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[0:00] Robert W. Schneider: Will everyone here kindly step to the rear and let a winner lead the way? In the 1983 flop musical Marilyn, An American Fable, one of the greatest moments was when Marilyn Monroe looked at her husband, famed playwright Arthur Miller, and said, but you're Arthur Miller, how can you be so boring? While it could be read as the sentiments of a frustrated wife, it could also be the same thoughts of just about every New York critic and audience member who sat through any of Miller's new works after 1955. For many years, Arthur Miller had been in an artistic rut, his best days behind him, but perhaps a change of scenery would spark the creative juices, maybe something he had never tried before, maybe a musical. You see, what happened was, well, you're going to have to wait around and see, Arthur Miller's one and only musical, Up From Paradise, this week on Broadway Bound.

[1:22] Robert W. Schneider: Greatly appreciated. Today, we are venturing into a fascinating show that has become a footnote in the career of America's most iconic dramatist. Yes, more than Eugene O'Neill, more than Tennessee Williams, more than Neil Simon, Arthur Miller represented what was best about American drama. His plays were about everyman caught in the nightmare of the American dream. While we don't all recognize the Irish rage of James Tyrone, or the Southern delicacy of Laura Wingfield, or the set-up set-up punch of Neil Simon's New Yorkers, we know Willie and Linda Lohman. We know John Proctor. We know Joe and Kate Keller. We know them because they are our dads, brothers, mothers, daughters, sons, neighbors.

They are universal. They will be performed for centuries to come, and people will still say these works feel as if they could have been written yesterday. Arthur Miller was a New Yorker through and through, one whose family was affluent before the Depression, then destitute afterwards. He pulled himself up by the American bootstraps and went to the University of Michigan in the 1930s, and there he began an interest in playwriting, returned to New York, and joined the very political Federal Theater Project. In 1944, Arthur Miller hit Broadway with a disaster. It only ran four performances, called The Man Who Had All the Luck and Then. Talk about all the luck in 1947. All My Sons, Arthur Miller's play about opportunism during World War II, was a thunderbolt, winning the first Tony Award for best author.

They didn't have a best play category back then. They would just call it best author, so I would like to say that All My Sons, to me, is the best play if he got the best author, although Tony-wise, that's not true because—I think it was 1965 or 1966—Neil Simon won best author, but best play, I believe, went to The Subject Was Roses, which was written by a different playwright altogether. You see, I know facts like this, and I still don't know why I'm single. Anyway, two years later, Death of a Salesman, the perfect American tragedy, another Tony, a Pulitzer Prize, 1953, The Crucible, Arthur Miller's take on the House Un-American Activities Committee, another Tony Award, two years later, 1955, A View from the Bridge, an exploration of immigration and incest, Miller was on top of the world, or was he?

Well, okay, hold on, I need to pause for a second because I have to tell you something. I love Arthur Miller. To me, he is the greatest playwright who ever lived, and he's one of those playwrights that if somebody was like, hey, do you want to direct his work? We're not going to pay you. I'd be like, great, let's just do it. A View from the Bridge, if you don't know A View from the Bridge, the play is about Italian immigrants who come over, and one of the immigrants falls in love with the daughter at the house he's staying with, and the daughter's afraid to leave, and in a beautiful scene, I mean a beautiful scene, the young Italian man says to the daughter, he goes, you know, you have to learn how to fly, you know, and he thinks of, he used the analogy of a bird, like if he was to take a bird and hold the bird in his hands, the bird, even though he would feel great about that, the bird would never be able to live.

The bird would suffocate. Really beautiful stuff. Well, I went to a school where they did, I was a TA for an acting class, and the drama teacher, he had not really read a play after like 1950, so he just sort of gave everybody the same plays over and over again, and he made every BFA guy do this scene from A View from the Bridge. Now, he asked that they use an Italian dialect. Friends, you have never seen, you've never heard accents like this. First of all, everyone sounded like Count Dracula, and it was either going to be like, hey, Catherine, if I have the bird, and it's in my hands, fierce bird, fierce hand, yes, bird, get it. It was either that, or it was literally like, Catherine, if I have the bird, and I put it in my hands.

It was a different time. I don't know if anybody learned anything. I mean, I learned to just perfect the art of a nice smile during those classes, so anyone else have like scenes the drama teachers always made you get? There was one in my undergrad called Key Exchange, a play I'd never heard of, but apparently lots of people are exchanging keys. So anyway, Arthur Miller, 1955, A View from the Bridge. After this, things begin to fall apart. He married budding actress Marilyn Monroe, but her desire to have a normal life would soon be uprooted because the House Un-American Activities Committee wanted to make Miller's life a living hell. He had humiliated them during The Crucible, so they blacklisted him, which put more of a strain on his marriage.

Finally, he and Monroe divorced, and Miller's writing, it drifted, and to make matters worse, it seemed all Miller could do was be revived. Everywhere he went, there were countless productions of these great plays that I mentioned, but each one of these revivals was looming over any sort of his new work. And the new plays, honestly, were not that good. A Memory of Two Mondays, After the Fall, Incident at Vichy, all faint embers of what Miller had only created a few years ago in the 50s and 40s. Well, if you're in a rut, you have to get out of it somehow, and that's what Miller began to do. He wanted to experiment. By the 1960s, theater was full of experimentation, plays being performed in people's lofts, stories that were multimedia, actors making the play up as they went along, and a lot of anger — anger about Vietnam, anger about race relations, anger about anger.

So, if you can't beat them, join them. And in 1968 came The Price, Miller's response to the Vietnam War and the absurdist plays that were going on at the time, and it did quite well for itself, actually. So, maybe, just maybe, experimentation would be where Arthur Miller should go next. Now, how far away could Arthur Miller get from Arthur Miller? Well, how about a comedy? An Arthur Miller comedy! Watch out, Doc Simon! After The Price, Miller waited five years and then came back with a comedy called The Creation of the World and Other Business. A play — it's an elongated comic sketch, really — is about good versus evil and using the book of Genesis. Act 1 would deal with Adam and Eve. Act 2, Cain is born.

