WEBVTT

1
00:00:30.540 --> 00:00:36.840
Yes. I thought we were never going to be 60 degrees this week. It is? Yeah. It's summer.

2
00:00:38.200 --> 00:00:42.080
We never have any spring in Chicago. It goes from winter right to summer.

3
00:00:42.760 --> 00:00:42.760


4
00:00:47.200 --> 00:00:51.340
Okay. We are rolling in recording. Here we go. Are we doing anything tomorrow?

5
00:00:51.780 --> 00:00:55.980
No. Wednesday though. Oh. And Friday. Okay. Yeah.

6
00:00:57.660 --> 00:01:02.880
I just wanted to know. Yes. No. Because I didn't have anything on my book for tomorrow.

7
00:01:03.080 --> 00:01:05.960
And I thought, oh my God, I'm going to have a free day. Well. I can't believe it.

8
00:01:05.960 --> 00:01:10.940
Every now and then. Give me a free day. Get a day off. Right. Okay.

9
00:01:11.140 --> 00:01:14.740
I don't know how long this is going to go on for. Not too much longer.

10
00:01:14.760 --> 00:01:19.580
I thought that next week we would take a week off and then the week after that we'll do some more.

11
00:01:19.620 --> 00:01:22.260
Or would you like to go ahead and do some next week too? Oh, I'd like to finish it.

12
00:01:22.260 --> 00:01:25.340
Get it done. All right. I don't know what I'm doing next week.

13
00:01:25.740 --> 00:01:28.500
Well, we'll check your calendar today before we leave. All right. Okay.

14
00:01:30.800 --> 00:01:40.920
We were talking about Hear Ye Hear Ye. The story of a nightclub murder that takes place. Right?

15
00:01:42.260 --> 00:01:44.800
And why don't you tell the part about the eyewitness accounts again?

16
00:01:44.800 --> 00:01:51.880
Oh, well, it's told by three different witnesses in three entirely different ways.

17
00:01:52.520 --> 00:01:57.080
Because each saw it differently, you see. And it was all the same story.

18
00:01:57.340 --> 00:02:04.120
But told by a honeymoon couple and then a Hindu mystic and then a militant idealist.

19
00:02:05.560 --> 00:02:11.620
And so I think it was an interesting story actually. We didn't do it very much.

20
00:02:11.620 --> 00:02:15.900
It was the first ballet that anybody ever asked Aaron Copeland to do.

21
00:02:16.780 --> 00:02:20.800
And I don't even know whether, I don't remember whether the music was good or not.

22
00:02:20.800 --> 00:02:24.660
It must have been if Aaron wrote it because he was such a talented composer.

23
00:02:25.860 --> 00:02:28.480
But that was the story of that Hear Ye Hear Ye.

24
00:02:28.860 --> 00:02:30.220
And the way it ended?

25
00:02:34.500 --> 00:02:39.820
That nobody really knows what the murder really was like.

26
00:02:39.820 --> 00:02:43.720
Because it was told by so many different witnesses and each one told it differently.

27
00:02:45.020 --> 00:02:50.760
And you get the sense in reading what I've read about it that justice isn't really served.

28
00:02:50.780 --> 00:02:51.300
That's right.

29
00:02:51.360 --> 00:02:55.720
It ends with them still shouting Hear Ye Hear Ye and the court going on.

30
00:02:55.720 --> 00:02:58.620
Going on taking another case. That's right. Exactly right.

31
00:02:59.720 --> 00:03:02.180
How did you decide on the story, Ruth?

32
00:03:02.640 --> 00:03:07.200
Oh, I don't know. I was with lawyers all the time. My husband was a lawyer.

33
00:03:08.520 --> 00:03:11.700
I kept hearing about these cases all the time.

34
00:03:12.300 --> 00:03:14.480
I suppose that's the way I thought about it.

35
00:03:14.680 --> 00:03:16.720
Kind of a bleak view of justice.

36
00:03:18.000 --> 00:03:18.480
Yes.

37
00:03:20.460 --> 00:03:23.460
Is that what you think about the courts and justice?

38
00:03:23.580 --> 00:03:24.600
Yes, don't you?

