Interview: Composer Maury Yeston - On GRAND HOTEL, TITANIC, And New Projects!

BWW: UK editor-in-chief Carrie Dunn spoke to Maury Yeston the day after he'd seen the production of Grand Hotel - to which he contributed both music and lyrics - at the Southwark Playhouse...

Maury, thank you so much for speaking to me. How did you enjoy the show last night?

I loved it. They did a splendid job. These are people with whom I've had a prior relationship (Danielle Tarento and Thom Southerland previously staged Yeston's Titanic) and they had already done a splendid job. With all of the expertise, talent, imagination and brilliant casting that they gave to Titanic, I think they did it all over again with Grand Hotel. I think we're becoming a wonderful team.

Yes - you're going on to another collaboration together, I understand?

Yes, we're very excited about it. We're going to do something again, hopefully within the next six months here in London. [BWW:UK understands it's a production of 'Death Takes A Holiday'.]

What is it about Danielle and Thom that makes them such good interpreters of your work?

Talent. Danielle, from her earliest days at the Menier, has tremendous energy, creativity and talent, and she's very good with people, and particularly very good as a casting eye. She just knows and understands actors, and can do perfect matches, and sometimes choices that are counterintuitive and surprise you. She's got that gift, and she works extremely well with Thom.

Now, Thom is another chapter. I'm just old enough now to have seen many generations of young directors becoming significant ones as they grow older, on both sides of the Atlantic, and I think Thom Southerland is one of those. I remember the early days of Sam Mendes and Michael Grandage, and I think Thom is of that rank. He's really somebody who is going to rise to whatever heights there are in the direction of musical theatre - he's got a gift for it. He shows that with a remarkable originality in literally staging - the shape of the stage he creates. What he did here was instead of a traditional thrust stage, he moved the bleachers so they face each other and the stage is between them. The entire show plays out in this long hotel corridor, viewed from the sides. He and Lee Proud have done the most extraordinary movement, and the compression of all the frenetic action in this world inside a hotel of Weimar Germany, a world that's going off the rails, it's thrilling to watch, intensely exciting. He has a unique notion of the experience he wants to give the audience. He's marvellous with actors and has wonderful ideas.

So flip that question around, then - what do you think it is about your writing that appeals to Danielle and Thom?

I think they deeply love musical theatre. I think they love deeply love musical theatre emanating all the way back to the Golden Age. They love to bring pieces to the fore that have not been given their due or seen in a long time or that they can revisit and polish - Thom's very well done Mack and Mabel would be a good example. Given their love of the depth of the traditional musical theatre form, I think that plays very well into my theory of the musical, because I do write musicals with that in mind. I want my shows to feel not old-fashioned but timeless, and I want them to have the same dramatic values and the same emotional values that were there when I was young and saw My Fair Lady and Guys and Dolls and Fiddler on the Roof. That's what I try to invest in my shows - make you feel something and integrate music and lyrics with the story and with dance. So since they respond to the depth and tradition of my work, it's a wonderful match.

It's so lovely to hear you talk like that about musical theatre. Some composers don't focus so much on the potential emotional impact, more on the commercial aspect of the show...

Yes, that can be, and there's room for that. The business we're in is showbusiness. There's always room for jukebox musicals, room for somebody who wants to showcase their songs, room for plays with music. Every form of entertainment has its more developed and sophisticated form; in the traditional musicals which have inspired me, you have to give people characters who reach those heights - who can make the audience feel. I select the shows I write based on my ability to put that in the show - Titanic, Nine, Grand Hotel - there will be people I want to make you care about.

What inspires you to write?

In many cases, I look for something that fits the form - finding a larger-than-life central character unique to literary fiction. That's Henry Higgins, that's Tevye, that's Momma Rose, Bialystock, the King of Siam and Anna, but also the Phantom and Guido Contini. When you find those characters, they're unlike anything we've seen before. You write uniquely for them and they become unlike anything else. The actor who creates that role becomes identified with it. You're relying on great actors. No matter what I write, the actor gets it across to the audience. If I can write something great for a great actor, that's a great combination!

Writing a musical can be five years of your life and I'm always asking myself, "Why should I care about this?" I have to be able to answer that question, because the audience has to. The audience has to think, "I'm glad I left my home and came to this theatre, because this means something to me." It has to be worth it for you to go - the prices are definitely high enough.

You mentioned watching the show last night and finding it thrilling - do you always find watching your own work exciting, or do you find yourself too involved?

No, I enjoy it as an audience member! I really do feel the author is a theory put into practice by the director, designer and actors. I saw the original production of Grand Hotel on Broadway - Tommy Tune's masterpiece - the staging was extraordinary, the actors were extraordinary. What I saw last night was completely different, a complete reconception and I loved it just as much as the one on Broadway and the one I saw that garnered the Olivier Award directed by Michael Grandage at the Donmar. My goal in life is to write the things that can be done by people in different ways - including by summer camps and community theatres and amateur operatic societies - and I exult that my work is kept alive by people being generous enough to invest time and talent in performing it.

So you have your new collaboration with Danielle and Thom coming up - are you working on anything new?

Yes! I'm about to go into a reading for something I've written with Thomas Meehan, and it's based on a Preston Sturges screwball romantic comedy [BWW:UK understands it's 'The Lady Eve'] - we're very excited about that. We're hoping to bring that in to the Broadway stage within a year.

Brilliant - we'll look forward to it - and thank you again so much for speaking to us.

A pleasure - I check into BroadwayWorld every day!

Grand Hotel runs at Southwark Playhouse until September 5.