And Act 3, Cain kills Abel. But all done with hijinks and hilarity. He even gave a thesis for each act, Arthur Miller. Act 1 was a question of, well, since God made everything and God is God, why would he make Lucifer and why would he make evil? Great question. Act 2 is, is there something in the way we are born which makes us want the world to be good? That's a great question. And then 3, when every man wants justice, why does he go on creating injustice? So, each act of this comedy, although I don't know a lot of comedies that have theses, would be tackling one of these questions. The play was personal for Arthur Miller. He had started this piece when his daughter was 10. And in a lot of ways, God's warnings to Adam and Eve were his warnings to her.

You know, stay the same. Keep loving me. Don't eat the apple. Almost as if codifying his wants for his daughter would come through successfully in this comedy. So, the first read through—it's 1972—the first read through is magical. The entire cast and crew sat at Arthur Miller's feet while he read the play aloud. People said it was like Uncle Arthur's story time. But that wasn't the show. The show was hyper-realistic eventually on stage and heavy and literal. So, all of that storyteller theater magic where people are just sitting by people's feet listening to a story, that was gone by the time the show got up onto its feet. Tryouts for this play in D.C. did not go so well. Barbara Harris was the lead.

Ironic. She was playing Eve when she had played Eve just a few years ago in Appletree. Don't know if she was fired or asked to leave. She was replaced by Zoe Caldwell, who was not quite as young as Barbara Harris, which made Eve look like she had had a couple of good years on her. And then director Harold Klerman quit, and he was replaced by a guy named Gerald Friedman. The show didn't do well in D.C., but it still went to Broadway, and Broadway was not much better. And Miller wasn't a comedian. He was a philosopher, an anthropologist, not a Borscht Belt comic. His comic lines were not the best. For example, when Lucifer asks God, why did you create the evil apple if you know it's bad? For Adam, God cracks back, I wanted him to wake each morning, look at that tree, and say, for God's sake, I won't eat that apple.

Okay, so reviews were devastating for this play, with the New Republic coming in for the kill with, quote, it's like going to the funeral for a man you wish you could have liked more. The occasion seals your opinion because there is no hope for change. Basically, what this critic is saying, Miller, you had your time. Grandpa, let's get you to bed so, you know, David Rabe and David Mamet can get some shows going. After 20 performances, Creation closed on Broadway, and Miller was bereft. Where to go? What to do? So he did lectures, and he did an autobiography, and he supervised revivals of his great plays. But a writer writes. A writer needs to write. And like all great artists, Miller loved teaching.

He loved passing on knowledge and what he had learned in life and the arts. And so he began the hunt for his teaching jobs. And what better place to teach than the place that had taught him so many, many years ago, the University of Michigan. Professor Arthur Miller would teach at the University of Michigan, and they would present Arthur Miller's new play, The American Clock, which was a play about a family struggling in the Great Depression, much like Miller's family. That would be the way this system would work. But wait, no, no, no. Isn't this the same type of play Miller was consistently creating? Ah, my family. Ah, my country. Ah, isn't this what he wanted a break from? So he went to the university and said, I have another idea.

I wrote a play that flopped last season, and I think what it really needs is music. I want to turn Creation of the World and Other Business into a musical. Now, it's important to remember before UMichigan became an assembly line of newsies and nicest kids in town, musicals were looked down upon in colleges. Theater was a bad enough major, but oh my God, a musical? Musicals, that's the silly stuff that they do in barns and on cruise ships. You're not a real actor. But this was Arthur Miller. He was Professor Arthur Miller, and his contract was contingent upon him producing a new show of his. So he would direct it, write the book and lyrics, and a man named Stanley Silverman would write the music.

Now, in fact, it was Silverman's idea to turn the flop play into a musical. Who was Stanley Silverman? Silverman was a composer, about 20 years Miller's junior, who was known for writing underscoring to plays, incidental music, things like Yerma and Galileo, St. Joan, and Creation of the World and Other Business. Yes, Stanley Silverman was the person who wrote the incidental music for Miller's play. In fact, Silverman wrote so much background music for the play that not all of it could be used. Now, the Whitney Museum in New York would host a concert of that cut music, but Silverman just didn't want melody after melody. He wanted some lyrics, and so he asked Arthur Miller to write some, and then more, and more, and more, and eventually got 32 songs out of Arthur Miller.

Move over, Jerry Herman. Arthur Miller's here. Can you imagine his Hello, Dolly? Before the parade passes by and crushes the industrialist capitalist pige. Oh, I don't think this is going to scan. In fact, Arthur Miller was very excited to write lyrics. We think and go, an Arthur Miller musical, but he loved jazz music. He owned over 2,000 jazz records, and when he was 15, he would sing on his own radio show, which is, I think, a really fun thing about Arthur Miller that we don't really remember all that much. So, University of Michigan signed off, and the musical was now going to be titled Up From Paradise, and it would star all New York actors, and they would give lectures and teach classes and interact with the School of Theater.

They would rehearse in New York and then come on out to University of Michigan and play April 23rd through April 28th, 1974, opening night tickets for what was pretty much a fancy concert, basically these 16 songs or so. Tux was required, ladies and gentlemen, so please put on your tuxes, and the cost was a whopping $12.50 for the concert, but it also got you a champagne reception afterwards. The rehearsals, by everyone's account, was improvisational and fun, and Miller loved this way of working and enjoyed watching the cast bodies and voices create storms and create.

[13:48] Robert W. Schneider: Kimberly Farr is a publicist. She was the most mentioned person in any articles I found about this particular show. She has since had an amazing career in voiceover work, but you read these articles and how they mention Kimberly Farr is coming to town, you would think it's Meryl Streep coming to Michigan. So Kimberly, if you're listening, I'd love to meet you someday.

[14:18] Robert W. Schneider: So Arthur Miller, influenced by Bare Bones Theater, was very clear that in this musical there should be no set, no costumes, just a translucent backdrop that you could use abstract projections on and whatever props that were imperative. I mean, even Hal Prince would use scenery, but Arthur Miller says, we don't need it.

[14:49] Robert W. Schneider: One of the main reasons I wanted to discuss this show, because it was giving birth to something that is now commonplace today, what Miller was doing was similar to what is now really common, going to a university to try out a new musical. Once again, it's only in the past 25 years that schools have looked at musical theater as legitimate and as a source of income, but how can you make your program stand out? Well, what if the school of theater produces a new musical and those new musicals go off to become famous and the school will get a portion of the profits and then bragging rights? You would be hard pressed to find a musical theater program today in the United States that does not do this.

