“We would do anything for Bob,” she says. “We just weren’t the people to do the script.”
But whoever or whatever killed the project, once it became apparent that the production could not be mounted, it was up to Brustein to inform his old friend that his script would not premiere on an ART stage.
“This is one of the hardest letters I’ve ever had to write,” begins Brustein in what Gelbart has termed the “Dear Larry” letter in which the artistic director officially removed the writer from the project.
Brustein emphasizes that he had no choice, due to the demands of others, but to drop the script.
“There was no room for argument,” he writes. “My dilemma was either to go ahead with you, Alan, and David, and find a new Lysistrata, plus a new director and designer, or go ahead with my original plan to end my time here with a project from Andrei, Cherry, and the company.”
DENOUEMENT
“I just had miscalculated because I put together a playwright who is essentially a wordsmith...with a director who is essentially an auteur,” explains Brustein.
He also stressed the changing face of the production that resulted from Gelbart’s desire to work with Mencken and Zippel.
“There [was] a growing camp...not the camp of the ART, but that of the commercial theater,” and, as Brustein explains, “We wanted to get back to the purity of the original idea.”
Faced with a commitment to the Prince Music Theatre in Philadelphia, which contracted to host the production immediately following its ART premiere, Brustein started from scratch to write his own adaptation. Working around the clock, he produced a first draft in just seven days.
“I got sick, partly a result of all of this,” Brustein says, “I took to my bed for about three weeks and I brought my computer.”
Through the Prince Music Theatre, Brustein connected with lyricist Matty Selman and later with Grammy Award-winning composer Galt MacDermott (Hair), who continue to work on writing songs as the first preview (May 10) rapidly approaches.
Though rehearsals have been somewhat rushed, Jones comments she is pleased with the journey.
“It’s a completely bi-polar experience,” she says, “We have moments of ‘eureka’ and moments of wanting to pull our hair out.”
She also emphasizes the flexible nature of Brustein’s script—so flexible in fact, that both Brustein and the ART company may recieve writing credit in the show’s program.
The new script promises not to forsake the sort of vulgarity appropriate to any adaptation of Lysistrata. Says Jones, “We’re doing our best to make it bawdy, becase that was Aristophanes.”
Yet, it’s tough not to wonder what the original collaboration might have been produced. Says Brustein, in retrospect, “It was theoretically a marvleous team.”