39
00:03:25.620 --> 00:03:30.640
I think it's very hard to get justice because, well, this is very hard to get justice.

40
00:03:30.760 --> 00:03:32.260
That's all there is to it.

41
00:03:32.260 --> 00:03:36.320
Maybe sometimes you get it, I suppose.

42
00:03:37.380 --> 00:03:38.000
I don't know.

43
00:03:38.800 --> 00:03:39.840
Did Tom like the ballet?

44
00:03:40.340 --> 00:03:40.860
Yes.

45
00:03:42.660 --> 00:03:45.340
Was Tom a cynic about the courts, though?

46
00:03:45.620 --> 00:03:48.880
No, not especially. I don't know whether he was or not.

47
00:03:52.260 --> 00:03:56.780
But there's no question, everybody knows that you don't get justice very often.

48
00:03:57.820 --> 00:04:04.000
Nor truth. It also sounds as though this ballet is saying that there is no way really to know the truth.

49
00:04:04.080 --> 00:04:07.880
That's true. It's very cynical, yes.

50
00:04:08.440 --> 00:04:09.780
Well, cynical, philosophical.

51
00:04:10.780 --> 00:04:12.060
Philosophical, all right.

52
00:04:12.920 --> 00:04:12.920


53
00:04:15.320 --> 00:04:17.840
How did you come to pick Copeland?

54
00:04:19.340 --> 00:04:25.460
Well, I had known him and heard his music and thought he was very talented, that's all.

55
00:04:25.460 --> 00:04:31.500
The working relationship you had with him, did you spend a good deal of time working together?

56
00:04:32.140 --> 00:04:34.180
No, we weren't together very much.

57
00:04:34.180 --> 00:04:37.760
He sent me the music and then I'd say, I like this, I didn't like that.

58
00:04:38.020 --> 00:04:38.900
We worked like that.

59
00:04:39.180 --> 00:04:41.460
Like with Van Grove, he was never with me.

60
00:04:41.920 --> 00:04:43.880
We did everything by correspondence.

61
00:04:44.240 --> 00:04:45.300
By correspondence?

62
00:04:46.120 --> 00:04:48.560
So how would that work? You would write and say...

63
00:04:48.560 --> 00:04:54.980
We'd get millions of letters written to each other about what we think about this and what we think about that.

64
00:04:54.980 --> 00:04:58.800
But he was an opera man. He knew so much about opera.

65
00:04:58.940 --> 00:05:00.960
And he found out a lot about ballet.

66
00:05:01.060 --> 00:05:08.640
And he knew what I wanted, that I had to put the operas into an hour long because you can't do an opera or ballet all evening.

67
00:05:08.960 --> 00:05:11.160
Maybe you can now, but you couldn't then.

68
00:05:12.160 --> 00:05:16.420
And he was very good at taking out the best parts of the ballet, the parts that are danceable.

69
00:05:17.280 --> 00:05:21.300
All the parts in operas aren't necessarily danceable.

70
00:05:21.600 --> 00:05:23.140
Some of them weren't, some of them weren't.

71
00:05:23.140 --> 00:05:31.780
And he was very good at putting the stories together and making it logical and still making it like the opera, you see.

72
00:05:33.240 --> 00:05:38.020
But in working with Copeland, where you were making up your own libretto, as it were,

73
00:05:39.520 --> 00:05:43.500
you started out by writing to Copeland and saying, okay, here's the idea.

74
00:05:43.600 --> 00:05:46.300
That's right. I wrote the whole libretto out for him.

75
00:05:46.880 --> 00:05:48.620
And then he sent back the music.

76
00:05:48.620 --> 00:05:49.300
That's right.

77
00:05:49.960 --> 00:05:52.900
Now, he would send it back and you would play it on the piano?

78
00:05:53.380 --> 00:05:54.040
Of course, yes.

79
00:05:55.040 --> 00:06:00.200
And then you would write back and say, no, I don't like this part, and yes, I like that part.

80
00:06:00.320 --> 00:06:06.860
Well, it was very good music. I didn't have to change, we didn't change anything, I don't think.