And what's ironic is it's all starting over here with Arthur Miller and it's starting with a man who's never even done a musical and it paid off. The show in Michigan got great reviews. I need a little work here, a little trimming there, but overall people found the entire concept delightful, meaningful, and beautiful. A show that said perhaps God is just as complicit in evil as the devil, as God is the one who created it. One critic even said to go see it in Michigan before it goes to New York and you have to pay the exorbitant $20 a ticket to see it on Broadway, where in Michigan you'd only have to pay $12.50 and we throw in the cocktail weenies. By the way, according to Inflation Calculator, not a proud sponsor of this podcast, $20 would equal about $130, which is a little less than I think an orchestra seat is now, right? A little less.

[15:20] Robert W. Schneider: Then in September of 1974, it's announced that Miller would be bringing Up From Paradise to Broadway in the 1974-1975 season. It would be joining new works like The All-Black Wizard of Oz, now called The Wiz, a revival of Gypsy with Angela Lansbury, and the musical that is going to be a hit, Jerry Herman's Mac and Mabel. Now Miller was interviewed about the show and he described it in various ways, none really seeming consistent. One, he described it as an entertainment and a heavenly cabaret and the lighter counterpoint in his personality to the grim concerns evidenced in Salesman. So it sounds fun with entertainment and heavenly cabaret. I think it's when we get to lighter counterpoint in his personality to the grim concerns evidenced in Salesman that might be a little long for the marquee.

[15:49] Robert W. Schneider: The goal would be to open in January of '75, now in Los Angeles, and then be on Broadway by the spring. The only casting that was leaked to the press was that Keith Carradine would take on the role of Kane. Ironically, Larry Marshall, who played Lucifer in Up From Paradise, was currently playing Lucifer in a whole other musical about Satan called Lucifer at the iconic Playhouse at the Mall in Paramus, New Jersey. Yes, please, after you get your Orange Julius and Auntie Anne's, please head on over to see Lucifer at the Playhouse at the Mall in Paramus, New Jersey.

[16:21] Robert W. Schneider: Yet musicals need full attention and care and very few other distractions when you're creating them, and Miller was insatiable. He would travel internationally to check on the revivals of his great works, and he would lecture, and he would write a book on living in Connecticut, and he found a love of China and would travel there quite often, which made it harder for producers to get him in town long enough for meetings, which meant the show was most likely not going to happen that season. Once again, no distractions, all he is is distracted. Plus, it wasn't like Arthur Miller in their eyes, producers, was still hot. It wasn't like Neil Simon was asking to do a musical or Alan Akeborn or even Harold Pinter, who were still producing plays of quality.

This was Arthur Miller, whose greatest play was almost 20 years ago. Could he create a show that sings and especially from a show that was lambasted on its first go round? What didn't help was in October of 1975, a critic, Jack O'Brien, an old school gossip columnist and old Michael Riedel type, decided to break the news that the show was shaping up, and it would most likely, like Miller's other works, not succeed. This is what Jack O'Brien said, quote, he said, Arthur Miller's last Broadway attempt, The Creation of the World and Other Business, was a virtually childish dramaturgical scrawl which thought it thought and flopped. Ah, but hope springs eternal in the ego, and Miller is transferring that low comedy biblical parable to the musical stage.

At least, he set to the musical notions of Stanley Silverman of this, the Hysteric Ontological Theatre, retitling it Up from Paradise, and Joe Papp may produce it. A folk musical vaudeville is Silverman's golden description of Cain and Abel tale. So, not the best. Not the best. A dramaturgical scrawl. This guy's already trying to handicap it out of the gate. Well, that was not a great PR move, and Papp was soon involved in moving A Chorus Line from Off-Broadway to Broadway, and Up from Paradise was again looking for a producer.

[17:49] Robert W. Schneider: Well, maybe a closer out-of-town than Ann Arbor. What about the Goodspeed Opera House of East Haddam, Connecticut? In the 1970s, Goodspeed was going through a big, exciting time. It had cornered the market on Forgotten Princess musicals, cleaning them up and taking them to Broadway. But what about something really big? Well, in 1976, Goodspeed got it, and it was Annie. Annie now made it seem like Goodspeed was the best place to try out new musicals. Think about it, a built-in audience, close enough to New York to engage talent and lure producers, plus it wanted smaller shows. So, Michael Price, the executive director, began to plan his 1978 season, and in it, it would be Tiptoes, Whoopie, She Loves Me, and… Well, now he had two options, both very non-traditional ideas.

One that was being pitched to him would be taking the work of an old composer, specifically Eubie Blake, and putting them together in a review. The other would be Arthur Miller's first musical. The Blake idea just didn't seem like it would have an audience, so why not go with Arthur Miller? So, in May of 1978, Goodspeed announces that from November 8th to December 3rd, 1978, the Goodspeed Opera House will proudly present Arthur Miller's first musical, Up from Paradise. But there is some turmoil behind the scenes because the show really isn't ready. It needs to be worked out a little bit more, get the kinks out before a paying audience gets to see it. So where can it go? Well, Goodspeed doesn't have resources for this, but Stuart Ostro does.

Yes, the Stuart Ostro, who not only helped bring How to Succeed, Music Man, in 1776 to Broadway, the great producer himself, and even before Michael Bennett and Joe Papp had the idea to workshop a show, Ostro was leading that mission. In 1973, he created the Stuart Ostro Foundation's Musical Theater Lab, a nonprofit out of the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., which would do a 12-performance workshop of a new musical in a safe space. No tech elements, no scenery, no costumes, just the actors and the words and the music. What if he hosted the workshop in D.C., presented the results at Goodspeed, and then they both would take Up from Paradise to Broadway? Now, this is a win-win for everyone.

Well, almost everyone. See, no matter what was happening in this workshop, it was never really gelling the way it was supposed to, and one of the hard things was Arthur Miller was not present in the way he needed to be for a new musical. He was in rehearsals, then he was in China, then he was tackling a social cause, then protesting that social cause, and finally, it was time to present this workshop. And Michael Price got a good look at what he was about to show his Goodspeed audiences, audiences that had already caused the entire run of Up from Paradise to be sold out when it opened at Goodspeed. That's how strong this was. And less than a month after these workshops, if you held a ticket for Goodspeed's Up from Paradise, you received a letter saying that unfortunately your money was being refunded as Up from Paradise wasn't ready for public performance.

