Notes and Letters

from martha gellhorn to Bernstein

The writer Martha Gellhorn wrote this detailed and heartfelt letter to Bernstein, laying bare her intense reactions to West Side Story:

"Lenny pot my dearie one; I waited for the right time to write about West Side Story but probably the exact right time will never come, so now on a rainy (can you beat it?) Guernavaca morning, my fourth here, and my first not spent jumping with rage and activity against this house, I shall begin. But I know I am not going to do it well enough.

"How can it be called a "musical comedy"? It is a musical tragedy, and were it not for the most beautiful music, and the dancing which is like flying, people would not be able to bear to look and see and understand. Certainly they would not pile into that giant stadium, paying huge sums, in order to be wracked by fear and a pity which is useless because how can help be offered, how can a whole world be changed?

". . . I was literally frozen with fear. Do you realize there is no laughter in it, no gayety [sic] that comes from delight, from joy, from being young? You do, of course, and all of you knew what you were writing about. The immensely funny song, "Please Officer Krupke" (I will get these titles wrong, but near enough), is not laughter, but the most biting, ironic and contemptuous satire. And I felt it to be absolutely accurate--not the perfection of the wit, in music and words--but accurate as describing the state of mind of those young. Again, the Puerto Rican girls' song, when on longs for the beauty of home and the other mocks, is not laughter; but the hardness of life, the rock of life, a dream of something softer (softer inside, where it counts) as against the icy material measuring rod of modern big city young. The love songs made me cry (they had before, when I heard the whole show twice in one day, listening to Shaw's record in Switzerland.) But this time, with the visual picture there, and the murderous city outside, and in America, where West Side Story becomes a sociological document turned into art, they made me cry like a sieve, from heart-broken pity.

"But what stays in my mind, as the very picture of terror, is the scene in the drug store, when the Jets sing a song called "Keep Cool, Man." I think I have never heard or seen anything more frightening. (It goes without saying that I think the music so brilliant I have no words to use for it.) I found that a sort of indicator of madness: the mad obsession with nothing, the nerves insanely and constantly stretched--with no way to rest, no place to go; the emptiness of the undirected minds, whose only occupation could be violence and a terrible macabre play-acting. If a man can be nothing, he can pretend to be a hoodlum and feel like a somebody. I couldn't breathe, watching and hearing that; it looks to me like doom, as much as these repeated H-bomb tests, with the atmosphere of the world steadily more and more irrevocably poisoned. I think that drug store and the H-bomb tests are of the same family.

"What now baffles me is that all the reviews, and everyone who has seen the show, has not talked of this and this only: the mirror held up to nature, and what nature. I do not feel anything to be exaggerated or falsified; we accept that art renders beautiful, and refines the shapeless raw material of life. The music and the dancing, the plan, the allegory of the story do that; but nature is there, in strength; and surely this musical tragedy is a warning. . . ."

Letter to Felicia Montealegre Bernstein

26 JULY 1957

This letter was written by Bernstein to his wife, Felicia, on July 26, 1957. On the second page, he writes:

"... The show -- ah, yes. I am depressed with it. All the aspects of the score I like best -- the `big,' poetic parts -- get criticized as `operatic' -- & there's a concerted move to chuck them. What's the use? The 24-hour schedule goes on -- I am tired & nervous & apey. You wouldn't like me at all these days. This is the last show I do. The Philharmonic board approved the contract yesterday, & all is set. I'm going to be a conductor after all."

1997, Estate of Leonard Bernstein. By Permission of The Leonard Bernstein Office, Inc.

Letter to Felicia Montealegre Bernstein,

15 AUGUST 1957

West Side Story opened in Washington D.C. in August, 1957. Bernstein wrote this letter to his wife Felicia on August 15, the week before the premiere.

"Well, look-a me. Back to the nation's capitol, & right on the verge. This is Thurs. We open Mon. Everyone's coming, my dear, even Nixon and 35 admirals. Senators abounding, & big Washington-hostessy type party afterwards in Lennuhtt's [a play on the pronunciation of "Leonard"] honor. See what you miss by going away. Then next Sunday, which is my birthday, there is the Jewish version -- a big party for me, but admission is one Israel bond. All helps the show. We have a 75 thou. Advance, & the town is buzzing. Not bad. I have high hopes.."

1997, Estate of Leonard Bernstein. By Permission of The Leonard Bernstein Office, Inc.

Stephen Sondheim to Bernstein

26 SEPTEMBER 1957

Stephen Sondheim, lyricist of West Side Story, wrote this letter to Bernstein on September 26, 1957, the date of the New York premiere of the show.

"West Side Story means much more to me than a first show, more even than the privilege of collaborating with you and Arthur [Laurents] and Jerry [Robbins]..

"I don't think I've ever said to you how fine I think the score is, since I prefer kidding you about the few moments I don't like to praising you for the many I do. West Side Story is as big a step forward for you as it is for Jerry or Arthur or even me and, in an odd way, I feel proud of you.