81
00:06:07.220 --> 00:06:10.140
Oh, he just did it. Do you remember what you paid him?

82
00:06:10.980 --> 00:06:12.000
No, I don't.

83
00:06:12.500 --> 00:06:12.980
$150.

84
00:06:13.560 --> 00:06:20.800
Is that so? Imagine getting Copeland $150. That really is something.

85
00:06:22.660 --> 00:06:29.780
You say, I paid him $150, which was very hard for me to find, and he seemed delighted to get it.

86
00:06:29.860 --> 00:06:34.100
That's right. That's right. That's exactly right. I forgot. Is that in that John Martin book?

87
00:06:34.560 --> 00:06:35.460
Yes, it's in the John Martin book.

88
00:06:35.460 --> 00:06:38.300
That's in the John Martin book, yeah. That's a very good book.

89
00:06:38.820 --> 00:06:39.600
It's a wonderful book.

90
00:06:39.600 --> 00:06:40.440
Yes, it is.

91
00:06:43.400 --> 00:06:58.860
Later, in 1937, you somehow scrimped and saved enough money out of the Chicago Opera budget to do a new ballet, an American pattern.

92
00:07:00.560 --> 00:07:07.180
Now that is also, I think, like Hear Ye, Hear Ye.

93
00:07:07.180 --> 00:07:08.380
Very much, yeah.

94
00:07:08.380 --> 00:07:11.540
It's an idea ballet, I was going to say.

95
00:07:11.840 --> 00:07:21.600
It is. It's about a young woman who marries, and she doesn't want to be just a housewife.

96
00:07:22.380 --> 00:07:37.780
She wants something more interesting in her life, and these three older women keep coming in and always bringing her back to domesticity when she goes out and has these different affairs and different episodes in her life.

97
00:07:37.780 --> 00:07:45.940
But she always comes back in the end, and at the very end, she becomes just a domestic wife. It's a very sad story.

98
00:07:47.180 --> 00:07:49.920
It is a sad story. It really is.

99
00:07:50.000 --> 00:07:52.820
But she tries everything, and nothing succeeds.

100
00:07:54.600 --> 00:08:02.200
Her last lover in the story is this sort of a firebrand idealist.

101
00:08:02.200 --> 00:08:02.760
That's right.

102
00:08:02.960 --> 00:08:06.100
Almost as though he's too much for her.

103
00:08:06.100 --> 00:08:06.860
Yes, he was.

104
00:08:07.940 --> 00:08:10.160
And so she becomes frightened.

105
00:08:10.400 --> 00:08:14.580
Yes, she follows him along for quite a long while and goes along with him.

106
00:08:15.040 --> 00:08:20.340
And then when the court of ballet comes on, they're fighting for some idea.

107
00:08:20.340 --> 00:08:23.020
I don't remember what the idea was, but they were fighting for something.

108
00:08:23.340 --> 00:08:29.160
They were scary, and she gets frightened. It was too serious for her.

109
00:08:29.500 --> 00:08:31.780
And so she goes back to domesticity.

110
00:08:33.680 --> 00:08:43.040
Do you think that that's the story, not of you, but of a lot of women of your generation or even of today?

111
00:08:44.000 --> 00:08:45.860
I don't know. I don't know many women.

112
00:08:48.760 --> 00:08:50.500
You don't know many women.

113
00:08:51.120 --> 00:08:58.780
No. Not about their—I don't ever sit around and talk about their personal lives with them at any rate. I don't really think I know them.

114
00:08:58.780 --> 00:09:12.100
I mean, observations really. It's almost as though the warnings that all little girls grow up with about, you know, better get married.

115
00:09:12.100 --> 00:09:13.460
Get married. Have children.

116
00:09:14.060 --> 00:09:17.440
Be safe. Have someone to protect you and take care of you.

117
00:09:18.300 --> 00:09:23.220
It's almost as though in that ballet, all those warnings come true.

118
00:09:23.240 --> 00:09:24.680
Yes, that's right.

119
00:09:27.300 --> 00:09:30.680
But not in your life. You never lived your life according to those—

120
00:09:31.500 --> 00:09:38.600
No, no. I always did what I—well, I never had any children. I didn't try not to have any. I just never got any children.