Goodspeed reimbursed over $100,000 in ticket sales. Today, that would be about half a million dollars. While most thought this was a wise move, one person did not, a producer by the name of Charles Hollerith, who saw it at the Kennedy Center. While his producing works were not very well known, he was instrumental in securing funding for the Actors Fund. So pretty much when we use a service of the Actors Fund, it was most likely championed by Hollerith. Now, he loved the show, loved the score, and loved the cast, which featured at the time Austin Pendleton as Adam, Walter Bobby as Lucifer, Paul Ukena Jr. as Kane, Paul Ukena Sr. as God, and Patty Perkins as Eve. Well, anyway, Hollerith wanted to move to Broadway in the 1979-1980 season with Dan Sullivan directing it, a man also not really known for musicals.

[25:49] Robert W. Schneider: And in March of 1979, he announced it would be opening in the 79-80 season, where it would join such illustrious musicals as Got to Go Disco, but Never Jam Today, Evita, and Barnum. Hollerith consistently would hold backers auditions in his fancy Fifth Avenue penthouse, always using Austin Pendleton to play Adam, hoping to raise the $575,000 needed to produce the show, which would be about $2.2 million today. By November of 1979, it's announced that Up from Paradise will play the Forest Theater in Philly in the early spring, then open at a Broadway theater on April 24, 1980, with Austin Pendleton as Adam, and in the pivotal role of God, Arthur Miller himself.

[26:49] Robert W. Schneider: Who was going to be playing God? Arthur Miller himself. But spring of 1980 came and went, and there was no musical, no Up from Paradise. It seemed as if there was just enough money to get to Philly, but nothing really beyond that, the hope being more investors would come in on the road, so they kicked the show down the road for a bit until October of 1980, when an article appeared in just about every major publication across the country. The article was about how hard it was to find backers for Broadway shows, even if you were someone like Arthur Miller. The headline that everybody read, Money Eludes Big Names Play. To summarize, Arthur Miller and his ilk, like Tennessee Williams and Edward Albee, couldn't get their shows on Broadway because they had lost their touch.

Broadway wasn't interested in them. Now, this is where Miller could have moved on, washed his hands and said that was a good try, but no, he would change course. Yes, he would. If Broadway didn't want an Arthur Miller musical, then maybe Off-Broadway would. In fact, taking it Off-Broadway would be the best thing for the story. He said the story was too fragile, too philosophical to be on Broadway. It was like putting a string quartet in Yankee Stadium, he told the media. Now, reading this were two new producers, Billy Livingston and Joel Key Rice. Their major producing venture was a revival of The Women in 1973, starring Myrna Loy. Now, in December of 1980, they read this and thought they could get Up from Paradise the audience it deserved.

But by the time these new producers got to Miller, it was too late because on October 2nd, 1981, Miller had an unconventional idea to raise interest in the property. Miller presented the show as part of the Whitney Museum's Composer Showcase, and the show was good. What was the show? Well, it starts with the angels praising the

[27:37] ♪ Musical number: "God's Adorableness" — performed by Len Carrey and Austin Pendleton ♪

[30:07] Austin Pendleton: Adam, I'd like you to try that again, what you did yesterday.

[30:20] Len Carrey: Sure. Now, before you answer, think carefully. Was it easier to balance when you had the tail?

[30:31] Austin Pendleton: I think so, but I kind of like the way this looks. It's more like you.

[30:39] Len Carrey: Well, no, I hadn't thought of that. Run along, Adam.

[30:44] Austin Pendleton: Oh, but here, don't forget the teeth.

[30:47] Len Carrey: God hands him a pair of gorgeous tusks. Could I say something more?

[30:53] Len Carrey: Now look here, son. You have to give them tusks. You have to give them time to work in. But watch what happens.

[31:06] Austin Pendleton: They stick me in the eye.

[31:11] Len Carrey: Open.

[31:16] Austin Pendleton: Yes.

[31:19] Len Carrey: Perhaps the time has come to simply admit it.

[31:24] Austin Pendleton: What's that, Lord?

[31:26] Len Carrey: You were probably perfect.

[31:29] Austin Pendleton: I'm certainly glad to hear that.

[31:32] Len Carrey: Yes, I think you were finished at last. Now run along.

[31:37] Len Carrey: And when the world was finished and the Lord had taken his rest, he would often venture down into the garden where dwelt his own image, this man into whom he had blown the breath of life.

[31:50] Austin Pendleton: And Adam, likewise, was always pleased to see his image taking form in the limpid air of paradise.

[31:57] Len Carrey: They were, in fact, so thoroughly pleased with one another that it was hard to remember where one began and the other left off.

[32:05] Austin Pendleton: Oh, good morning, God.

[32:07] Len Carrey: Good morning, Adam. Beautiful day.

[32:09] Austin Pendleton: Oh, perfect, Lord. But they all are.

[32:12] Len Carrey: I've turned up the breeze a little.

[32:14] Austin Pendleton: I just noticed that.

[32:17] Len Carrey: This is exactly right now, Lord. Thank you.

[32:20] Len Carrey: I'm very pleased with the way you tend the garden.

[32:23] Austin Pendleton: How do you keep it all so perfect?

[32:26] Austin Pendleton: Well, when I do have a problem, I just ask myself, how would God handle this, and it clears right up.

[32:32] Len Carrey: Lord, are...

[32:34] Austin Pendleton: Now, are we going to name some more things today, Lord?

[32:38] Len Carrey: And do you remember why you so love naming things?

[32:41] Austin Pendleton: Why?

[32:42] Len Carrey: Because that is how I... I make them mine.

[32:47] Len Carrey: For nothing's quite the same... Once we've given it a name.

[32:52] Austin Pendleton: Good. Now, what would you call that?

[32:59] Austin Pendleton: I'd call that a lion.

[33:04] Len Carrey: Lion.

[33:07] Austin Pendleton: Well, that sounds appropriate. And that?

[33:12] Austin Pendleton: I'd call that... a lamb.

[33:17] Len Carrey: Lamb?

[33:19] Austin Pendleton: Yes.

[33:21] Austin Pendleton: Uh, a lamb. Lamb. Lamb.

[33:24] Len Carrey: Lamb sounds all right. A pilot is to name things with the Lord.

[33:34] Austin Pendleton: A pilot is... A pilot is... A pilot is to name things with the Lord.

[33:44] Austin Pendleton: I try to guess right, but when I guess wrong, he holds his breath, and the universe stops, till I get the right number.

