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The book might have been less ponderous, Moses believes, had not both Lerner and Bernstein been involved. Says he: "It was like two great men meeting who decided to make a very important statement that had been on their minds about this country. Maybe if they had been younger [both are 57], more sparks would have been flying—and also more innocence. They wanted to do a sort of para-Broadway musical, but they were pulled down from their Olympian Heights by the demands of the audience for illusion, for magic, for mystery."
Loving Memory. Unlike Hollywood, where, as the adage has it, "You're only as good as your last picture," Broadway has a long and loving memory. Perhaps because stage failures are not embalmed on film, backers and producers and actors and directors tend to forget unpleasant history. This time they forgot that Lerner's last two tries for the theater, a stage version of Gigi and Lolita, My Love, were flops and that two previous shows, Coco and On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, were coolly received by the critics. In fact, Lerner's last clear-cut hit was Camelot in 1960, while Bernstein had not written for Broadway since West Side Story in 1957.
Last week Bernstein had returned to the safer shoals of conducting and concertizing. The optimistic Lerner was cheerful: "I am not discouraged. If failure discouraged me, I would have quit long ago. I always have plans—I'm effervescent with plans. This sort of thing happens in the theater all the time."