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It all started in back in 1984, when director, writer and composer Andrew MacBean took in a revival of Lanford Wilson’s 1965 play, “Balm in Gilead,” in New York.
The play, which weaves an unlikely love story into a gritty portrait of the junkies, pushers, prostitutes and hustlers who frequent an Upper West Side greasy spoon, seemed to Mr. MacBean to be just right for a musical treatment.
Now, some 26 years later—and seven years after he first brought the idea to Mr. Wilson, who lives in Sag Harbor—Mr. MacBean will present a workshop production of “Raindogs,” a musical adaptation of “Balm in Gilead,” at Bay Street Theatre on Saturday, October 16, at 8 p.m.
“I’ve always wanted to do it, ever since I saw the Circle in the Square production directed by John Malkovich,” Mr. MacBean said in a telephone interview this week. “I was absolutely blown away by it. I thought, ‘That’s the type of theater I’d like to direct, to be involved with, to see in musicals.’”
Mr. Wilson, he said, was enthusiastic about the project from the first time he heard about it.
“I met with Lanford in New York, at Joe Allen,” Mr. MacBean recalled, “and he listened to three songs for the show on headphones, and tears came to his eyes. After he had heard the first one, he tore off the headphones and said, ‘That has to be for Martin’”—referring to a character in “Balm in Gilead” who is a hustler and a junkie.
“He identified exactly who it was meant for ... the music spoke to him in that way,” Mr. MacBean said, adding that Mr. Wilson said after hearing another of the songs, “That has to be at the end of the show.”
Years later, when he was consulting on the development of the show, the playwright was asked if a scene should come before or after the song that was associated with it. “The scene has to go before the song,” he declared authoritatively—even though Mr. MacBean discovered a half hour later that he was still trying to determine if that was the right call.
“Lanford is so beautifully and irreverently abrasive. He is very direct,” Mr. MacBean said with obvious admiration as well as gratitude for Mr. Wilson’s blessing and subsequent participation in the process of creating the book for the new musical.
Creating the version of the show that will be presented on Saturday at Bay Street was a collaborative process, Mr. MacBean said, having worked on the book with Mr. Wilson and Rose Martula, and on the music with Paul Chant and Boko Suzuki, who also serves as music director. Mr. MacBean, who is directing the production, has a solo credit for the lyrics.
The show takes its name from the two-word title of a Tom Waits album released a year after the Circle in the Square “Balm in Gilead” revival, “Rain Dogs.”
As part of a one-night benefit for West End Fights AIDS in London, Mr. MacBean used the script for “Balm in Gilead” and the songs of Tom Waits. And although the new adaptation has all original songs, the name “Raindogs” serves as a nod to the shared sensibilities of Mr. Waits and Mr. Wilson.
Mr. MacBean learned about the derivation of the album title in a biography of Mr. Waits. The “rain dogs” are characters who are like the dogs in Manhattan that get lost because the rain has washed away their scent. And a reviewer for Rolling Stone wrote of the “Rain Dogs” album that is was Mr. Waits’s “finest portrait of the tragic kingdom of the streets,” a characterization that could be seamlessly applied to Mr. Wilson’s “Balm in Gilead” as well.
“Raindogs,” with a cast of 12, will be presented in a workshop production sponsored in part by the Lucille Lortel Foundation at Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor at 8 p.m. on Saturday, October 16. Tickets are $15, available by calling 725-9500 or online at baystreet.org. A Q & A with the creators will follow.
Andrew Botsford on Oct 12, 2010