[33:52] Len Carrey: And he... And he starts breathing again.

[34:07] Len Carrey: How fine it is... How fine it is... How fine it is... How fine it is... How fine it is... How fine it is... How fine it is to name things with the Lord.

[34:20] Len Carrey: With the Lord. How fine it is to name things with the Lord.

[34:32] Austin Pendleton: Now, what would you call that?

[34:34] Austin Pendleton: I'd call that a lion. I'd call that a lion. I'd call that... I'd call it lizard. I'd call it leopard. I'd call it rabbit. Another rabbit. That. I'd call it turtle. I'd call it beaver. I'd call it woodchopper. Tiger. Camel. Hippo. How fine it is to name things with the Lord.

[35:04] Len Carrey: How fine it is... How fine it is to name things with the Lord.

[35:21] Len Carrey: How fine it is... How fine it is to name things with the Lord.

[35:28] Austin Pendleton: What's that?

[35:48] Len Carrey: And it came to pass that the man taught the woman all that he knew.

[35:55] Austin Pendleton: Adam raises his arms and stands on one foot.

[36:01] Len Carrey: And Eve... He turns his back, bends and looks at her between his legs.

[36:08] Austin Pendleton: And she imitates.

[36:10] Len Carrey: He sighs. He hops in a circle. Crosses his eyes.

[36:19] Len Carrey: Finally, she moves like his shadow, step for step, gesture for gesture.

[36:26] Len Carrey: Until the time came when she knew everything that he knew, so neither had a secret to keep from the other.

[36:33] Len Carrey: And thus they were perfectly innocent.

[36:44] Austin Pendleton: It's just like I was you.

[36:48] Austin Pendleton: And I was practically you.

[36:51] Austin Pendleton: Like we're both the same person with different names, I can hardly tell the difference at all.

[37:04] Austin Pendleton: If you trip over a rock or a hole, I'm the one who falls.

[37:09] Austin Pendleton: It's just like I was you.

[37:22] Austin Pendleton: And I was practically you. And I was practically you. It's like we're both the same person.

[38:14] Austin Pendleton: Neither better nor worse than the very same person with different but equally beautiful names.

[38:32] Austin Pendleton: Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

[38:47] Len Carrey: And God says, don't eat the apple, and they do, and they are banished. Now, Lucifer confronts God and says, hey, this is your fault too. You created it. God says, that's not my problem. And then Lucifer starts to have feelings for Eve and sings the loveliest song in the show, observing her as she rests.

[39:06] ♪ Musical number: "How Lovely It Is" — performed by Unknown performer ♪

[41:09] Len Carrey: How lovely it is when Eve is alone when God is away.

[41:55] Robert W. Schneider: Act 1 ends with the birth of Cain and Act 2 opens with God questioning why he even invented people to begin with. But surprisingly, God finds himself uneasy at their immense success. There's so much praise for what they own, and so rare a glance at what they might become. Sniffing their souls, he sometimes thinks he smells smoke, and he longs for the good old days. The sun fed the plankton, and the plankton fed the clam. The shark ate the gull who stole the clam from its shell, and the shark was devoured in his time as well. The green earth was blackened by the heat of falling stars. Volcanoes erupting according to plan. It was so peaceful before there was man. No flora, no fauna ever stood in my way. I put stars from the sky if they did as they obey. Each night brought its morning, and each morning brought a day. From plankton to clam, it all properly ran. It was so peaceful before there was man.

[44:39] Robert W. Schneider: From plankton to clam, it all properly ran. It was so peaceful before there was man. It was so peaceful before there was man. The kids grow up and resent each other, and Abel sings the second most beautiful song in the show. Cain has grown into a pious, troubled young farmer, bending to the soil day after endless day. Abel's spirit is as light as his work. He shepherds the flock with the sound of his flute. Because he's a happy boy, his mother adores him, and because she adores him, he's a happy boy.

[46:04] Robert W. Schneider: Any answer I want, I just close my eyes, and it comes to me. When I want a new tune, I just listen, and it comes to me. When a sheep gets lost, and I stand stuck still, I close my eyes, let my spirit fill, and it comes to me. Any question at all I can answer. It may take a while, but it comes to me. If I don't have a thought, I pretend it's plain, and it comes to me. Like a bird in a tree, if I whistle, it comes down to me. Sometimes I find myself wishing for something really hard to understand, but the minute a mystery appears, I close my eyes, and it clears. All alone in the hills, in that silence, I can hold the stars, and they come to me.

[48:02] Robert W. Schneider: When a sheep gets lost, and I stand stuck still, I close my eyes, let my spirit fill, and it comes to me. All the questions God sent to my brother, if I'll be answering, he comes to me. Comes to me.

[49:25] Robert W. Schneider: God is where he always was, in paradise, in the dark. And he's weeping now, there are tears in his eyes, for what we've done to his world. I can see the Lord in the garden now, as great and just as he ever was. That our brother, King Brother, isn't his fault, but I knew that we weren't just enough. I can see the Lord in the garden now, weeping for us and his beautiful world. That our brother, King Brother, isn't his fault, but I knew that we weren't just enough. He came, was left in despair, and he killed for the love that should have been there, for the love of God is perfect, and ours must likewise be. We must choose to love, or we'll all be dead, and never see the garden again.

[52:22] Robert W. Schneider: We must choose to love, or we'll all be dead, and never see the garden again. And never see the garden again. Now what's interesting is Miller realized that this was probably not the best way to end the musical so he changed it and this was the new version of the ending of the show. How could he have permitted this? God is where he always was, in paradise, in the garden. And he's weeping now, there are tears in his eyes.

[53:19] Robert W. Schneider: For what we've done to his world. I know he wants us to praise his mornings. I know he wants us to praise his nights. I know he wants us to seize each day and make things grow where they didn't before. I know he wants us to tend the garden. I know he wants us to live in hope. I know he wants us to meet the dangers and encounters we did before.

[54:24] Robert W. Schneider: With heartbreak and hope we tend to decide which way to live, which way to love. With heartbreak and hope we tend to live in a way that we love. And so I want us to praise our mornings. And so I want us to praise our nights. And so I want us to seize each day and make things grow as they did before.

