The New "Porgy and Bess"
Posted by Charles Olshever on 9/14/2011
The new production of "The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess", as it is now called, has created much controversy between the creative team's planned revisions and the negative reaction to them of Stephen Sondheim and others.
The production is directed by Diane Paulis, adapted by Suzan-Lori Parks and presented by the American Repertory Theater, with Audra McDonald as Bess and Norm Lewis as Porgy.
The creative team's goal was to create new scenes, invent back stories, reduce the playing time to make "Porgy and Bess" more "accessible" to today's audience and add a more upbeat ending. The original ending has since been restored.
Since the 1976 Houston Grand Opera production the goal of most revivals has been to bring "Porgy and Bess" back to its original form in the 1935 production.
On September 14, 2011 both the Gershwin and Heyward Estates gave their approval to the new production.
I don't understand why someone would produce a revival of "Porgy and Bess" having so little faith in a major portion of the libretto, the libretto that has helped to make the opera a classic. Over the years, other musicals have gone through major changes from the original production including past revivals of "Porgy and Bess": in 1942 the recitative was removed for spoken dialog, Look at the current production of "Anything Goes" or virtually any revival of "Show Boat". The essence of the material has not changed. In addition, I find the condescending attitude of the creative team not only insulting towards the material but to the audience as well. Must back stories be added? Must the ending be upbeat? Must playing time be cut to make it more "accessible" for the current theatergoer, as if todays public can't sit through another half hour of what is great theater to begin with?
Finally, I want to add this closing paragraph from an article written by Dubose Heyward for Stage Magazine in October 1935, the month "Porgy and Bess" opened on Broadway. Mr. Heyward was the author of the libretto and wrote the lyrics with Ira Gershwin.
"In the theatre every production is a gamble. In some, naturally the odds are greater than in others. "Porgy and Bess" has, I believe a fair chance of scoring. But whether it does or not, we who have written and composed the opera cannot lose. We have spent two years doing exactly what we wanted to. It has been a very special sort of adventure. That, at any rate, is in the bag."
The Gershwins' and Dubose Heyward's "Porgy and Bess" is scheduled to open this winter at the Richard Rodgers Theatre.
