It is not a pop song thrown into the mix to get nominated or anything like that. It's a character song. Otherwise, it wouldn't be there. This is the character...

PC: A new character.

MY: A ditzy fashionista. She's a journalist who writes about fashion, not about film. She's a big fan of Guido Contini. She's an American tourist in Italy in the 1960s. She's high on Italian cinema and she's throwing around movie terms and she doesn't even know what they mean. She's superficial. So, she throws around terms like "P.O.V," "neo-realism," and she is telling Guido Contini that she loves his films for all the wrong reasons! He wants to be appreciated for the art and the meaning of his work and she's talking about the sunglasses, the cars, and God-knows-what else. Then, he sees how superficial the appreciation of his work is by a fan like this, that's what shows him at the moment how valuable his wife is to him and how superficial his womanizing has been. To go off with a women like this, who doesn't understand his films, who thinks he's all about style: that becomes a turning point in the plot of the movie because he doesn't sleep with that character. He runs out of the room and goes back to his wife, largely because so much of what she is saying in "Cinema Italiano" reveals her superficiality. So, again, from that point of view; yeah, it has a fun beat and pop lyrics. By the way, there's so much in that song that defines the sixties. The bongo drums, the beat, everything like that. Because it's a character song, that character really isn't in the stage version so I don't think that song could work in the show organically.

PC: It's very unique, the Stephanie in the original show had her rap-like patter song for "The Trouble With Contini".

MY: Yes! One of my favorite moments in the show! She sings a hilarious rap - before rap was even invented - called "The Trouble With Contini" and she really just goes after him because that's her character.

PC: How times change, thirty years ago you wrote a rap song for her and now you're writing her a disco song.

MY: Hey, I'll tell you what, a lot of people think that I invented phone sex with "A Call From The Vatican".

PC: I do have to say, in the movie it's not quite as explicit as it was in the show.

MY: In the show she's on, well... Don't forget, in those days we didn't have cell-phones. So, yeah, I'm not going to take credit for inventing phone sex. (Laughs.)

PC: What's your favorite song that you've written?

MY: I've never been asked that question. (Pause.) I can't answer that question. It's a very tough question to answer... What are some of the songs that are near and dear to my heart, that mean so much to me?

PC: Yes.

MY: I would say "Nine" from the musical NINE. It was the first song I wrote for the project.

PC: Oh, really?

MY: Yes, it was that song that connected me with one of my favorite, most emotional moments of the movie where little Guido is being taken out of the bath by his mother and his aunts, swaddled in clothes. It's a moment of pure, unadulterated, unlimited womanly, female, motherly affection for a child. I loved that moment. I loved capturing the warmth and the love of that moment in music and lyrics. It's a very meaningful song for me to have written. I love [The Bells of] "St. Sebastian". It means a lot to me because I felt I was able to write something new and challenging in the form of musical theatre, to put a "Kyrie" in a song, do you know what I mean?

PC: Yes, I do.

MY: It means a great deal to me to do that, I consider it a great accomplishment. I think, probably, "My Husband Makes Movies" means so much to me as a personal accomplishment because I had the idea that instead of writing it as an ABA song - with you know, a chorus and a bridge and a chorus - I thought I could interrupt the song and put another song in the middle of that song and have her break into a memory. I thought, "This is exciting to me! This is like nothing I've ever heard before!" Same with "I Want To Go To Hollywood" in GRAND HOTEL... Songs like that are songs that make me feel like I am taking a step forward in my own work towards writing the kind of song that never existed before, which is what I like to do. I like to write songs that don't sound like anything else. They're not always the best song, or my favorite melody, but they represent challenges to me that represent a great sense of accomplishment in having pulled them off. The opening to TITANIC...

PC: I was just going to say...

MY: That is a good example of that. That is, to me, after a lifetime of studying musical theatre, writing musical theatre, and learning what is required for the opening and understanding that every opening is different, and there are no rules. And that every musical - if it is written right - literally redefines the form of the musical each time, for the sake of that show. I mean, look at the differences between the opening overture for NINE, the opening of GRAND HOTEL, the opening of TITANIC: each one has to do its job in a radically different way. Each one represents a sort of creative breakthrough for me, and that's why they are my favorite moments.

PC: My favorite moment in NINE is the counterpoint in "Unusual Way" which, incidentally, isn't in the movie.

MY: Because, you see, no ballad deserves to live on a stage just because it's a ballad. It has to work for story and character. That ballad gives Guido this idea that motivates the whole second act. More than that, as a character moment: here's this girl singing her heart out to him and that selfish son-of-a-bitch, all he can think is, "What a great idea for my movie!" That is so egomaniacal and so typical of the character of the director at that stage of the game, so when a song is doing that kind of dramatic work, that means a lot to me.

PC: Shelly Burch sang "Unusual Way" in a high soprano voice in the original Broadway production, as did Laura Benanti in the revival, but Nicole Kidman takes it down an octave and gives it a smokier, darker take.

MY: It's very smoky, and it's very filmic and it casts a spell. By the way, I think she's a wonderful singer. I have to say, I thought in MOULIN ROUGE she did a beautiful job but I will also say it shows a very small part of what her vocal range is. She's pushed always into her very highest register as if it's all about the high notes. I think that putting that song, "Unusual Way", for Nicole Kidman, in that lower register enables her to visit and include acting values that may have not been possible if she sang it in her higher range.

PC: It's like a whole new song.

