At the Heart of an American Masterpiece

Ryan McKittrick: Could you describe the way the creative team is adapting Porgy and Bess?

Diane Paulus: We are trying to create a more dramatically complete version of Porgy and Bess that will be the most powerful experience in terms of story and character for a twenty-first-century audience. There have been many different versions of Porgy and Bess. It is a living, breathing, enormous masterpiece that Gershwin was still working on when he died in 1937, just two years after it premiered on Broadway. Within this massive creation lived many potentials, and we are trying to fully realize the impulses in the story and the characters. Porgy and Bess has always had a hybrid energy that fuses jazz and classical music, but for the past forty years it has been known primarily as an opera. We are creating a version for the musical stage that is less operatic and epic, and more focused and intimate.

Why did you want to work with the playwright Suzan-Lori Parks on this project?

Suzan-Lori Parks was the first person I thought of when the Gershwin estate asked me to suggest a writer for our production. I have been an admirer of her work for years, and while we knew each other socially, we had never worked together before. Not only is she deeply gifted as a playwright, with a vast dramaturgical knowledge, she is also an amazing human being, thinker, and philosopher. What’s incredible about Suzan-Lori is that while she is able to look at the larger context of the work, she writes from the inside of the hearts of the characters. I’ve been so struck with how she puts herself inside every single character.

You’ve collaborated with the composer Diedre Murray on a number of projects over the years. Why did you want her on board as the musical adapter for this project?

I knew that Diedre would be the right person for this project because of her background in classical music and jazz. She has the versatility to understand all the musical impulses in Porgy and Bess. Gershwin was way ahead of his time. He was interested in mashing up all these different musical forms. Diedre has the perfect musical background to immerse herself completely in Gershwin’s cathedral of ideas.

Had you ever seen Porgy and Bess before you began working on this project?

I had only seen it once, at the New York City Opera. I was staggered by the number of hit songs. It was shocking to me to hear hit after hit after hit. And I also remember being deeply moved in the second scene, during “My Man’s Gone,” when Serena is mourning the death of her husband. I remember thinking that this is a great drama with big emotions and incredible music.

This spring you and Marjorie Garber co-taught a course at Harvard on Porgy and Bess. Has anything from that course influenced this production?

Getting to know Porgy, DuBose Heyward’s novel that was the inspiration for Porgy and Bess. It is important to understand the context in which the novel was written. Heyward was from a white aristocratic family looking as an outsider at a community that surrounded him. But he was listening and absorbing, as any artist does. So the novel is a window—albeit through the eyes of a particular author—into the time period. It has been very interesting to read some of the details about the charactersin the novel; they spark the imagination. So the novel has become a source for us in the rehearsal room. And the play that DuBose Heyward co-wrote with his wife, Dorothy, after the novel was published has also been a source. Even Sidney Poitier’s comments about regretting making the 1959 film have become a source of inspiration for us, because we have been discussing what it means to play Porgy and how the character can be interpreted in new ways. So exploring the history of Porgy and Bess has really informed the choices we’re making in the rehearsal room.

Where have you decided to set the production?

In Charleston, South Carolina, in the late 1930s. The production design breaks free from the tradition of large sets representing real architecture. This production will zoom in on the individuals in the community. So rather than presenting buildings and shutters and gates, we’re focusing on the important relationships and dynamics of the community. We’re also working with an incredible choreographer, Ron K. Brown, who is helping us express the narrative and dramatic tension in the performers’ bodies.

Ryan McKittrick is the A.R.T.’s Dramaturg and co-head of the Dramaturgy Department of the A.R.T./MXAT Institute for Advanced Theater Training at Harvard University.