And Then They Broke Up

[fauxklore]

I went to Robert Wyatt's lecture about Lerner and Loewe at the Smithsonian tonight. I have more or less the same complaints that I did about his March lecture on the Gershwins. Namely, his comments on the actual works were pretty limited to, "isn't that wonderful?" "Weren't Lerner's lyrics clever?" He selected some nice recordings and movie clips, some of which ended up (intentionally or not) as audience sing-alongs. And he had some amusing bits of trivia. (For example, Lerner roomed with John F. Kennedy at Harvard.) But I never got a clear idea of why the two men loathed each other and I can't say I learned anything I couldn't have learned by rereading Lerner's autobiography.

I should have stayed home and listened to cast albums.