Mamoulian: Life on Stage and Screen

Chapter 7. I Loves You, Porgy

81 Chapter 7 I Loves You, Porgy Rouben Mamoulian was not everyone’s first choice to direct the Theatre Guild’s premiere of George Gershwin’s opera Porgy and Bess. Despite the success of Porgy and his relatively smooth working relationship with Mamoulian, DuBose Heyward decided that the original play was “not my idea of good art.”1 He preferred a relatively new face in theater fresh from directing the Virgil Thompson–Gertrude Stein opera Four Saints in Three Acts, John Houseman, years away from his career as a Hollywood producer. Gershwin “had heard that I worked well with Negroes in the theatre,” Houseman recalled and invited the director to his art deco Manhattan penthouse to hear the songs. “I asked questions and made a few guarded suggestions,” Houseman continued. He realized Gershwin was not favorably impressed only weeks later, he recounted, upon reading “the Theatre Guild announcement that Rouben Mamoulian . . . had arrived from California to prepare for the production of Porgy and Bess.”2 The Guild was eager to draw Mamoulian back to Broadway and Mamoulian was interested in returning if the script was right and time permitted between film productions. They considered offering Mamoulian Eugene O’Neill’s Mourning Becomes Electra in 1931 and Mamoulian later suggested directing a play starring Greta Garbo, but a suitable script was never found.3 The Theatre Guild was not unaware of the publicity value of bringing back Porgy’s original helmsman, who had since become a big name in Hollywood, for the unveiling of Porgy and Bess. The Guild’s production manager Warren Munsell held firm with Heyward. “The matter of the director has been discussed at some length and while we were con- MAMOULIAN 82 sidering John Houseman, the feeling here is that this is a very big show for Houseman to undertake. We would all be very much better satisfied if Mamoulian were to do it.” Munsell added that while he recalled “some minor misunderstandings” between Mamoulian and Heyward, he believed “that the values of the present version will be brought out far better by him than by Houseman, and it would be greatly to your advantage , as well as ours, to have him produce the play.” Munsell concluded: “We want to close the arrangements now, so that he will hold the time open for us.” Gershwin, who had first met Mamoulian in Rochester in 1923, was convinced from early on that the man who brought Porgy to the stage was the best choice.4 Mamoulian claimed he was doubtful at first over the project. “I felt the play was so pure and complete in its form, had such a direct simplicity and strength, that any attempt to translate it into operatic form might spoil it,” he claimed. “However, my second thought was that if there was a composer in the whole world equipped by the quality of his talent to achieve this end, George was that composer.” Mamoulian’s claim that he signed a contract with the Theatre Guild “without having heard a single note” of Porgy and Bess is contradicted by the spirit of his communications with the Guild, haggling with them for many months over compensation and time. Mamoulian wanted an unusually high fee for an already expensive production while wanting to spend as little time on the project as possible.5 Even before Porgy was produced as a play, Gershwin had been in touch with Heyward. After reading the novel, he recognized the story’s potential as an American opera and became fascinated with setting it to music. Gershwin began his career during the 1910s in New York’s Tin Pan Alley, where popular songs were penned for sheet music publishers and phonograph recordings. Al Jolson scored a hit with Gershwin’s “Swanee” and the writer developed a talent for popular musical comedies such as Lady, Be Good and Funny Face. Gershwin was a student of classical music who prowled the Harlem nightclubs, absorbing elements of the European tradition while falling in love with jazz, especially the great stride piano players Eubie Blake and Lucky Roberts. Gershwin was the child of Russian Jewish immigrants who aspired to culture; his ambition was to do for American vernacular music what the great Russian composers had done with the folk music of their homeland by distilling it into compositions for the symphony and opera house. I Loves You, Porgy 83 As early as 1922 Gershwin...