[55:14] Robert W. Schneider: And the concert was reviewed by the New York Times. They said, "What could have possessed me to create Lucifer?" Is the way God puts the question in Arthur Miller's Up From Paradise? It's a question that still has no answer at the end of that musical concert version of Mr. Miller's play The Creation of the World and Other Business. But there were a few charming glimpses at secrets behind the creation as Up From Paradise received its premiere Friday night in the Composer's Showcase at the Whitney Museum, narrated by Mr. Miller and accompanied by Stanley Silverman's eclectic musical score written for tape, wind quartet, and piano. God, portrayed by the redoubtable Len Cariou, was called perfectly adorable in the light hymn sung to him by the angels as he created a perfectly adorable world.

Adam, boyishly played by Austin Pendleton, was the charming result of painstaking, blackboard experimentation. Eve, Alice Playton, was a little less innocent, though hardly seductive as she bit the apple. Until the pair left Paradise, in fact, their plight was coyly interesting, helped along by the score's invocations of Western music at its most populist moments. The angels, Luther Anstad, Raymond Mursell, and Harris Poore, nearly stole the show with their various hallelujahs which ranged from baroque Handelian praise to barbershop cooing. God had a Yiddish turn of melody or two, Adam sings a variety of Broadway-type melodies, and when things get bad, soul and gospel are the dominant melodic metaphors for mankind's faith.

But the wit of this interpretive midrash soon falls short. Much of the singing was rough, and the fall into everyday life occurred in a mundane retelling, spiced with family quips, a puzzlingly soulful cane, and a catchy song, It Comes to Me, sung with halting sweetness by Abel. The awkward wakiness increased until Eve asked in the final moments, "Where is God? How could he have permitted this?" She was answered with the words of the clichéd choral finale, "We must choose to love or we'll all be dead." It seemed as if the temptation of Lucifer had gotten the writers confused about just how seriously they were to answer the puzzling question. Because, as in all retellings of the creation, Lucifer is the most interesting character.

And we never know what just to make of him, though no fault of Dennis Cooley, who gave the devil part of his due with a sly patter, legalistic arguments, and a strong interest in man's estate. He was, in fact, a salesman, a duplicitous Willie Loman, without Mr. Miller's character's heart, but with all the ambitions for his son's. A loving God picks up the fatherly slack from Lucifer, but he is manipulated by circumstance and salesmanship into delivering a shoddy piece of goods. And the sins of fathers are, as in Death of a Salesman, suffered by the sons. That doesn't explain Lucifer, but the stock answers and gradually depleted humor in Up From Paradise show that the question is still on Mr. Miller's mind.

[58:03] Robert W. Schneider: It was also on the mind of Ran Avni, the artistic director of Jewish Repertory Theatre, who was now interested in the show and had the money and means to produce it. In fact, Avni had just directed and produced a small production of Miller's Incident in Vichy that Miller saw and loved. The Jewish Repertory Theatre had been around since the early 1970s, down on East 14th Street, seating about 100, and was dedicated to promoting the voices of Jewish writers and Jewish stories. Up From Paradise would be a perfect fit. Jewish writers, Jewish story, Jewish philosophies, Jewish questioning. Miller couldn't agree more, and Up From Paradise would finally open in New York October 11 through November 6, 1983.

In press releases, Avni would praise this courage of Miller's, saying, "It took a tremendous amount of courage for Arthur Miller to par out his heart about his marriage, about his political views, and his earlier plays. And that same courage is here, to take a play that got mixed reviews and to come back to it again. In this business, if you do something and it's not received well or is not commercially successful, the first tendency is to stick it in the bottom drawer in your house. But to say no to that, to bring it up again, is very brave, because there is the chance it will not work again." Miller felt elated to be working without pressure at Broadway finances, saying, "There's a lot of joy in this piece.

No one's going to make any money on it. This isn't Broadway. It's supposed to run, what, a month? That's great. The word play means play. But when Broadway became too commercial, you didn't get much play, did you? But I'm doing exactly that, playing now. I reserve the right of my own exuberance." Avni would direct the play, not Miller, and the show would star Austin Pendleton as Adam with Henry Sweet Henry's Alice played in his Eve, Paul Ukena Jr. and Lonnie Price as Cain and Abel, budding future Chicago revival director Walter Bobby as Lucifer and his God, well, Len Cariou. Now, yes, this is off Broadway, but this is a Broadway caliber cast. You can't say that I was not on that prize. But Miller's I was on another prize because at the same time he was prepping Up From Paradise, Dustin Hoffman was about to open in a revival of Death of a Salesman, and it was all the theater community could talk about.

Hollywood's most celebrated actor of the time was taking on the American Hamlet. Miller would be needed to answer Hoffman's questions, do publicity, and ride a wave of validation he had not received in quite some time. Now, ironically, he would bring Hoffman to rehearsals to Up From Paradise. Can you imagine, like, performing and there's Dustin Hoffman? What's even worse is apparently during Walter Bobby's big song, Dustin Hoffman got up to leave and never came back, which sent Bobby into a tailspin. But Hoffman had some dinner appointment he had to keep. Now, Miller and Silverman do have time to do an interview, and this is from a radio interview that they gave back in 1983, right before the show was about to open. It has not been heard since it first aired over 40 years ago.

[1:00:52] Stanley Silverman: Well, in 1972, Harold Klarman, the theater director, asked me to write music for the play The Creation of the World and Other Business by Arthur Miller, and that's how I got involved in this project. And I wrote a score for six clarinets. There was one song, I Am the River, but it wasn't a musical. It didn't have singing in it. And then following that, I did a concert at the Whitney Museum with Anthony Burgess, the novelist, where we took the Oedipus score that I had written for the Guthrie Theater, and Burgess had done the adaptation, and we turned it into almost a radio drama with Burgess narrating, and we were able to use the incidental music and the music from the play at the Whitney concert.

The following year, the Whitney asked me back, so I asked Arthur if he would do the same, arrange the material from the play to go with my music, and he would narrate it, and more or less as a storyteller, and that's how it started. We then went to the University of Michigan. We didn't do the Whitney date, actually, until last year, and we began to add songs. Arthur started to mail me lyrics, and working, of course, on other things, over about a six-year span, six to eight-year span, we just started to add more songs, and shape it, and hone it, and finally turn it really into a musical play.

[1:02:26] Stanley Silverman: The collaboration essentially began then as mail correspondence, mailing lyrics, and you used notations back and forth? Well, we would meet at Arthur's Farm in Connecticut and have discussions about the piece and areas that we wanted to work on, and then the actual work appeared in the mail. Yes, he would send lyrics, and then I would work with the lyrics and adjust the music, or the lyrics, much like any songwriting team, based on the rhythms and the stresses.

