The Theatre of Robert Wilson Book

I read this book on a sort of jag (it's not over yet) soaking up works about the Broadway stage. Laurents' name may not be familiar today but he wrote, among other things, the books for the Broadway productions "Wet Side Story" and "Gypsy" as well as the movie "The Way we Were." And many, many others.

MAINLY ON DIRECTING is an interesting book mostly because Laurents is relatively candid about what happens (both to the project and to relationships among its creators) as a show comes together, but it's often marred by an aggrieved I-was-always-right-and-they-were-always-wrong tone, and a kind of pettiness creeps in from time to time.

A MUCH superior book is his "writer's autobiography," ORIGINAL STORY BY. It has some of the same faults, but it's a riveting read for those who want to be behind the scenes of movies, theater (and the blacklist) in the company of someone who was a major contributor to a lot of sterling projects. Also fascinating as a study of changing attitudes toward gay people -- after a lifetime of relative "discretion" Laurents was outed accidentally by a journalist of a much younger generation who had no idea anyone, and especially anyone in theater, would object to being identified as gay. I recommend ORIGINAL STORY BY much more heartily than I do MAINLY ON DIRECTING.