"May West Side Story mean as much to the theater and to people who see it as it has to us."

In 1957, when West Side Story premiered, Bernstein published a log of the show's genesis. This is his typescript:

Excerpts from A West Side Log

New York, 6 Jan., 1949

Jerry R. called today with a noble idea: a modern version of "Romeo and Juliet," set in slums at the coincidence of Easter-Passover celebrations. Feelings running high between Jews and Catholics. Former: Capulets, latter: Montagues. Juliet is Jewish. Friar Lawrence is a neighborhood druggist. Street brawls, double death -- it all fits. But it's all much less important than the bigger idea of making a musical that tells a tragic story in musical comedy terms, using only musical comedy techniques, never falling into the "operatic" trap. Can it succeed? It hasn't yet in our country. I'm excited. If it can work -- it's a first. Jerry suggests Arthur Laurents for the book. I don't know him, but I do know "Home of the Brave" at which I cried like a baby. He sounds just right.

New York, 10 Jan., 1949
Met Arthur L. at Jerry's tonight. Long talk about opera versus whatever this should be. Fascinating. We're going to have a stab at it.

Columbus, Ohio, 15 April, 1949
Just received draft of first four scenes. Much good stuff. But this is no way to work. Me on this long conducting tour, Arthur between New York and Hollywood. Maybe we'd better wait until I can find a continuous hunk of time to devote to the project. Obviously this show can't depend on stars, being about kids; and so is will have to live or die by the success of its collaborations; and this remote-control collaboration isn't right. Maybe they can find the right composer who isn't always skipping off to conduct somewhere. It's not fair to them or to the work.

New York, 7 June, 1955
Jerry hasn't given up. Six years of postponement are as nothing to him. I'm still excited too. So is Arthur. Maybe I can plan to give this year to "Romeo" -- if "Candide" gets on in time.

Beverly Hills, 25 August, 1955
Had a fine long session with Arthur today, by the pool. (He's here for a movie; I'm conducting at the Hollywood Bowl.) We're fired again by the "Romeo" notion; only now we have abandoned the whole Jewish-Catholic premise as not very fresh, and have come up with what I think is going to be it: two teen-age gangs as the warring factions, one of them newly-arrived Puerto Ricans, the other self-styled "Americans." Suddenly it all springs to life. I hear rhythms and pulses, and -- most of all -- I can sort of feel the form.

New York, 6 Sept., 1955
Jerry [Robbins] loves our gang idea. A second solemn pact has been sworn. Here we go, God bless us!

New York, 14 Nov., 1955
A young lyricist named Stephen Sondheim came and sang us some of his songs today. What a talent! I think he's ideal for this project, as do we all. The collaboration grows.

New York, 17 March, 1956
"Candide" is on again; we plunge in next month. So again "Romeo" is postponed for a year. Maybe it's all for the best: by the time it emerges it ought to be deeply seasoned, cured, hung, aged in the wood. It's such a problematical work anyway that it should benefit by as much sitting-time as it can get. Chief problem: to tread the fine line between opera and Broadway, between realism and poetry, ballet and "just dancing," abstract and representational. Avoid being "messagy." The line is there, but it's very fine, and sometimes takes a lot of peering around to discern it.

New York, 1 Feb., 1957
"Candide" is on and gone; the Philharmonic has been conducted, back to "Romeo." From here on nothing shall disturb the project: whatever happens to interfere I shall cancel summarily. It's going too well now to let it drop again.

New York, 8 July, 1957
Rehearsals. Beautiful sketches for sets by Oliver. Irene showed us costume sketches: breathtaking. I can't believe it -- forty kids are actually doing it up there on the stage! Forty kids singing five-part counterpoint who never sang before -- and sounding like heaven. I guess we were right not to cast "singers": anything that sounded more professional would inevitably sound more experienced, and then the "kid" quality would be gone. A perfect example of a disadvantage turned into a virtue.

Washington, D.C., 20 Aug., 1957
The opening last night was just as we dreamed it. All the peering and agony and postponements and re-re-re-writing turn out to have been worth it. There's a work there; and whether it finally succeeds or not in Broadway terms, I am now convinced that what we dreamed all these years is possible; because there stands that tragic story, with a theme as profound as love versus hate, with all the theatrical risks of death and racial issues and young performers and "serious" music and complicated balletics -- and it all added up for audience and critics. I laughed and cried as though I'd never seen or heard it before. And I guess that what made it come out right is that we all really collaborated; we were all writing the same show. Even the producers were after the same goals we had in mind. Not even a whisper about a happy ending has been heard. A rare thing on Broadway. I am proud and honored to be a part of it.

1982, Leonard Bernstein.

Used by Permission of The Leonard Bernstein Office, Inc.

Jerome Robbins's scene list from West Side Story

This page, with Jerome Robbins' insignia, lists the scenes from one of the early versions of West Side Story. According to Bernstein's log, at this point the show was set "in the slums at the coincidence of Easter-Passover celebrations."