Solo show celebrates Gershwin’s genius
When composer George Gershwin died of a brain tumor in 1937 at the age of 38, the loss felt like a body blow to American culture.
Yet almost 80 years later, the legacy of one of the 20th century’s most brilliant, iconic and influential talents remains vibrant as ever — as exemplified by “An American in Paris,” the recently opened Broadway smash built upon his timeless songs and orchestral works.
“George Gershwin refuses to die,” says Hershey Felder, one of the foremost authorities on the composer. “We still connect to his music as if it were just composed today and composed especially for us. He left us with the musical reflection of who we are.”
Felder researched Gershwin’s life for five years before creating his solo show “George Gershwin Alone,” which begins previews Friday at the Alley Theatre.
Felder premiered the show in Los Angeles in 2000 to critical acclaim and enthusiastic audiences. In the years since, he has toured it internationally, including engagements on Broadway and in London’s West End.
Born in Montreal, Felder is an actor, pianist, playwright, composer and producer. His Gershwin show was sparked both by his admiration for the composer and his interest in developing a show that would employ his multiple talents. He wrote the show, portrays Gershwin and illustrates his story with keyboard performances of song standards such as “Fascinating Rhythm” and “They Can’t Take That Away From Me,” as well as excerpts from longer works including “Rhapsody in Blue” and “Porgy and Bess,” still widely regarded as the greatest American opera.
The show reveals the composer as “a somewhat conceited storyteller,” Felder says. “As Kitty Carlisle, who knew him, said: ‘It was all about his music. If you went on a date with him, he talked about his music.’ ”
Felder has much in common with Gershwin. Besides an affinity for the keyboard, dating to early childhood, Felder is Jewish and a first-generation North American, born to immigrant parents from Eastern Europe.
In the show, Felder-as-Gershwin speaks from a sort of limbo, out of time, looking back at his life. As Felder notes, “he’s the only person in the room who doesn’t know what’s happened to his music.” He recalls his childhood, his parents and siblings Arthur, Frances and lyricist Ira, the elder brother with whom George wrote most of his best-known songs.
It’s a common misconception, however, that Gershwin wrote all of his songs with Ira. He wrote many of his early hits with others, such as “Swanee,” with Irving Caesar, and “Somebody Loves Me,” with B.G. DeSylva. Even after George and Ira established themselves as a team, each still sometimes collaborated with others.
Felder explores the origins of key songs and shows and shares insights into Gershwin’s compositional techniques, interweaving story and song throughout the show.
“It’s entirely chronological,” Felder says. “That’s the only way to tell his story because the most interesting aspect is the chronology, the order in which things happened. The fact that he died so early, he didn’t have the great arc to his life, as many of the famous composers had. He became famous fast, and he died abruptly. Everything in the show is factual, from first- or second-hand sources. Anything that was just gossip or hearsay did not make it into the show.”
The combination of Gershwin’s incredible achievements and his relatively short life have prompted speculation through the years. Think what he would have done if he’d lived another 20, even just 10 more years. Rather unexpectedly, in researching the show, Felder encountered individuals who speculated the reverse.
“Some musicians I talked to, who’d known him near the end of his life, thought he was running out of invention,” Felder says. “That he wouldn’t have gone a lot further. I’m in complete disagreement. Just look at how much he’d grown since he began his professional life at 15, as a Tin Pan Alley song plugger, really not knowing much more than basic harmony. How remarkably he’d developed by the time he wrote “Porgy and Bess,” which premiered when he was 36, and how much he’d learned about music theory, orchestration. So I don’t think he’d gone as far as he could. I believe he would have continued to advance and to astound audiences.”
Though the notion of an irreplaceable talent gone too soon enhances the composer’s mythic status, Felder says it’s the music itself that explains the continuing fascination with Gershwin.
“His music is still fresh and singable,” Felder says. “It still moves people. It was an original voice, different from any other. And it happened at a very exciting time in American life, with all that cultural ferment. There’s an incredible wealth of invention, while at the same time he was absorbing influences of jazz, Latin and African-American music. Without him, those influences wouldn’t have made it into the concert hall until a good deal later.”
The success of his Gershwin tribute has led Felder to create other solo shows about famed composers, all directed by Joel Zwick. The repertoire now includes Frederic Chopin, Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Liszt, Leonard Bernstein and Irving Berlin. Felder has given more than 4,700 performances of these shows, collectively known as his Composer Sonata.
Don’t think Felder is done exploring music history: “I’m currently developing a show about Tchaikovsky.”