Stephen Schwartz: From The Heart
Part Two of Coral Drouyn’s interview with Musical Theatre legend Stephen Schwartz during his 2013 visit to Australasia.
Cick here if you missed Part 1.
When you get the chance to talk to someone like Stephen Schwartz, and he’s open to any question, you can’t help but be a little bit cheeky.
Juke Box Musicals! Are they just cynical and lazy exploitation of songs which really don’t belong in a musical? That’s the challenging question I put to Stephen, and he laughs.
“Well, they’re not my favourite thing,” he concedes, “and perhaps some are just exploitation, I don’t know. But there’s a place for them. People love those songs, they were the hits from our youth, and it’s a nostalgia thing. So, even though they weren’t written specifically for a show, if the book is clever enough, it can seem as though they were. Look at Jersey Boys; great book and great songs that were perfectly in context. And it was a smash hit. Likewise Mamma Mia. But sometimes not enough attention is given to asking the really big questions, like ‘what is this all about?’ ”
The problem, as we all know from so many musicals of late, is that the book – the script – of so many shows turns out to be mediocre; and if that’s the case, can great technical achievements and special effects compensate?
“No. It’s all about the book,” Stephen says adamantly. “The book is everything – and I don’t just mean the script. I mean the story, the journey, the characters and what they have to say to an audience. If the book doesn’t work, then the show doesn’t work, period. Look at it this way, it’s a character who is singing the song – if you don’t care about that person, why would you even listen to the song? So I have to ask myself “what does this character want, what do they need? How do they feel about that?”
It’s interesting to me then that Stephen doesn’t write the “books” for his own musicals. Surely he’s more than capable?
“There are people who do that far better than I ever could. It’s a collaboration for me. Nothing is set in concrete. I work with terrific writers, I trust them. If they say a song isn’t quite right for a character at a specific point, I listen. I’d be crazy not to. Besides, the best thing of any working day is kicking around ideas with other creative people. We’re a sounding board for each other. You have to respect the writer.”
What about the new original musicals? Are there any that really impress him?
“Well, I have to say I’m most impressed by Spring Awakening and Next to Normal. They both have terrific scores and great books. Maybe it’s my interest in psychology that draws me to Next to Normal. It’s very brave to tackle the subject of mental illness in a musical. If someone suggested it to me, I’d say, are you crazy? Interestingly my son Scott actually directed a production of Next To Normal a couple of years back. I was a very proud Dad. It’s not an easy show and I’m full of admiration for it.”
And so to the next stage – Stephen Schwartz – recording star. This evokes another laugh from him, but I’m fascinated to know how he came to record two CD’s singing his own songs, mostly songs that were not from any of his shows. The story that his friend John Bucchino, whom he encouraged to write for theatre (Bucchino did, in fact go on to write Off Broadway shows and A Catered Affair on Broadway), encouraged him to write more intensely personal songs, is well known, but was a CD always his intent?
“It’s true that back in the 90’s….oh dear, that sounds so long ago, I asked John why he didn’t write musicals and he asked me why I didn’t write more personal songs; songs that actually belonged to me. I think he said I was hiding behind the characters. Anyway, I took it as a challenge. I wasn’t sure I wanted to be that vulnerable but life was changing, as life always does, and I actually found the freedom both scary and exhilarating. And I guess, because the songs were personal, people said they liked the way I sang them, and so ‘Reluctant Pilgrim’ came to be. The title is a little misleading. I wasn’t exactly dragged kicking and screaming to the well, but without John’s challenge, I don’t think I would have written those songs. Once they were written though, I knew I would record them. They’re very emotional songs and clearly about where I was at the time, going through great change in my life. I am a private person, I don’t talk publicly about my personal life….so I guess those songs speak for me.”
Since then Stephen has recorded a second CD of original songs, Uncharted Territory, and seems more at ease with the vocals. He’s even been performing in concert and enjoying it.
“People so often want me to talk about the writing process and, honestly, I can’t break it down into a formula. I work at the piano always, but there’s no set rule for whether I have a line of the lyric, or a phrase of the music. Every song is different so I try not to analyse the process too much.”
One song he does have a clear recollection of though is “For Good”, the beautiful ballad from Wicked. When I mention that I believe it will become a standard, still sung in a hundred years time, like so many of the great songs of Cole Porter for example, he is eager to tell me the story of how it came to be.
“I was at the piano, working on this melody for a song for Glinda and Elphaba. This was when Wicked was in the development process. My daughter Jessica came in, I guess she was in her early teens, and she’d had a fight with her best friend. I tried to say something fatherly about there being other friends, but she cut me short and made it clear that just because they had fallen out, it didn’t mean they weren’t best friends any more. Best friends will fight, and they will hurt each other and see things differently, and hopefully they’ll become better people because of it. She knew so much more about the whole concept of friendship between young women than I could ever begin to imagine. So I listened, and I asked her questions, some of which obviously sounded like ‘Dumb Dad’. And I knew that without her input ‘For Good’ wouldn’t be half the song it is. If it’s special, it’s thanks to Jessica.”
Stephen is now a grandfather thanks to Jessica too. First grand-child Hannah Lucille made her entrance in the middle of 2012. “It’s a whole new world for me,” he admits, “one that is breath-taking. Who knew there was still so much to learn at 65.”
At 65 most people are at least thinking about retirement, but not Stephen. He still has plans to get The Hunchback of Notre Dame to Broadway, maybe as early as 2015. “I think I still have things to say to an audience, and things I myself need to hear. So hopefully I have another couple of shows in me….shows that are different, because I’m constantly changing.”
Originally published in the January / February 2014 edition of Stage Whispers.
WICKED returns to the Regent Theatre, Melbourne from May 7, 2014, followed by a Sydey season at Sydney's Capitol Theatre from September 20, 2014.
Production photo from WICKED - Jemma Rix (Elphaba) and Lucy Durack (Glinda) sing 'Popular'. Photographer: Jeff Busby.
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