Stage and Screen
- BBC Radio 3 Monday 16 December 2002 4.00 - 5.00pm
- Presenter: Edward Seckerson
Edward Seckerson talks to the Australian-born star of South Pacific, The Secret Garden and Les Miserables - Philip Quast
Playlist
1. South Pacific (Rodgers and Hammerstein) 2002 Royal National Theatre Production Track 8 - Some Enchanted Evening First Night CASTCD 84
2. Les Miserables (Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg) 10th Anniversary Recording at the Royal Albert Hall CD1 Track 16 - Stars First Night ENCORE CD8
3. CD: Philip Quast Live At The Donmar Musical Director Jason Robert Brown Track 7 - Color And Light (written by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine) Track 8 - Finishing The Hat (written by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine) Donmar PQD1
4. The Fix (John Dempsey and Dana P Rowe) Original London Cast Track 11 - First Came Mercy, with Chorus and Richard D Sharp First Night CAST CD62
5. South Pacific (Rodgers and Hammerstein) 2002 Royal National Theatre Production Track 24 - This Was Nearly Mine First Night CASTCD 84
6. The Secret Garden (Lucy Simon and Marsha Norman) Original London Cast Track 11 - Race You To The Top Of The Morning First Night CASTCD 82
7. CD: Philip Quast Live At The Donmar Musical Director Jason Robert Brown Track 13 - Letting You Go (written by Jason Robert Brown) Donmar PQD1
8. Excerpt from Australian TV Playschool: ‘Three Little Speckled Frogs’
9. CD: Philip Quast Live At The Donmar Musical Director Jason Robert Brown Track 12 - The King’s New Clothes (written by Frank Loesser) Donmar PQD1
- BBC Radio 3 Monday 14 October 2002 4.00 - 5.00pm
- Presenter: Edward Seckerson
In the first in an occasional series of showcases, Lucy Simon, composer of "The Secret Garden" comes into the studio to perform both published and new work with the help of Philip Quast and pianist Michael Kosarin. Introduced by Edward Seckerson.
Playlist
1. Demo CD by Lucy and Carly Simon, singing ‘Winken, Blinken and Nod’ Music by Lucy Simon, Poem by Eugene Field
2. Studio performance by Lucy Simon and Michael Kosarin of ‘Prairie Rose’ from Prairie Music by Lucy Simon, Lyrics by Susan Birkenhead
3. CD: The Secret Garden Music by Lucy Simon, Lyrics by Marsha Norman Original Broadway Cast Album Track 17: Lily’s Eyes performed by Mandy Patinkin and Robert Westenberg
4. CD: The Secret Garden Original Broadway Cast Album Track 6: I Heard Someone Crying, performed by Rebecca Luker and Mandy Patinkin
5. Studio performance by Lucy Simon and Michael Kosarin of ‘What is A Home’ from The Secret Garden
6. CD: The Secret Garden Original London Cast Track 5: The Girl I Mean To Be, performed by Natalie Morgan
7. CD: The Secret Garden Australian Cast Track 3: Lily’s Eyes, performed by Anthony Marlow and Philip Quast
8. Studio performance by Philip Quast and Michael Kosarin of ‘A Bit Of Earth’ from The Secret Garden
9. CD: The Secret Garden Original Broadway Cast Album Track 35: How Could I Ever Know, performed by Rebecca Luker and Mandy Patinkin
10. Demo CD of Juliette Lambert singing ‘I Am Heathcliff’ from The Legend of Wuthering Heights Music by Lucy Simon, Lyrics by Marsha Norman
11. Demo CD of ‘One Mistress Have I’ from Fanny Hackabout-Jones Music by Lucy Simon, Lyrics by Susan Birkenhead
12. Demo CD of Marin Mazzie and Brian Stokes Mitchell singing ‘Time Stands Still’ from Zhivago
13. Studio performance of Lucy Simon and Michael Kosarin performing ‘Let It Be’ from Zhivago Music by Lucy Simon, Lyrics by Susan Birkenhead
14. Demo CD of Marin Mazzie and Brian Stokes Mitchell singing ‘Let it Be’ from Zhivago Music by Lucy Simon, Lyrics by Susan Birkenhead
Transcript of Edward Seckerson's Interview with Lucy Simon, Philip Quast and Michael Kosarin "Stage and Screen", BBC Radio Three, 14 October 2002.
We would like to thank Gregor Dickson for taking the time to write out the transcript of the interview and sending it to us.
ES: Once upon a time there were three Simon sisters, Lucy and Carly . . . and Joanna, who was very grand and went on to sing opera. Welcome, Lucy.
LS: Thank you very much.
ES: Lucy's here with us today and she has brought along a couple of friends; we have Michael Kosarin who was the original music supervisor and musical director on The Secret Garden, which was Lucy's big success, and we have in the other room Philip Quast, joining you for old times' sake, who was Archie in The Secret Garden, and in fact played Neville in the Australian production; three time Olivier Award winner.