MY: I live for that. That's what I think is the great experience in not only allowing, but encouraging people to adapt my work in ways that I might not have thought of because it gives me the privilege - and this should not sound morbid, but - it sometimes really gives you the chance to see what the world will be like when you're no longer here, except you are here to see it! It's very exciting in that way.

PC: My favorite part of the movie is the new MGM-movie-musical-style ending for "A Call From The Vatican". Was that your idea? Doug Besterman's idea [the film's arranger and orchestrator]?

MY: You have to say Rob Marshall. Rob Marshall is the supreme showman. I am sure Rob Marshall conceived of that kind of a treatment in his unique capacity to translate things to film.

PC: And Rob Marshall is completely the reason the movie was made, correct?

MY: I think so, yes. Harvey Weinstein wanted to do it. Harvey loved the show, Rob loved the show. They wanted to do it. How could you turn that down?

PC: Had you spoken to other directors about a film version of NINE in the last thirty years? It seems very filmatic, of course, given the source material.

MY: There had been ideas. I will tell you, this is a wonderful story: When NINE opened in 1982, I was asked to have a meeting with Jule Styne. He was a friend of my dad and I met Jule and he said some very complimentary things about the show. And, then he said, "You know, I think that that "Folies Bergere" number, it'll make a great number in the movie!" People just assumed if you had a hit Broadway show there would be a movie, but those days had already gone even by then. But, I think it's so significant that a member of the older generation like Jule Styne simply assumed someday it would be a movie. And, now, here's Judi Dench doing it! I guess Jule Styne was more prescient than I gave him credit for at the time.


New Words

Tom Sawyer & DEATH TAKES A HOLIDAY

PC: You mentioned that Elena Shaddow was recently involved with a couple of the workshops of your new musical DEATH TAKES A HOLIDAY...

MY: I think Elena is one of the most astonishingly gifted sopranos to come along in years. She's unique and wonderful.

PC: Are there any other performers you would like to work with, or work with again?

MY: Well, of course, the wonderful Laura Benanti, obviously. I think Jill Paice is just brilliant, an extraordinary actress and an extraordinary singer... I think all of them are going to just be huge musical theatre stars in the future. I feel that way about Elena, about Jill Paice, obviously, about Laura, whose already won a Tony award. These are magnificent performers.

PC: As a cast album reviewer, it doesn't get any better than Laura Benanti on the revival cast recording of NINE. What's your favorite cast album of NINE?

MY: That's not fair! (Pause.) I would have to say my favorite cast album of NINE is the remixed, remastered version of the Original Broadway Cast Recording. In 2003, Sony released a 2 CD set of everything we had done originally. Raul, Anita, Wally Harper, who conducted it, it's all so wonderful to me.

PC: You're one of the only one of your contemporaries left who is still consistently writing new shows. Why do you think that is?

MY: I can't say, but I will say this: I think writing shows and writing musical theatre is only one part of what I do as a composer. I write song-cycles. I wrote a ballet. I wrote a cantata for the Kennedy Center in 2000.

PC: Was that recorded?

MY: No, it wasn't, but the reason it wasn't is because it was written for 2000 singers for the year 2000! But, 20,000 people showed up on the mall [in Washington, D.C.] and it was really a thrilling experience. I was able to orchestrate the whole thing. So, I'm so productive in so many other areas that just because I'm not writing a musical doesn't mean I'm not writing.

PC: Speaking of orchestrations, could you comment on the legendary Jonathan Tunick who won the first Best Orchestrations Tony Award for your show, TITANIC, and worked on the original NINE, as well as COMPANY, among many others?

MY: I love Jonathan Tunick. I think he's one of the great luminaries of the history of musical theatre and I think he should go down as such. I think his contributions are such that, it's not only how true he remains to the original composer's concept, but it's also how his notions of orchestration enhance the dramatic function of the music. He's a great musical dramatist. I think that's what makes him incredibly special.

PC: Could you tell us about this new work, the ballet?

MY: Yes, the truth is: I conceived of it a long time ago. I thought it would be so great if we could have a full-length American ballet based on American subject matter written by an American composer, like so many composers have.

PC: Like Gershwin.

MY: Well, so many of them have: Rodgers, and, of course, Copland. I got the idea, I've been writing it for a long time and I'm ready to finish it. We're hoping we're going to make an announcement very soon about where it's going to premiere. I think it's going to be very exciting. I can't say where, but it will be receiving a rather big premiere. And it's Tom Sawyer.

PC: Oh, wow.

MY: Isn't that great subject matter?

PC: Definitely.

MY: It's pure dance and music. It's a complete evening, two intermissions, something you can bring the whole family to. I really want it to reach out. I really want it to be like PETER & THE WOLF: really exciting, popular, accessible ballet... What I love about the project is the metaphor there, that Twain is not only writing about youth, but the youth of America.

PC: And DEATH TAKES A HOLIDAY?

MY: DEATH TAKES A HOLIDAY is, again, one of those surprising projects with an unusual title. In the same way that in TITANIC you fear it is going to be about a terrible tragedy when it is really about life's greatest dreams, DEATH TAKES A HOLIDAY is actually all about life. It's about the beauty and the excitement of life. And, of course, what makes life so special is love. And that's what makes it so precious. It's a great celebration of life.

PC: Nothing could be a better celebration of life than your musicals. I cannot thank you enough.

MY: Thank you. It was great to talk to you.

BWW 2010.


NINE on DVD is now available, as is the film's soundtrack and be sure to check out the link to the previous SOUND OFF column reviewing all English-language cast recordings of NINE to learn a bit about the show's history, as well.



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