L&L's "Louder Than Words: The Songs and Legacy of Jonathan Larson"
Jonathan Larson was one hell of a lyricist, as he told me not infrequently; sometimes while he was writing a lyric. It’s a tragic fact about Jonathan — like so many facts about him posthumously — that he wound up the best judge of his own talents. No one thought more of Jonathan Larson’s worth as a musical theater composer-lyricist in his lifetime than Jonathan did. And, in the end, he was right.
I was drawn recently to the 92nd Street Y (pardon, “92NY”)’s Lyrics and Lyricists program, “Louder Than Words: The Songs and Legacy of Jonathan Larson,” because, to my knowledge, it constituted, the first time Jonathan, “the lyricist,” would get a reconsideration of his own (beyond his own consideration). This angle was close to my heart.
I’m delighted to say, my heart was not disappointed.
It was eerie, though, sitting there in the Y’s Kaufmann Concert Hall just before things kicked off, I felt a shiver of déjà vu and thought: I brought Jonathan here — to a Lyrics and Lyricists program long ago. I had to figure it out later: the year was 1993, and the chosen lyricist was Leo Robin, a favorite of mine. Jonathan knew Robin had written the lyrics for Gentlemen Prefer Blondes on Broadway, and that was about it. We both had a good time learning more, which is what Lyrics and Lyricists is for.
The host and educator-designate for Jonathan’s Lyrics and Lyricists event was James Nicola, the esteemed, now-retired, artistic director of New York Theatre Workshop, who rescued Rent for Jonathan from a seemingly endless cycle of rejection and just produced it, finally. Jim knows as much about the ins and outs of Rent’s evolution before Jon’s death as anyone.
On this occasion, he shared lots of this inside information.
But, more immediately, Jim focused on the political/communal quotient of Jonathan’s lyric-writing content, thereby providing a fiery (and desperately timely) frame for his lyric achievements. Jonathan was a decidedly political person and he injected a very liberal political outrage into his songs regularly, as Jim demonstrated with his very judicious song choices on this occasion.
Rent dominated, unsurprisingly, with the AIDS epidemic and homelessness in the 1990s the thrust or subtext of so many Rent songs. What I particularly appreciated, though, was Jim’s attention to Jonathan’s rewrites — which always came hard for him but inevitably improved songs boundlessly.
In 1993, for example, around the time Jonathan and I attended the Leo Robbin L&L, Rent received its first staged reading at NYTW. The afternoon was a disaster (yeah, I was there), meandering (and sweltering) and ridiculously difficult to follow, but the score still managed to make itself heard. One tune, for the HIV-positive rocker, Roger, “Right Brain,” had a riveting melody and a perfectly decent, but — as Jim Nicola pointed out at L&L — rather generic lyric about the “right brain” and creativity. Jim and his associates jumped on Jonathan about many things after this reading (a dramaturg was ultimately forced on him). Rewriting “Right Brain” was high up on their list.
Find the right brain
Hugging the curves
The right brain
As the sun sets
The right brain
Through the trees into the sea
Time flies
Time dies
I remember lying on the beach at the Jersey shore, literally at Jonathan’s feet (he always brought his own beach chair), while he read aloud his in-process new lyric for “Right Brain” from a thick looseleaf binder containing his entire Rent script (and a passel of yellow Post-its). The song was on its way to becoming “One Song Glory,” which I now view, flat-out, as Jonathan’s self-epitaph. But I did not know that then.
One song
Glory
One song
Before I go
Glory
One song to leave behind…Find glory
Beyond the cheap colored lights
One song
Before the sun sets
Glory - on another empty life
Time flies
Time dies
Jim chose to project Jon’s hand-written lyric changes on the rear stage wall, as performers DeMone Seraphin and Adam Kantor sang the before and after, eloquently. And I choked up a little. Once again.
The singing this night was passionately committed throughout, as voiced by one Tony-nominee (L. Morgan Lee — a Strange Loop), one Rent-on-Broadway alum (Mr. Kantor), two powerful young ladies, new to me (Keaton Whittaker and Olivia AbiAssi), alongside the barrel-voiced Mr. Seraphin. Michael R. Jackson, the Pulitzer-prize winning author of Strange Loop also appeared, with his writing partner on his current musical, Teeth, Anne K. Jacobs, as representative former-winners of Jonathan Larson Foundation awards; so too, the vocalist/composer Grace McLean, plus the evening’s credited script writer, a vivaciously talented young musical theater writer named Elizabeth Addison. All testified at some length to Jonathan’s inspirational impact on their entire generation. Which brought tears to my eyes. And, I’ll bet, would have brought tears to his.
Beyond Rent, the songs that jumped out at me this night (both from tick, tick…BOOM!) were “Why” — Jon’s manifesto (as opposed to his epitaph) — “I make a vow/Right here and now/I'm gonna spend my time this way” — and, of course, the program’s title tune, “Louder Than Words:”
What does it take
To wake up a generation?
How can you make someone
Take off and fly?
If we don't wake up
And shake up the nation
We'll eat the dust
Of the world wondering why…
Actions speak louder than
Words.
Prescient? Or prophetic. Jonathan Larson was both, and whole lot of other things. As Jim Nicola pointed out, Jonathan’s vision was one of community, in action. To fight, we need to stand together, he believed. With all of our differences. Not buried, but embraced. Like one song.