Somewhere: The Life of Jerome Robbins by Amanda Vaill

Somewhere: The Life of Jerome Robbins Reviews

• 
  Carl Rollyson

  Can there be too much of a good thing when it comes to biography? If there is someone Amanda Vaill did not interview, if there is a document she overlooked, if there is an archive or other source of information she could not access, it is news to me. I have to second Terry Teachout's claim, "I can't imagine a better book about Robbins ever being written."
  
  Of course there will be other books because, to quote Mr. Teachout again, "Jerome Robbins is the great subject of American theatrical biography." Others may demur, but certainly this magnificent choreographer (the term does not do justice to his many talents) is a great subject.
  
  Even for those who have already read earlier biographies by Greg Lawrence and Deborah Jowitt, there are rewards, because Ms. Vaill has used Robbins's own articulate writings (many of them unpublished) to provide an intimate portrait that bridges the gap between autobiography and biography.
  
  Every reviewer can only come to "Somewhere: The Life of Jerome Robbins" (Broadway, 675 pages, $40) with a partial knowledge of Robbins. I know him mainly from work on musicals like "On the Town," "West Side Story," and "Fiddler on the Roof." Others know Robbins for his ballets and his collaborations with great artists such as Leonard Bernstein. Still others (an angry cohort) can't get over Robbins's naming names at his House Un-American Activities Committee hearing.
  
  Ms. Vaill slights none of these aspects of Robbins's career. If she is resolutely sympathetic toward Robbins, taking the edge off the caustic man who appears in other biographies, she not so much rebuts the work of others as simply presents what she obviously regards as a fuller portrait, a dramatic, incremental revelation of the kind we expect in novels of a high order.
  
  I suppose a reader less than committed to the arts, less than attuned to the politics of the New York stage during much of the 20th century, could weary of the detail that informs Ms. Vaill's narrative. Jerome Robbins deserves a lyrical biography, the equivalent of a dance with the reader, and Ms. Vaill obliges. If a better biography is ever written about Robbins, it will have catapulted off Ms. Vaill's strong work.
  
  But quite aside from the biographer's superb handling of Robbins's major achievements, the story of how he transformed himself from Jerome Wilson Rabinowitz to Jerome Robbins, how he negotiated his love life as a gay man who also loved women — and countless other aspects of his art and life — what entranced me was the discovery of how literate Robbins was. At a very early age he was reading Faulkner (always a good sign in my book) and the other greats. Robbins himself wrote very well and had an ear for music that often helped him to coalesce dance steps and movements into a form that resulted in extraordinary rapport with collaborators like Bernstein.
  
  Lest you think Ms. Vaill knows everything, I hasten to add that she cannot say if the Bernstein/Robbins partnership ever segued into the sexual. A few murky references in Robbins's diaries suggest as much, but they are not definitive. And Ms. Vaill does not push the matter. It is a matter of tact — biographer's tact — not to go beyond the evidence, or beyond (in this case) how Robbins or Bernstein may ultimately have understood their relationship.
  
  Beyond tact, there is Ms. Vaill's knack for finding the nub. Every biographer writing for a general audience has to supply a certain amount of background. How much, for example, should readers be told about the Group Theatre or the Actors Studio, which contributed significantly to Robbins's artistic development? Some readers, like me, already know quite a bit and will chafe at boilerplate. Here is how Ms. Vaill treats the work of Elia Kazan and Robert Lewis, two founders of the Actors Studio: "The cornerstones of Lewis and Kazan's teaching were Stanislavsky's twin principles of intention, or the importance of one's character's objective in a given scene, and work on oneself, or technique." This pithy statement neatly avoids the pitfalls of saying too much or too little. Believe me, there is a considerable margin of error. A less able biographer might introduce Actors Studio by referring to "the Method," or to the prickly personalities involved. But Ms. Vaill wants to show what Robbins got out of it. Even a reader well versed in the ins and outs of theatrical history will never bored by this fresh, concise explanation of a well-known institution.
  
  Ms. Vaill's biography does not so much supplant previous efforts as provide a broader and deeper context that can be used to assess them. And I take her own acknowledgment of previous biographers at face value: She is indeed "indebted" to them. How else could she write with such precision, knowing where her score needs a soft pedal or crescendo?
  
