'Porgy' & stress: The bumpy road to B'way

No, Porgy doesn't fly. There are no harnesses, no midair love duets with Bess. But the way folks have been hyperventilating in recent months, you'd think the new musical version of the revered George Gershwin opera was actually -- dare we say it -- "Spider-Man II."

The fuss over "The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess," which opens Jan. 12 at the Richard Rodgers Theatre, hasn't quite reached "Spidey" levels. Yet. But it wouldn't be the first time the work got people's blood boiling.

"In this town, there are certain artists considered sacred," says Steven Blier, a Juilliard faculty member and artistic director of NYFOS (the New York Festival of Song), a group dedicated to performing American music. "Gershwin is one," he adds, noting that you best not mess with the man or his work without expecting a little blowback.

'SUMMERTIME' SCANDAL

Director Diane Paulus learned that the hard way last summer, when she and Audra McDonald, who plays Bess, were quoted in a New York Times article about their eagerness to "modernize the story" (Paulus), "deal with holes" in the plot (McDonald) and fix "cardboard cutout characters" (Pulitzer Prize winner Suzan-Lori Parks, who was brought in to rewrite scenes and add a new, happy ending).

That's when all hell broke loose.

Composer Stephen Sondheim fired off a letter to the Times expressing outrage at what seemed a lack of respect for -- or understanding of -- the work. And he hated the title. Calling it "The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess" struck him as inaccurate (why advertise originators when you're making big changes?), incomplete (what about poor lyricist DuBose Heyward?), and "just dumb."

(Sondheim declined to comment for this article, noting he'd "said all I have to say about the subject.")

A CRITIC 'IS A SOMETIME THING'

Set in a rural black community in South Carolina, the love story of Porgy, a disabled beggar, and his drug-addicted gal pal, Bess, is generally termed an American classic. But with music by Gershwin, a Russian-Jewish émigré; libretto and lyrics by Heyward, an impoverished Southern aristocrat; and additional lyrics by Gershwin's brother, Ira -- aka, three white guys -- it's been hailed and hated with equal fervor since it premiered in 1935.

Initially panned by critics, who disliked its jumble of classical and jazz styles, the work gained favor in the '40s and '50s, and was cheered at opera houses in Vienna and Milan, and in the Soviet Union on the first U.S. theatrical effort to tour there. The 1959 film, directed by Otto Preminger, starred Sidney Poitier and Dorothy Dandridge.

"Porgy's" reputation withered in the '60s, with complaints about racist stereotypes, only to revive after an acclaimed Houston production in 1976.

Hoping to reach a wider audience, the Gershwin estate asked Paulus for a musical version. Fine, wrote Sondheim, but there's "a difference between reinterpretation and wholesale rewriting."

Parks' assertion that Gershwin -- dead since 1937 -- would've made rewrites like hers "if he had lived longer" didn't help.

A rugby scrum of critics, bloggers and theater nerds soon weighed in. "People care passionately about this piece and that's amazing," Paulus says now, looking back.

'IT AIN'T NECESSARILY SO' TROUBLING

The story, of course, will always provoke.

What some find offensive or troubling today, notes Paulus, was progressive in the '30s, a time when even the esteemed New York Times critic Brooks Atkinson described "I Got Plenty of Nothing" as a "lazy darky solo."

When Heyward first wrote the novel "Porgy," which inspired the opera, the hero was actually based on a real figure, a disabled man who maneuvered with a goat-drawn cart. Despite their limitations, Gershwin and Heyward in their opera tried to convey a true depiction of black life -- or at least truer than blackface minstrel acts typical of the day.

Al Jolson, in fact, asked Heyward in 1932 for the rights to turn the novel into a blackface musical. Heyward, desperate for money, agreed. Contrary to a popular version of the tale, Gershwin didn't actually torpedo the plan, but dismissed it as lame.

"[What] I have in mind . . . is a much more serious thing than Jolson could ever do," Gershwin wrote to Heyward.

His vision -- an opera, performed by African-American actors. Only.

"We're paying homage to the original," says Norm Lewis, who plays Porgy, "but making it more accessible."

And authentic.

For the first time, "Porgy" has dance, and choreographer Ronald K. Brown (in his Broadway debut) offers movement rooted in African tradition.

The African-American cast, too, shared memories of their heritage, Lewis explains. In one scene, cast members circle around a dead body, putting money in a pot for the burial. Paulus wasn't sure about the circling, until cast members told her they'd done just that in church.

"This story was an observation of African-American life told by white men," says Lewis. "Now we get to put the richness of our lives -- what we KNOW -- into this story."

'I LOVES YOU, PORGY' -- REALLY

These days Paulus carefully refers to Gershwin's opera using words like "masterpiece."

"It's like working on a Shakespeare play," she says.

"You sorta pinch yourself when you get to work on such great work."

As for Sondheim, she shrugs.

"He's an amazing artist," she says. "I hope he'll come and see the WORK."

Sondheim may be relieved to hear the rumored "happy ending" has been scrapped, though Porgy's goat-drawn cart is out -- a cane is in.

"Gershwin is one of my favorite composers -- and being disabled, watching Porgy has always been moving," says Blier, who suffers from a rare form of muscular dystrophy. "Even before, when I was still on my feet, I found it touching, this heroic man who thinks he's never going to have love in his life, and he finds . . . a real babe. It's quite a myth."

Any changes, he admits with regret, are issues "for people of my generation, who feel protective of Gershwin," says Blier. "I don't think my students would have problems with any of this."

Today we thrive on hybrids, he observes. Fashion designers mix high and low, record producers "sample" beats from classic songs. And a mix of collaborators' efforts, like Gershwin's mix of musical styles, probably won't disturb younger audiences.

"Thanks to the iPod Shuffle," he says, "we're used to going from one thing to another."

'Porgy's' predecessors

'The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess" stars Audra McDonald, Norm Lewis and David Alan Grier. Over the years, stage and screen versions have starred heavyweights like Sidney Poitier, Dorothy Dandridge, Cab Calloway, Maya Angelou and a 24-year-old Leontyne Price.