After Aquarius

Michael Friedman talks to Galt MacDermot, composer for Lysistrata.

Although best known for his score for the musical Hair, Galt MacDermot is not the typical Broadway songsmith. Born in Canada, MacDermot spent his early twenties in South Africa, where he developed a lifelong interest in the rhythms of African music. After winning a Grammy for "African Waltz" and starting his own label, Kilmarnock Records, MacDermot met lyricists Gerome Ragni and Jim Rado. Their collaboration, Hair, first produced by Joseph Papp, later went to Broadway and became an icon for an age. Since then, MacDermot has developed film scores (including Cotton Comes to Harlem for director Ossie Davis); other musicals (including Two Gentlemen of Verona with playwright John Guare and Steel at the A.R.T. with Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott); and many recording projects. His music influenced an entire generation of hip-hop artists, including Busta Rhymes, the Beastie Boys, and Run DMC (whose "Down with the King" is adapted from MacDermot's "Where Do I Go.")

Michael Friedman: Your career has taken many directions.

Galt MacDermot: The truth is, I've only been going in one direction, but it's taken me down a lot of avenues. I've always been interested in rhythm music, at first boogie-woogie and blues, and then African music. So I've really been pursuing rhythm all along. And although I've done a fair number of Broadway shows, I'm not really interested in Broadway music.

MF: Rhythm and Blues has been one of the dominant forces in Pop music.

GM: It disappeared during the eighties and nineties with the arrival of disco, which is all beat and no rhythm. Now hip-hop has restored rhythm to popular music.

MF: What kinds of hip-hop do you listen to?

GM: If anything's good, I listen to it. A certain rhythmic exploration is what's important.

MF: You previously worked at the A.R.T. with Derek Walcott on Steel. Can you tell me about that experience?

GM: It was a story about a guy in Trinidad whose teacher and parents want him to be a classical pianist, but he wants to write serious music for the steel pan. It was fun -; we had a good band and some great performers -; Caribbean, soul, all kinds of black music. Walcott is great to work with, a very humorous guy.

 

Leon Morenzie and Norman Matlock in a scene from Steel

MF: Before Lysistrata you worked on another adaptation of a classic play, Two Gentlemen of Verona, with John Guare and your collaborators from Hair.

GM: Guare was the most far-out person I ever worked with. At that time I was writing a lot of music for Joe Papp's theatre in Central Park. This was just another one. I wrote the song "Who is Sylvia?" and then Joe said he wanted Mel Shapiro to direct. Mel said, well let's make the scenes into songs, so when it went out into the street, people would understand it better.

MF: City Center in New York City recently presented a concert reading of Hair in its Encores series. How do you think Hair plays to audiences today?

GM: There was so much baggage surrounding the piece in the sixties. It was an event, a scandal, and now I think we can see that the language and the material are really great. I'm really tired of the sixties, and I think kids don't even know. . . it's like their grandmother's day.

MF: Richard Peaslee says the same thing about Marat/Sade and the Sixties.

GM: A theatre piece has to change.

MF: What are the challenges in adapting a Greek comedy like Lysistrata?

GM: It's a very contemporary work. We have a major problem here with a belligerent president, and that's why I was interested in doing it, because I'm an anti-war person. I don't intend to write Greek music, any more than I wrote Italian music for Two Gentlemen.

MF: What will the music be like?

GM: We're still finding that out. I get the tune and then I try to figure out the best way to make it work.

Michael Friedman is Music Director for Lysistrata.