  There can be too much of a good thing in biography. Countless biographies have foundered on precisely the grounds Ms. Vaill stands on. Congested with too much detail, with too much good fortune in the way of access and archival sources, the biographer cannot resist parading how much she knows. Ms. Vaill, who once upon a time was a book editor and surely dealt with baggy monster biographies, knows what I mean all too well. But it is the rare biographer, let alone editor, who is capable of acting on her own acumen and producing such an exquisitely polished performance.
• 
  Diane Meier

  I wouldn't say I "knew" Jerome Robbins, but I'd been around him rather a lot for someone outside of the world of dance. Through friends, performers, dancers and producers and theater business-folk, I was -- at least -- in the room with him many times over about thirty years. I saw him when he wasn't 'on', and, frankly, I didn't much like him. I loved his dances. I thought that Fancy Free/On the Town and WSStory were nothing short of groundbreaking. I'd heard about the difficulties too, with the HOAC, and the way in which he'd, supposedly, turned over names. And I knew that there were plenty of people whom I admired, who didn't have much time for Jerry Robbins.
  
  So -- long way around saying that I would never have picked up this book had it not been written by Amanda Vaill. I'd finished 'We Were All So Young' with such reluctance. I thought it was one of the best biographies I'd ever read. And it was her first biography. Amazing. I would have read anything by Vaill. Even a book about Jerome Robbins.
  
  And am I glad I did.
  I don't really like him any better, but I understand him more fully. I see how he fit into the picture of a time that was so different than the world in which I grew up. The way Vaill brings us into the creative process, the way we see a psychological factor develop in art, or the idea for a dance germinate and ripen and bloom into dance -- or in the case of West Side Story -- almost a new art form. A brilliant modern, breakthrough of the colloquial with high art.
  
  It's a gorgeous book. You won't look at modern dance again without seeing his influence -- but more importantly, you won't look at the time between the Depression and Viet Nam without seeing the culture that created his fears and frustrations. I recommend it to all - regardless of how you feel about dance, theater, Communists or even -- Jerome Robbins.
  
  
  
• 
  Denise D'angelo

  Absolutely loved this well researched book on Jerome Robbins. I had no idea about his life's work or worth on the NYCB stage and many stages on Broadway and all over the world. I'm fascinated reading about the lives of geniuses and how they really suffer inside with self doubt, insecurity, loneliness, belonging. I'm in awe of this man's talent and his body of work. I wish I could have danced some of his pieces, but I certainly have enjoyed seeing them performed from time to time. Great book if you're in the biz or even if you aren't.
• 
  Susan Rainwater

  Somewhere is a rapturously wonderful, engagingly detailed biography of choreographer Jerome Robbins. If you are a fan of the musicals and theatre of his era, this is a book you won’t be able to put down. I have read Amanda Vaill’s two other books as well, and recommend all of them.
• 
  Tracy Quinn

  Couldn’t put it down. Robbins was a brilliant, restless, and exacting creative soul whose genius made an indelible mark on Broadway and dance - including the New York City Ballet. The book explores his collaborations with cultural giants including Balanchine, Bernstein, and Sondheim.
• 
  Kate

  This is a monumental book that captures in detail the life and the work of Jerry Robbins. I knew a bit about him before I started - Choreographed West Side Story, created the play that was the basis for On The Town, dancer/choreographer. Palled around with Leonard Bernstein, Sondheim, and some other theater luminaries.
  
  But that's just a tip of the iceberg. This book tells the story of a man deeply conflicted, who intermingles his friends and his work and through battle and cooperation created great works of art for Broadway, but also in ballet. Working from materials from the Robbins estate, the author creates a picture of a man who was brash, arrogant and convinced he was worthless. It spends a great deal of time discussing the creative process and the actual results of his work. By the end I had become slightly bored with the discussions of his later ballets, but if I factored this in, it still be a 4.75. So let's call it a 5
• 
  Allyson

  This is the most well-researched biography I've ever read. Not just in dance, any book. Even the other people mentioned (and there were many!) were very well researched. I've read a lot of Jerome Robbins before, but this book made me realize I still had a lot to learn. I had no idea how involved he was on Broadway particularly at the start of his career. I also had no idea how much he was pursued by the House Committee on Un-American Activities. As a ballet fan, I personally loved the parts about Ballet USA and NYCB.
• 
  Michael Criscuolo

  A tremendous achievement. Amanda Vaill does a great job conveying the scope of both Robbins' life and work, and how he fit into his era, as well as how he helped create and define it. And, to echo another reader's comments, the closing chapters that cover the final years of his life are some of the most powerful and moving pages I've ever read in any biography. A must-read.
• 
  Florence

  I was mainly interested in getting behind the scene stories about the creation of West Side Story and Fiddler on the Roof. Since I am not a ballet aficionado, those parts of the book were a little tedious. I would have enjoyed more personal information to make Jerry Robbins a more vivid character.
• 
  Laura

  Entertaining and informative. It got bogged down a bit in ballet descriptions, and I preferred Sam Wasson's writing style in FOSSE over Vaill's sometimes dry delivery. However, I thoroughly enjoyed SOMEWHERE and recommend it not only to Robbins fans, but fans of dance in general.
• 
  Susan

  Essex Free Library book sale 6/1/12