[1:03:00] Robert W. Schneider: Can you address this up to the first melodic line that you laid down for the piece?

[1:03:07] Stanley Silverman: It was the final song, which is now cut, because in fact, as is often the case, I remember Boulez lecturing about his studies with Messiaen, and Messiaen saying, you always start with a horse and end with a car. You have something in mind, and it gets you into the project in the first place, and it becomes vestigial very quickly, as the rest of the piece takes direction. But the one thing I did throughout was use religious music as models, and I had done a lot of research on a grant for the Guthrie Theatre at the Oedipus. I talked about Coptic Christian music, which is really some of the oldest music that's intact, because the Ethiopian Coptic Church still uses those modes, which were, in fact, laid down to them by shipwrecked Greek.

So it's the one way of telling the old music, and there's a lot of Coptic Christian models, as well as some Gregorian music, Russian Orthodox, some Hasidic Jewish chant, Black Gospel music, and these things become the first phrases of the pieces that then turn into my own compositions, like variations, variation technique, so that almost every piece begins with a quote of about anywhere from four to eight to ten notes of a religious piece, and then it moves on.

[1:04:41] Arthur Miller: If you forgive the pun, which is not intended, but the genesis of the creation of another business. Well, it began about a decade ago, actually, when Silverman did the music for a play of mine called The Creation of the World and Other Business, which was a straight play, and there was one lyric in it that he musicalized. And then later, he got a grant from the Whitney Museum to do a concert of that music, and came to me to ask if he could do it, and I, of course, agreed, and there was this one song sung by Eve, and he thought it'd be great if we could get another song for male voice, and I proceeded to write a song for Lucifer. And once that had started, we began to think of it in terms of creating some kind of a new musical attack on this material, and to be brief about it, we've gone over the last decade discovering the form, which I think is now fully blossomed, putting together, well, from Stanley's lyric, from Stanley's music and my lyrics, there are a variety of styles, which are basically one style, which is a celebration of life, and we finally, I think, have been able to unify the whole thing in one sense of vitality in the theater.

[1:06:26] Arthur Miller: The transition for me from writing straight dramatic pieces into stepping over to creating lyrics, as they say, that is a difficult chore to accomplish. What did you do to prepare yourself?

[1:06:33] Arthur Miller: Well, I used to sing. I sang jazz when I was a teenager. I was on the radio a couple of times, and I was seriously involved in jazz and in show tunes and other kinds of contemporary American music, and I've been very aware of jazz and contemporary music all my life, so it's really, it's just that my work never reflected that, so this is nothing new for me. It's just that I never used it before, but I've had a wonderful experience in this play doing that.

[1:07:14] Robert W. Schneider: Prior to this, did you ever have any inclination to write music?

[1:07:23] Arthur Miller: No, I never thought of any such project, but this did seem inevitable, because it's a mythological subject, and it's also a metaphysical subject, and when you get into that area, the deepest logic is the logic of music and the emotions, rather than of an intellectual kind of an argument of any kind, and I found that it works very well.

[1:07:57] Robert W. Schneider: Lucifer was, say, the first major lyric set down by you.

[1:08:03] Arthur Miller: Yeah, right. How much revamping of that piece did you do?

[1:08:11] Arthur Miller: Oh, they've gone through all kinds of permutations in the years since. Nothing is the same as it was. What's happened is, quite simply, that we have been discovering a form which I think is a certain invention, willy-nilly. We didn't start out to invent something, but that's what's happened. It is, I think, I hesitate to give it a name, but if I had to, I would call it a heavenly cabaret, and it has that feel.

[1:08:49] Robert W. Schneider: Address yourself to your most difficult lyric that you had to create, and the easiest one.

[1:08:56] Arthur Miller: Well, it's not a question of easy or difficult, it's a question of a mode.

[1:09:03] Robert W. Schneider: I've got a lyric in there that is extremely complicated that Lucifer sings to God and one that's extremely simple like I feel like I was you. It couldn't be a simpler love lyric. These are not questions of difficulty, it's just a question of what's right. The superimposing of your lyrics on Stanley's music, what was it like the first time when you finally heard those words to music?

[1:09:46] Robert W. Schneider: Well, I enjoy that as I say very much. I've always felt the American musical was possibly our one invention in the theater and it's been a very respectable art form to me, more than one would think from the rest of my work. I've always felt the good musicals are real aesthetic inventions and maybe in the whole western repertory, they are perhaps the only invention of this century. So, if this works well for an audience and if it seems to express deeply and beautifully what I had in mind, I'd be more than happy to take some small place in that field. It's a wonderful medium.

[1:10:53] Robert W. Schneider: I'd just like to get actually a quote. As you remember Lucifer, when Lucifer was sent to music, what did you think? God, it really does work, it really is good, we both created something. What was that first impression when you heard it?

[1:11:10] Robert W. Schneider: Well, it's an old chestnut by this time, but music does and lyrics do create a terrific condensation and I mean Lucifer saying, singing, what if something leads to good, can it be bad? In a single line, you've got the whole point of view and the concision of the form recommends itself to me. Now, most lyricists say, well, you know, each child, each piece put down is in itself a dear item to me and I can't separate one from the other, but if you would put on a spot, which I am doing now in a slight way, which lyric do you think? I think the one that I enjoy listening to most is the song that God sings about, the line is, it was so peaceful before there was man, which is a big number and he talks about the days before he created human beings, when it was the world, nothing, there was no back talk, all the stars obeyed him and the forces inside the earth and the forces inside plants and animals before, in other words, consciousness arose on the planet and while he loves most dearly the human being, he does have more trouble with him than anybody else for that reason, that human beings make choices. That lyric to me is the most enjoyable.

[1:13:15] Robert W. Schneider: Was there a humorous moment while you and Stan were collaborating?

[1:13:21] Robert W. Schneider: Humorous?

[1:13:24] Robert W. Schneider: Oh, we're always laughing at it because fundamentally it's comedic, even though it's tragic, the whole story is, but there's, I don't know, you know, when you work, the intention can be comedic, but the work is serious. And I can't recall any humorous event, excepting that we are laughing a lot, but I don't know at what anymore.

[1:13:59] Robert W. Schneider: Two last questions and one of which is a favor I want to ask you. Was there apprehension in bringing this project into the know? If it went out, it was out.

