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In Bea Arthur's one-woman Broadway show in 2002, the veteran actress paid homage, sort of, to the late, great choreographer and director Jerome Robbins, with whom she had worked decades before in Fiddler on the Roof.
"The man was a genius," Arthur said. "But he really wasn't a very nice person. Actually, he was the only director who ever made me cry. He was really a dreadful human being."
In Somewhere, an extensive, accessible biography, Amanda Vaill offers a more flattering but similarly complex portrait of Robbins, whose prolific talent marked some of the 20th century's most compelling work in dance and theater.
His Broadway credits alone read like a catalog of the musical's golden age: Call Me Madam, On the Town, Wonderful Town, Bells Are Ringing, The Pajama Game, Gypsy, Funny Girl, The King and I, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. And, of course, West Side Story, also a landmark achievement for Robbins' frequent collaborator Leonard Bernstein and a young lyricist named Stephen Sondheim.
Vaill writes revealingly of Robbins' interaction with these and other icons, including ballet giant George Balanchine and Twyla Tharp, one of many choreographers inspired by Robbins' gift for telling stories through movement.
The author is similarly comprehensive when approaching her subject's personal life, chronicling a long string of male and female lovers, among them a young Montgomery Clift.
A few of Somewhere's most interesting passages explore how Robbins' life and art were shaped by the times in which he lived. We learn of the not-untroubled childhood that shaped his sometimes-temperamental nature and of his struggles during the McCarthy era, when Robbins testified as a "friendly witness" before the Committee on Un-American Activities, an experience that would haunt him for decades.
Add to this Vaill's richly detailed accounts of the creative chemistry and tension that informed Robbins' seemingly endless succession of projects, and you have a tome that can be intimidating in its size and scope.
But the intensity of Robbins' work and Vaill's enthusiasm ensure that Somewhere, however exhaustive, seldom grows tiresome.
Somewhere:
The Life of Jerome Robbins
By Amanda Vaill
948 pp., Broadway, 539 pages, $40
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