(Discussion of Lucy Simon's pre-The Secret Garden work)
ES: The Secret Garden was an altogether different deal; big hit on Broadway, should have been a big hit here . . .
LS: We tried!
ES: A really marvellous adaptation of that children's novel and a wonderful score. I told the story on this show before of how I came to hear a note of it; I was actually in the States driving along with a friend and he just put Lily's Eyes on the CD player and I was thinking to myself as it was playing - before I said anything - I was thinking this is very, very individual; it really did strike me. And then we got to this disguised modulation and it just blew me out of my seat, and I said 'what is this?!'. And he said, it's from a new show called The Secret Garden. And that's how I started to listen to it.
[Lily's Eyes excerpt - Mandy Patinkin & Robert Westenberg; OBC recording]
ES: In actual fact, they were looking for a composer, weren't they? All the other elements were in place, and you were the last piece of the jigsaw to come in, Lucy, weren't you?
LS: That's right, I was recommended through Prairie, people that had heard Prairie, and so Marsha Norman who wrote the book, and Heidi Landesman who was the producer, came to me and said 'we're doing this' and I was very interested because of course I loved The Secret Garden as a kid, and had read it to my child; so much of me comes through what I read to my children. So I had a sense of where that landscape was, that Yorkshire landscape; and also being a folk singer, I did a lot of Scottish and Irish and English folk songs. So I immediately went to this place - so haunted. This is the first lyric that Marsha had . . .
[I Heard Someone Crying excerpt - Mandy Patinkin & Rebecca Luker; OBC recording]
LS: When you're first starting a musical, and especially if it's based on a novel that is known and loved, you have to do honour to the characters and the original material, and what is very important to me is to find the right voice for each character. In finding Mary Lennox . . . obviously that's the most important character to find because she's the main character. And the first song that Marsha and I wrote for Mary, we liked very much, but it was too cheery, so we had to change it to another song. But Michael and I were going through our notes and we found that original song! We thought that might be fun to hear . . .
ES: That's great; yes, let's hear it.
LS: This is the song when Mary comes to Misselthwaite Manor . . . and actually Daisy Egan, who was the New York star, much preferred this song. We'll sing a bit of it, so that you'll see why we chose the other.
[What Is A Home - Lucy Simon with piano accompaniment by Michael Kosarin; studio performance]
LS: I'm an adult so I don't sound really like a child singing it but it still does sound too cheerful for Mary, so we went to this other song which none of us likes so well, but it does have the right 'feel' for Mary, and we'll play a bit of it so you'll understand how fledgling composer and lyricist got off to a wrong start!
[The Girl I Mean To Be excerpt - Natalie Morgan; OLC]
LS: You know it's funny, I actually like it; I'm not so sure that I don't prefer it. You're right it's darker, but it's very haunting, and at that point in the show she's a very lonely little girl. She's just arrived, she's in the bedroom, isn't she?
ES: Well, in New York she was in a different place than she was in the London production. In the London production she's out in the garden; in the New York production it was sort of as a dream.
MK: Although, if I can say, I think we moved it around in the New York production if you remember; it started early in the first act, and then we decided it was in the wrong place and moved it to the top of the second act.
ES: You know, this question about the position of songs is an interesting one. For example, Lily's Eyes, a big high point in the show, shifted between New York and London. In London it opened the second act, which was really a way of blowing the socks off an audience, straight into the beginning of the second act . . . so it had a different kind of dynamic there. But in New York, if I'm right, it was much earlier, it was after A Bit Of Earth. Now Philip . . . we've got Philip Quast with us now . . .
PQ: Hello.
ES: . . . why do you think the move made sense?
PQ: Well, it's very interesting; I'm privileged because I've actually done both productions. I did a version of the New York production in Australia and I played the other brother, and I came here, and so I've done both. And the thing is, it is such a fantastic song, I think people thought it should go later in the act, so it has an emotional response; it's almost an '11 o'clock number' in that sense. But because a secret is revealed - the other brother confesses that he loves his brother's wife - I think they thought that secret was revealed too early; and if that comes, there's nowhere for the relationship to go. So by putting it into the second act it just delayed it a little more and explains why that brother is the way he is.
[Lily's Eyes - Anthony Warlow & Philip Quast; OAusC recording]
ES: Wow. If ever a number defied the audience not to remain passive about theatre . . . it's a real show-stopper. Philip, you were saying that it was one of the reasons that you did the show . . .
PQ: Well it is THE reason. You hear that song and you think 'I've just got to do this', because the chance to sing with another baritone . . . they just don't come along; it's very rare.
ES: OK, now A Bit Of Earth, which is a key song in the show, because it's when Mary comes to Archie; having being so detached from her, he says "child, is there anything you need?", and she responds rather startlingly "I'd like a bit of earth". A crucial point in the show and a crucial number in the show and you get this lyric A Bit Of Earth. Give us the whole lyric, Lucy; and how did you go about setting it?
