Thursday, December 23, 2010

For the record

STAGES

Don’t know if this should be under stages or pages, as it is actually both.  I mentioned in my last post that I was reading Peter Filicia’s BROADWAY MUSICALS book. On page 121 he made the prediction that if Tim Rice got as much attention and success as former partner Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber, Rice would also be hated.  I take exception.  Having worked with them both on Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat, when they were going through their split – I found Webber difficult to deal with – he refused most interviews and never explained why until almost a week had passed when he erupted saying he would not do an interview with Tim! A lot of time and work could have been saved had he stated that to start. 
Each, at separate interviews spoke of his upcoming shows.  Webber was infuriated with Rice, but Rice was never negative about Webber.  Rice was also a breeze to work with, cooperative, on time, charming to interviewers.  I do not believe people will turn against him if he became the biggest thing since Facebook.  Webber would have lost friends and influence over people had he never “made it” because he had a negative attitude and an appalling sense of his own importance even then.
They were blocking the main aisle at Joseph   when I tried to bring a critic to his seat at one of the critic nights.  The usher took the critic down front and I urged Andrew and Tim to take their argument outside away from audience ears.  But Tim was not arguing - Andrew was. Tim was trying to placate and calm him, but the then Mr. Webber was looking for a fight in public.  Believe me, Webber was oh so easy to dislike.

PAGES

               Just finished reading BLOOMSBURY by Leon Edel – the Henry James authority.  The man has a genius for creating real characters in a matter of a paragraph or two. He gives at least a chapter to each of the Bloomsbury brood as he first itnroduces them, and then often another chapter further along in their lives.  He makes the group more alive than many a talk show host manages to make his guests.  It was a delight to read it, and to read of the negative reaction this group of gifted and genius level intellects and artists had upon others alive at the time.  Funny to be reading all that in one room, while reading Virginia Woolf’s THE YEARS in another. How could one not make comparisons between the actual people and their counterparts in the novel?

                 My own work on PIXIE TALES is at a standstill awaiting artist’s renditions.  I have worked only sporadically on the Memoir of a childhood during the great depression.  The Christmas spirit seems to have stolen the creative one – or at least, temporarily anesthetized it.

                    Will probably not add another post to this blog until after the holidays.   Enjoy yours as I intend to enjoy mine.

                      Enjoy your life - every day.

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