By Annette Hinkle
With a Starbucks on every corner and nannies pushing their charges along pleasant tree lined streets, its hard to imagine the Upper West Side of Manhattan as a den of hardcore heroine users, pushers, prostitutes and pimps.
But if you had been living on West 72nd Street in the mid 1960s, you would’ve seen a different and much seamier side to the city. Just ask Sag Harbor playwright Lanford Wilson. He was there.
“I had decided I was a playwright, so I went to New York and after a week, discovered that I needed a much tougher hide than I had,” said Wilson. “I was a bippity boppity kid and I was in danger.”
Newly arrived from the Midwest and full of curiosity about the big city, Wilson lived in a hotel over an all-night coffee shop on the West Side. And it was there, in the pre-dawn hours, that he heard stories of the hard life many young people were living at that time in New York — the runaways, the abused, the forgotten and abandoned, all doing what it took to make a buck or get a fix. Though it was not a world he knew, Wilson befriended those people in that coffee shop.
“I was there to learn, he said. “I went to that café every night, which helped me grow a tough hide. I sat and listened a long while, then became friends with them. You strike up a conversation then they’re willing to talk.”
Wilson wrote also down their stories, eventually turning them into “Balm In Gilead” his first hit play which premiered off-Broadway in 1965 at La Mama and went on to a successful run at his Circle in the Square Company. In 1984, the play was revived by John Malkovich’s Chicago theater company Steppenwolf and also had a run back in New York at Minetta Lane theatre.
And now, director and composer Andrew MacBean is looking to bring Wilson’s script to life again — this time as a full fledged musical called “Raindogs.” The new rock musical will presented as part of The Workshops at Bay Street Theatre this Saturday at 8 p.m. and last week during a visit to Bay Street, MacBean explained his interest in turning “Balm In Gilead” into something new.
“Primarily, I work as a director and I wanted to write the kind of musical I wanted to direct,” said MacBean. “I thought, ‘This is crying out to be a musical.’ Without making it saccharine and staying true to the punches. The play has a huge following. It’s done so much at universities because it’s such a wonderful ensemble piece, everyone gets something to do and young people love to play these rebellious characters.”
If you still have a hard time imagining a musical based on drug addicts and hookers, you’re not alone. When MacBean first came to Wilson with the idea, he did too.
“I thought he was nuts,” admitted Wilson “I said that sounds interesting, but I couldn’t imagine what he would do. I just thought, ‘It won’t hurt you to play with it.’”
But a year later, MacBean came back to Wilson to share a few songs with him.
“He told me about his credentials. He showed me some stuff. I said hmmm, that’s alarmingly good. Lord, he’s serious about this, and he’s been working on this for a year,’” recalled Wilson. “Then when he showed me some scenes on video of the songs. It was like ‘Holy shit, this is really interesting. I think it is a good idea.’ I thought we’d better get it on before someone else does.”
Now that he’s warmed to the idea, Wilson is excited to see how it all fits together come Saturday.
“We’ll have to see what it sounds like orchestrated and sung by a group rather than one person,” said Wilson. “It has very nice solos. He has a wonderful sense of melody.”
Besides the addition of the songs, MacBean has reworked Wilson’s script with help from Wilson himself and fellow writer Rose Martula. Originally, there were 28 characters — an unmanageable number in today’s stage economics — which have been consolidated to 12. In addition, Wilson’s play uses a lot of overlapping action, where characters are talking at the same time. Several of those side conversations were pulled out and put under a spotlight. MacBean has also made a conscious decision to move the musical forward a few years, and has set it in 1969 when everything was coming to a head culturally, socially and politically in this country. The music, he notes, reflects that period, including the ballads.
“I’m not sure it’s a rock musical,” he admitted. “There’s some sweet gentle music in it as well as Zeppelin-like rock. Because it was written in ‘65 and set in the present, you didn’t need references, so what we’ve also done different is now we’re looking back 41 years ago. We’re allowed to make references to the outside word — Stonewall or man walking on the moon. There’s a feeling of what’s happening in the outside world, but not in their world. Everyone is watching man land on the moon, except these guys. You can’t help but be moved by that. The world is going on and they’re just trying to survive.”
And despite the changes, Wilson notes that “Balm In Gilead” is still ever present.
“I don’t have to let go of the original,” said Wilson. “ The play is always there.”
There are those who might look at the time frame and be tempted to draw comparisons to “Hair,” that other ‘60s musical, but MacBean is quick to point out what a different place the late ‘60s were for the characters of” Raindogs.”
“The hippies came from middle class homes and have kind of branded that era, but while ‘Hair’ was happening, something else bigger and more intense was happening,” said MacBean. “The more I find out the more I get moved by stories. In that year, there were 32,000 hookers in New York City. They were everywhere. These were kids who didn’t go to Woodstock and just wanted to get away from their families. This was a completely different subculture that has yet to be exposed.”
Unlike the 1960s, MacBean also feels there is much more that can be shown and said on stage than would have been possible when Wilson’s script first premiered. There have been two workshops of the play in London, where MacBean lives. The first showcased only the music, the second, the script, and at both, he notes, audiences were captivated.
“In one scene, we were being daring and showed the whole process of shooting up heroine,” said MacBean. “It takes four to five minutes and you can hear a pin drop. The audience leaned forward and watched, they don’t shy away, it’s one of the most powerful moments and wouldn’t be in the original play. Today we can be more honest about what went on than Lanford could.”
“Someone said do you think it might be too much for people to cope with? I say definitely not, as long as it’s not affecting our lives we love to go to theater and see how far people will go to in their lives,” explained MacBean. “We love to peer into foreign worlds we don’t understand.”
“The performance style will be very real as opposed to sparkly, frothy Broadway thing. It’s gritty, real and funny. There's no musical like this,” added MacBean. “I think audiences are crying out to see that rebellion that struggle, and know the people and relate to it.”
But the real first test for Raindogs comes this weekend when music and words are merged into a cohesive whole for the first time. MacBean couldn’t be happier that it’s happening here in Sag Harbor.
“This is the first time where it’s all going to come together,” he said. “It’s [Lanford’s] first hit play, the first to be turned into a musical and it’s happening in his hometown. For me it’s magical. We’ll only have four days to rehearse it, and put it up on its feet. We may be holding our scripts , but the audience will know they’re getting a peek into what it can be.”
“Raindogs” is at 8 p.m. on Saturday, October 16 at Bay Street Theatre on Long Wharf in Sag Harbor. The book is by Lanford Wilson, Rose Martula, and Andrew MacBean. Music is by Andrew MacBean, Paul Chant, and Boko Suzuki, who also serves as Music Director. Lyrics by Andrew MacBean. Tickets are $15 and available by calling 725-9500. A Q&A with the creators will follow.
