A Lot of Funny Things Have Happened

Larry Gelbart is a triple-crown writer of comedy and social satire; his success in television (“Caesar’s Hour,” “MASH,” “Barbarians at the Gate”), film (“Tootsie,” with Murray Schisgal) and theater (“A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,” with Burt Shevelove, “City of Angels”) spans four decades. One of the finest comic voices of our time, the 68-year-old Gelbart has a sharp, precise wit that can be both lethal and astonishingly lovely. He is working on a new musical version of “A Star Is Born.” With any luck, it will debut in December 1997, likely in New York.

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Question: You once again have a hit on Broadway with “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,” and Whoopi Goldberg is about to take over from Nathan Lane in the role Zero Mostel originated. Did it give you a sense of nostalgia to see the show mounted on Broadway again?

Answer: Not nostalgia. There’s a sense of unreality, though. When it opened in 1962, a ticket was $8.60 on Broadway, $9.40 on the weekends. The first reviews didn’t concentrate much on the book, and they dismissed Steve Sondheim’s score completely. Zero really bowled ‘em over. He’d been gone from the scene for some time for political reasons. Second time around [the 1972 Phil Silvers revival], a lot of the press was about the book and the work we had done on it. Now it’s become Stephen Sondheim’s “Forum” because we all know what’s happened to Steve in the past 30 years. It’s remarkable that the show has had such life for so long. I mean, I get the sense that we really built it with proper plumbing.

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Q: Do you think that show looks more sexist now than it did?

A: It’s sexist, yes, and it’s ageist. It’s really a cartoon book and there is no segment of our society that escapes unscathed. The military is as pompous now as it was 3,000 years ago. Courtesans are sex objects as they were 3,000 or 2,000 years ago. Befuddled old men are that. Lovesick lovers are silly. You know, I’m very much in sympathy with what’s happened to women over the last 25 years. If you look at early episodes of “MASH,” they’re more sexist than “Forum.” I was very much a member of the old boys’ club that just made jokes about girls’ bodies and can you get ‘em into bed and all of that. My consciousness was raised, my knuckles were rapped and I no longer write or think that way.

But I can’t deny the charge that the whole play is by today’s standards politically incorrect. People seem to forgive this show a lot of things because it’s looked at as a period piece. And not just our period. Plautus’ period. But I remember clearly that Burt and Steve and I were saying at the time, “Where were the girls and where’s the laughter in musical comedy?” We were seeing “My Fair Lady” and “Saratoga” and “West Side Story,” and we said, “Let’s just have girls and gags,” you know?

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Q: And now you’re working on a stage version of “A Star Is Born” for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s company.

A: I always thought it would make a wonderful theater piece. The idea is to use the music that Harold Arlen wrote for the picture with Ira Gershwin, plus any other songs in the Arlen songbook. And some new material, which will be supplied by David Zippel and Cy Coleman.

I had some hesitation about following up a musical about Hollywood [“City of Angels”] with a musical about Hollywood, but I was attracted to it because it’s romantic, and I really have not done a lot of things where there are feelings involved. My things are always, you know, kind of mean-spirited or cold.

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Q: Given your success in TV and movies and HBO, what draws you back to the theater?

A: All the cliches are true. People are chipping away at writers’ rights; in theater, there remains the appeal of not having to write for corporate entities and take masses of notes from people who are paid to anticipate what their bosses think. I like writing for live audiences with no agenda at all except to enjoy the work.

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Q: Because it’s obviously not about money.

A: Nothing compares with the money you can make with a successful series or writing screenplays. And theater is a far riskier enterprise. I mean, it took five years to write “Forum.” “City of Angels” was done over about eight years. Work that out in terms of salary and it’s not a hell of a lot of money, even with both shows being successes. It’s not the money.

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Q: You mentioned that you hadn’t seen a lot of theater in the last year.

A: That’s right. I did see “Rent” and I did see “Noise/Funk,” both of which I loved. A lot of people I know said that “Rent” was generational, and I wouldn’t last past intermission. And I couldn’t wait to get back to my seat. Oh, and did you know that I’ve written a screenplay of [the Kander & Ebb musical] “Chicago” for Miramax?

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Q: No, I didn’t know that. It seems that movie musicals are coming back now, what with Woody Allen, “Evita” and the end of “First Wives Club.”

A: Well, you’d think in a way that the audience has become conditioned somewhat through music video on TV to see people in street clothes singing. God, I hope so.

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Q: Do you go to the theater here?

A: No, but then I don’t go to the theater in New York a lot. I go to my room mostly. I think I may have been entertained enough in my lifetime; I may not feel the need to be disappointed by one more hit. There was a time when I lived in New York when I saw everything and went out of town to see it before it got there. But I lost the habit. I think truly it’s a matter of being more interested in doing my own stuff than watching someone else’s. It’s as simple as that. I don’t think my stuff is better, but I live with me, I don’t live with them.

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Q: You’ve had so many hits, and I just wonder if one stands out as the most thrilling. Obviously, I’m hoping it would be in the theater.

A: In the movies, you count the grosses. In television, it’s the ratings. There’s very little contact. It is the theater. I think the most thrilling moment for me was one night watching “Forum” from the back of the house. About six rows in front of me there was a man laughing a lot. They were all laughing, but he was laughing hard and at one point he couldn’t laugh anymore. He threw his raincoat up in the air and it came down and I thought, how exciting it is to tickle somebody to that degree.

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Q: It was just joyful.

A: He just like surrendered to it. It was as if he was out of laughter; it was just--boom--you know, and he threw his coat up in the air, and I still see that coat in the air.

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CROSSROADS

Through Saturday, the daily Calendar section will continue its series of interviews conducted by Times critics. The series follows Sunday Calendar’s comprehensive look at 1996.

TODAY

THEATER: Larry Gelbart.

THURSDAY

DANCE: Sali Ann Kriegsman.

FRIDAY

TELEVISION: Dick Wolf.

SATURDAY

ARCHITECTURE: Richard Meier.