[1:14:10] Robert W. Schneider: Oh, no, no, on the contrary, I'm often, I'm glad it's here, it's where it belongs. We've got a tremendous cast that you couldn't get anywhere else in this country or for that matter, I think in the world. There's a lot of talent on that stage. I don't really think it exists anywhere at that level, excepting right here. I've always known that and therefore I would want it done with the best possible group of people. You have to be able to handle very complicated music and act some big scenes to play this play and to find that combination in any single group of actors is pretty tough.

[1:14:59] Robert W. Schneider: This has been your first attempt at the musical. Will you come back again?

[1:15:04] Robert W. Schneider: I have no plans to do another one, but God knows if something comes up, sure. I love the work. It's a lot of fun.

[1:15:15] Robert W. Schneider: Okay, this is God's lament about the problem he's had with people.

[1:15:22] Robert W. Schneider: Archipelagos and continents I shifted with ease, whole hemispheres I lifted and fit them as I pleased. Mountains from Africa I transferred to France. The universe was leaping in a molecular dance, but all through creation every rule was obeyed till mankind arrived to disturb what I made. The sun fed the plankton and the plankton fed the clam. The shark ate the gull who stole the clam from its shell and the shark was devoured in his time as well. The green earth was blackened by the heat of falling stars, volcanoes erupting according to plan. It was so peaceful before there was man. No flora, no fauna ever stood in my way. I pulled stars from the sky if they dared disobey. Each night brought its morning and each morning brought a day. From plankton to clam, it all properly ran. It was so peaceful before there was man.

[1:16:46] Robert W. Schneider: On October 11th, 1983, Up From Eden opened Off-Broadway. Now, an Off-Off-Broadway show would never be reviewed by the chief theater critic of the New York Times, but this was Arthur Miller, and it is a theatrical event, and so Frank Rich, the critic for the Times, trekked down to 14th Street to sit amongst the hundred seaters and filed his review. This was a sampling of his review from Frank Rich. In the beginning, or to be precise, in 1972, Arthur Miller created The Creation of the World and Other Business, and Broadway saw that it was not good. The play, A Recycling of Genesis, expired in three weeks, but the admirably buoyant Mr. Miller did not rest. In the years since, he has been reworking his original script into a musical called Up From Paradise, which is now receiving its first fully staged New York production at the Jewish Repertory Theater.

Alas, the promised land is still well out of reach. In his maiden venture as a lyricist, Mr. Miller makes an earnest effort to tread lightly. When he's writing for Lucifer, a character conceived here much like Applegate and Damn Yankees, he sometimes spins a sly turn of phrase. On the other hand, God's Act II song about creation contains the couplet, From plankton to clam, it all properly ran, soon followed by the phrase, No flora, no fauna, ever stood in my way. Ron Avni has staged the show clumsily on an unfurnished black platform, with props often limited to crystal goblets and serving bowls. As the male cast members wear black tie, Lucifer's is red, Up From Paradise looks less like a musical, even an off-off Broadway musical, than a formal dress bar mitzvah banquet with a severe shortage of chairs.

Jacques Lessord said Jerry Herman has nothing to fear. Clive Barnes of the Daily News led with Only the Music's Heavenly in Up From Paradise and continued on that it was considerably less interesting than the Bible, and twice as long. Now, he praised the cast, the music, the direction, and still ended with, quote, How unfortunate that Miller, with these forces at his disposal, should have disappointed us also. He did like the song. It was so peaceful before, man. USA Today liked it, saying it was relaxed, hip fun, and that Miller had found new life in lyrics and good humor. Even the writers, the critics who hated it, found themselves praising it, then at the last second stopping it, as if it was saying, we can't validate an Arthur Miller musical.

I mean, that seemed to be the case. So just so I'm clear, if you look at these reviews, they all start off the same way, going, Arthur Miller is going to write a musical? Well, the musical was really good. I mean, this was really good, and this was really interesting, and that was fascinating, and this was good, and that was great, and this was good. Oh, but did we say it was by Arthur Miller? Yeah, don't go see it. So Up From Paradise stopped there. It was licensed, but it's still the only theatrical work Arthur Miller never wrote an introduction for in his career. And he spent the rest of his years watching award-winning revivals of his plays dominate theater season after theater season. I mean, every major artist wanted to tackle his words, just not the new ones. Miller passed in 2005, never having written another musical.

[1:19:49] Robert W. Schneider: So why do it? Perhaps Miller said it best when he said, quote, like a lot of writers, it's those rejected babies that are very often closest to you. I open up the text of that play, Creation, sometimes, and I think it's still got its charms. I felt, and I still do, that there was a way to do that play, a theatrically fascinating way, but we didn't achieve it. You know, artists are always the prey of sadists. People take vengeance on them. There's a great joy taken. That's not just O'Neill or Tennessee Williams. That's any great artist. The favorite artist is the one who commits a masterpiece and then dies in a gutter. The sooner, the better. Who was it? Fitzgerald, who said, in American lives, there are no second acts.

You're supposed to submit to that, but if you refuse to submit, they can't get you. So I really go inch by inch. You follow your nose. You make what can be made in a day. You have to applaud Miller for doing what he wanted to do, regardless of size, scope, medium, or mode. There was no eye on a larger prize, just what made him happy in that moment, not worrying about what others would say. And as artists, that happiness is all we can really ask for. Now, if Mr. Miller was a true musical theater nerd like us, he would have known that taking a poorly received play and turning it into a musical was probably not going to be successful because only a few years earlier, a similar attempt was made with some big heavy hitters, including Bob Fosse, Frank Lesser, and the entire Russian army in our next episode, Pleasures and Palaces, next time on Broadway Bound, the musicals that never came to Broadway.

[1:21:35] Robert W. Schneider: Hi, friends. Thank you so much for listening to another episode of Broadway Bound, the musicals that never came to Broadway. Just a reminder that it takes a lot of research and assistance to get these episodes produced, and any financial assistance is always appreciated. If you like what we are doing, please head over to robwschneider.com, that's R-O-B-W-S-C-H-N-E-I-D-E-R.com. Click the tab that says AMTA, that stands for the American Musical Theater Archives, and make a tax-deductible donation to keep shows like this one on the air.

[1:22:32] Robert W. Schneider: AMTA. Make a tax-deductible donation and I will be forever grateful.