Andrew Lloyd Webber Lets the Memory Live Again in "Unmasked"
Aaron Netsky
Twenty years ago, I was starting at a new Middle School. Naturally, I gravitated toward some familiar extra-curricular activities to ease the transition, one of which was chorus. We sang a medley of songs from "The Phantom of the Opera," a musical. What was a musical? I was about to find out. I was an alto, but loved the tenor lines (the Phantom's lines) so much that the day of the Fall concert I asked if I could sing them and was allowed. Then I worked behind the scenes on the Spring musical, "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat." It took me forever to memorize that whole title, but not long at all to decide that this was what I wanted out of life: musical theatre. And who was responsible for these two pieces of art that had brought about this epiphany?
Well, many people, but they had one creative in common that surprised me: composer Andrew Lloyd Webber. The same guy wrote both of those scores. Not that you didn't already know that; these are two of the most popular musicals ever, and he is perhaps the tallest poppy in the industry. This year, in which he turned seventy, he released a memoir, the super-obviously titled "Unmasked," and while I've had it for a few months, I waited until now to read it so it would coincide more precisely with this anniversary of my being a fan of his.
I knew a lot about Andrew Lloyd Webber going in. Since those first encounters, I've seen two of his musicals on tour, four on Broadway, several on video, been in one, and followed his career backwards and forwards. But I've never talked to him personally (I did spot him after a preview of "School of Rock," but he was busy), so there was plenty in his memoir that was new and exciting to me. Of his upbringing and personal life, I knew very little, so things like his fascination with architecture and his first wife's major health scare held my attention like someone singing one of his songs holds a long note. Perhaps the most out of left field treat is when he writes of how he told the company Technicolor, who had trademarked the word "technicolor" and had written that its inclusion in the title of his "Joseph" musical was an infringement on that trademark, that he was working on a deal the use the word "Eastmancolor" instead. They promptly agreed to let him continue using their word. I always love to see a reference to my hometown company, Eastman Kodak, in a theatre memoir.
For those who are not fans of Webber's musicals, this book may not be a good read, and not just because there's no reason for them to read the memoir of an artist they don't like. The book is paced rather like one of his musicals, specifically "Evita," moving from event to event to event and rarely stopping for breath. It is easy to imagine Webber himself animatedly recounting his story to you out loud, there's so much of his personality (and a number of British-isms) in the text. Ending with the opening and success of "Phantom" in the late 1980s, "Unmasked" only covers about half of his life, but there is a lot crammed into those 500 pages. He was a hot commodity in the '70s and '80s, everyone wanted to work with him, including the likes of Plácido Domingo and Mikhail Baryshnikov. He had television projects and movie projects, and not just adaptations of his own stage shows. I knew he'd written "Variations," a fusion of rock and classical music that his brother performed and which became the second half of "Song and Dance," and "Requiem," his project with Domingo, a setting of a traditional Latin mass, but had never paid much attention to them, since they are not musicals. Reading about how they came together was just as satisfying as reading about "Jesus Christ Superstar," "Cats," and "Starlight Express."
Perhaps no Webber musical is more well-known to me than "Phantom." I've seen the documentary that came with the DVD of the film adaptation, I've read various accounts of its creation, including the one in its original star's memoir (Michael Crawford's "Parcel Arrived Safely: Tied With String"), and renewed my knowledge with every major milestone the musical has reached on Broadway. Even about "Phantom," there was new information to be gleaned, not the least of which concerned a very tense moment between Crawford and the show's producer, Cameron Mackintosh. I was surprised by an early appearance of Crawford in Webber's story, following a performance of the musical "Billy," and another seemingly random encounter a little later on, but still well before "Phantom." I thought they had first met in the lead up to working together. And even though I know it didn't last, and even though it disrupted his first marriage, the story of how Sarah Brightman, "Phantom's" first Christine, gradually became part of his life is a tale of romance I had, underneath wanting to go behind the scenes of all the musicals, very much looked forward to reading about.
I feel like Professor Marvel in Webber's recent revival of "The Wizard of Oz," singing "Wonders of the World," one of the new songs Webber wrote with Tim Rice about all the things there are to see in the world, so I guess this is where I say you just have to read the book. The way Webber writes about Rice, and the correspondence he shares, made me want to now read Rice's memoir, "Oh, What a Circus," and see how these same events looked from his perspective. Like "Circus," "Unmasked" is but volume one, and from what Webber writes in the closing pages about all he hasn't gotten to in this book, I certainly hope there's a volume two.
From his encounters with Richard Rodgers and Alan Jay Lerner, who was almost the lyricist for "Phantom," to the time he came absurdly close to playing Mozart in the movie adaptation of "Amadeus," "Unmasked" is a thrilling look at someone many who will be reading this article probably think they already have too much of in their lives. He may be a favorite punching bag of many a musical theatre aficionado, but he is a human being who has had an incredible life, both personally and professionally, and his story may be partially published, but it is not nearly over.
Aaron Netsky (@AaronNetsky on Twitter) is a singer, writer, actor, and all-around theatre professional who has worked off and off-off Broadway and had writing published on AtlasObscura.com, TheHumanist.com, Slate.com, StageLightMagazine.com, and ThoughtCatalog.com, as well as his own blogs, Cantonaut (http://cantonaut.blogspot.com) and 366 Musicals (https://366days366musicals.tumblr.com), and his Medium account.