LS: Well, Mary goes to Archie when she realises that she has found that she loves the garden, and the person that loved the garden before Mary came along was Archie's wife Lily, so it totally confounds Archie that this little child has come to him and said that what she wants is a little bit of earth. And the lyric is "A bit of earth, She wants a little bit of earth, She'll plant some seeds". And it shows Archie being totally bewildered, and how do you write that? . . . the emotion just rolled over itself . . .
ES: There's no other way of setting it really, is there?
LS: No other way. There was no choice. That was how it had to go. But of course the interpretation becomes something that is quite different, and having the joy of working with Philip, twice . . . because as he said he played Neville in Australia and I went and I saw him there, and actually because of that, when we came to casting in London, Adrian Noble and I said Philip Quast would be wonderful. And I said Philip has a low voice, but we could change the keys for Philip; I knew that Philip would just bring so much to this role. So Philip came all the way from Australia to sing Archie in this.
ES: So Philip, you're going to sing this for us now, but I'd like to know really what the character is going through at this point, because there's a thought process here; it's kind of crucial to the role
PQ: Lucy said she changed the keys, but it's still high! It's exactly what she says; it's interesting that when a composer decides to work out the tune, that it's dictated by the sense of the lyric, and just by speaking it she actually wants "A bit of earth, She wants a little bit of earth". Suddenly that dictates the melody.
ES: Actually as you're speaking it, you can hear the melody!
PQ: You can hear the melody, and that's why it's a pleasure to sing. And it's a turmoil, because suddenly there's a little bit of light; a light flickers through his window because he's lost his wife and suddenly there's a little glimmer of hope, and the song is oscillating between what she needs and that maybe his life could change as well.
[A Bit Of Earth - Philip Quast with piano accompaniment by Michael Kosarin; studio performance]
ES: That's a wonderful song. You know it's the bridge, Lucy, Philip, that gets me: "Why can't she ask for a treasure, Something that money can't buy". You actually find a bit of melody that money can't buy there . . .
LS: Oh, thank you!
ES: I think that really takes off; there's a little bit of ecstasy in that middle section. The crucial song comes at the end of the show, where Lily returns to Archie, who is on the point of suicide, and basically says to him 'you have to let me go'. It's very moving - How Could I Ever Know. In fact only a few weeks ago at The Proms, Renee Fleming and Bryn Terfel sang it as an encore. Lucy, how about that - you really have made it into the higher echelons there!
LS: That was pretty thrilling. It was almost as thrilling as having Philip sing it!
ES: The song actually changed, did it not? It started off as being Lily speaking to Archie, and then the bridge section became really crucial in the song, Lucy, didn't it?
LS: The story of writing this was wonderful: Marsha wrote the song in a short amount of time, gave me the lyric over the 'phone, I wrote it down; she could barely read it to me because she kept crying. And then I immediately set it, that's how it goes, and I set it in maybe twenty minutes or half an hour and called her back to play it for her, but couldn't get through it, because I kept on crying . . . so it was probably two days before we both heard the final thing. But in the show, we realised again we didn't quite know where to place it, but finally realised it belonged in the end, as her way of telling Archie he has to go on with his own life and go to the garden. We needed to make this a longer song, so we wanted to make it a duet with Archie, and we also wanted to bring him back to the garden. So we extended the song by using a bridge of The Girl In The Valley, which is the first song that Lily and Archie sing together. When I write, as you know, I write with my voice, so we went back to that part where Archie says "All I need is there in the garden, All I would ask is care for the child of our love, Come go with me, Safe I will keep you, Where you would lead me there I would go" and then they go into the big duet. So that was sort of taking from one song, adding it onto another one to make this huge finale.
[How Could I Ever Know excerpt - Mandy Patinkin & Rebecca Luker; OBC recording]
ES: You know, when I hear that song; that wicked key change into the entry of the male voice, which is kind of . . . Kos, you're making a virtue out of a necessity of the change of voice; it really grabs you . . .
LS: Only Kos knows how to do that!
MK: Pure desperation, I assure you!
ES: But you know, Lucy, you do realise that that song could be the great legacy you leave; I think it is such a great song.
LS: Thank you.
ES: Philip, you can go back to the garden now, and we'll see you in a while . . . in fact we're doing a whole show with Philip Quast very soon, so that's something to look forward to.
(Discussion of Lucy Simon's post-The Secret Garden work, including demo. recordings from The Legend of Wuthering Heights, Fanny Hackabout-Jones and Zhivago)
ES: Thank you so much, Lucy. It's been a real pleasure sharing your music in a way that makes us feel that we're actually a part of the composition. This is the first time that we've tried this on this show, and we want to do a lot more of it, but thank you for being the first.
LS: Well it's a great joy for me to be with you, and also to bring my Michael Kosarin who was so much a part of the development of The Secret Garden, who really was a partner; as he said he was my editor on writing the songs. And then to have the great joy of having Philip Quast come in as my guest, so thank you very much for asking all of us.
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