{"id":1548,"date":"2019-10-11T11:46:59","date_gmt":"2019-10-11T15:46:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/?p=1548"},"modified":"2019-10-11T11:47:07","modified_gmt":"2019-10-11T15:47:07","slug":"is-porgy-a-stereotype-take-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/2019\/10\/is-porgy-a-stereotype-take-two.html","title":{"rendered":"Is Porgy a “Stereotype”? — Take Two"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Sidney Poitier as Porgy<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Of the interesting emails I received in response to my American Scholar<\/em> review<\/a><\/strong> of Porgy and Bess<\/em>, the most informative was from a singer with considerable experience doing Porgy on stage. He wrote:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs challenging as it was for me to\nsing most of Porgy on a cart (the rest of the time I was on my knees), there is\nno substitute for singing and viewing the world from that perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gershwin intended Porgy to be pulled by a goat while sitting on a cart. He is a man who cannot stand up. Today Porgy is typically ambulatory on crutches: mobilized. I now realize this is one of the reasons that Eric Owens\u2019s portrayal, at the Met, \u201cstarts too strong.\u201d It is because he is erect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Early on, Porgy sings: \u201c\u201cWhen Gawd make cripple, He mean him to be lonely. He got to trabble dat lonesome road.\u201d This crucial self-observation only really registers when Porgy \u201cviews the world\u201d from below. And the goat reinforces his distance from normal human company. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also — as John Mauceri just pointed out in another email to me — if Porgy can walk on crutches, he can go to that picnic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Additionally, re-reading my review, I wish I had been more explicit about the regrettable impact of Sidney Poitier\u2019s performance in the 1959 Otto Preminger film version of Gershwin\u2019s magnificent opera. Poitier is so manifestly uncomfortable in this role that his portrayal reads as a critique. However subliminally, we are made to believe that Gershwin has created an objectionable \u201cstereotype.\u201d So far as I can ascertain, this is a claim mainly originating in the fifties: long after the opera\u2019s premiere and initial reception. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was my privilege to speak with Poitier on the phone when I wrote \u201cOn My Way\u201d \u2013 The Untold<\/em> Story of Rouben Mamoulian, George Gershwin, and \u201cPorgy and Bess.\u201d<\/em> He was perfectly candid. He never sought to play Porgy. Rather, Lillian Schary Small, a sometime associate of Poitier\u2019s agent Martin Baum, sought and acquired it for him. Samuel Goldwyn, who initiated and produced the film, was too star-struck to realize what he was doing (his equally risible first choice had been Harry Belafonte). Ultimately, Poitier agreed only on condition that he also be cast in a film he coveted \u2013 The<\/em> Defiant Ones<\/em>. Of Porgy and Bess<\/em> he said to me: \u201cI don\u2019t talk about it. I\u2019ve dismissed it. I did it, I didn\u2019t want to do it. I did not want to be stopped in my tracks.\u2019 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I also had occasion to discuss Preminger\u2019s\nfilm at length with the late Andre Previn, who as music director both conducted\nand arranged Gershwin\u2019s score. What Previn had to say (a lot) is recounted in detail\nin my book. Of Poitier he commented: \u201cSidney told me he was \u2018tone-deaf.\u2019 I said\n\u2018C\u2019mon.\u2019 So I sat down at the piano and played two notes, one at the top of the\nkeyboard, one at the bottom. \u2018Now which note is higher?\u2019 I asked Poitier. \u2018It\u2019s\nyour job to tell me,\u2019 he answered.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The gruesome tale of how Samuel Goldwyn hired and fired Rouben Mamoulian, then replaced him with the martinet Preminger — also in my book,<\/a><\/strong> ,thanks to Mamoulian’s copious documentation — itself deserves to be a movie, with secondary parts for Poitier, Previn, and Dorothy Dandridge (Preminger\u2019s ex-girlfriend, whom he verbally abused on the set). It could more productively engage with Porgy and Bess<\/em> \u2013 and its attendant issues of race and American identity — than have any number of stage productions. (I have a five-page treatment in my pocket).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Of the interesting emails I received in response to my American Scholar review of Porgy and Bess, the most informative was from a singer with considerable experience doing Porgy on stage. He wrote: \u201cAs challenging as it was for me to sing most of Porgy on a cart (the rest of the time I was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1548","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2QLHN-oY","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1548"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1556,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1548\/revisions\/1556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}