121
00:09:39.020 --> 00:09:42.260
So maybe my life would have been entirely different if I'd had children. I don't know.

122
00:09:43.260 --> 00:09:48.560
But I was pretty determined. I knew what I wanted all the time, and I got it.

123
00:09:50.020 --> 00:09:50.860
Yes, you did.

124
00:09:51.120 --> 00:09:52.880
I got it. Uh-huh.

125
00:09:54.580 --> 00:10:15.300
At the time, when you were just going right forward and determined to do what you wanted to do, when you went to dance, when you left Tom—when Tom came home from your honeymoon alone, for example, and in other times.

126
00:10:15.300 --> 00:10:23.380
It seems as though Tom must have understood, and you must have had a very strong sense that what you were doing was right.

127
00:10:23.580 --> 00:10:32.240
Yes, I certainly did, and he understood very well. That's why we stayed married so long. We were married till he died.

128
00:10:32.700 --> 00:10:35.180
I know. A long time, 45 years.

129
00:10:35.240 --> 00:10:35.780
Yeah.

130
00:10:36.800 --> 00:10:40.480
Was Tom different from the other men of your generation, Ruth?

131
00:10:40.480 --> 00:10:50.720
Oh, yes, very. He was a very unusual person, a very brilliant man. Just very different, I think.

132
00:10:51.080 --> 00:10:53.420
What attracted you to Tom?

133
00:10:53.780 --> 00:11:00.340
He was such an interesting person. I met him when I came here in the Music Box Review.

134
00:11:00.540 --> 00:11:01.140
Right.

135
00:11:01.140 --> 00:11:16.960
He had a letter to me from John Crane, who was another bull of mine. I think I told you this. I had lunch with him the last day we were here, and I went back to the theater to do my matinee, and I said, that's the most interesting man I've ever met in my whole life. And he was.

136
00:11:17.400 --> 00:11:26.540
It's also clear he was crazy about you. I mean, he wrote a note back to John Crane thanking him for the introduction, where he goes on and on about you.

137
00:11:26.540 --> 00:11:31.000
Yeah. I have all of Tom's letters now. They're very, very interesting.

138
00:11:32.200 --> 00:11:44.540
Was he, did he, he seemed to at the time different also in terms of his ideas about life and his ideas about what was important out of a relationship and out of marriage? I mean, was he different in that regard?

139
00:11:44.720 --> 00:11:45.100
Mm-hmm.

140
00:11:47.780 --> 00:11:54.260
Did you talk much about what you wanted out of life, about how important your dance was to you?

141
00:11:54.260 --> 00:12:01.700
Well, he knew that. He didn't have to tell him. He knew I was interested in dancing. Definitely.

142
00:12:04.540 --> 00:12:05.860
No question about it.

143
00:12:06.560 --> 00:12:15.580
Yeah, there was one time when you were writing a letter to your mother about your bows, and you were saying, oh, well, I like dancing better than either of them anyway. You were comparing two. This was before you met Tom.

144
00:12:15.620 --> 00:12:16.080
Yes.

145
00:12:16.420 --> 00:12:20.800
So it was very important to you. Did Tom like an American pattern?

146
00:12:22.560 --> 00:12:25.120
I don't remember. I don't know.

147
00:12:25.760 --> 00:12:28.800
Was there anything in the audience's response to it? I mean, it was...

148
00:12:29.800 --> 00:12:31.120
The audience loved it.

149
00:12:32.120 --> 00:12:32.120


150
00:12:33.260 --> 00:12:41.860
Did they view it, do you think, as a morality tale as you saying, look, don't stray from the fold, my dear, because you're not going to be able to do it?

151
00:12:42.580 --> 00:12:46.980
I think it was, yes. Yeah, definitely.

152
00:12:47.440 --> 00:12:48.580
You intended it to be.

153
00:12:48.580 --> 00:12:49.240
Oh, sure.

154
00:12:51.660 --> 00:12:55.020
Why did you come to choose that particular theme at that particular time?

155
00:12:55.040 --> 00:13:01.880
Oh, who knows? An idea comes and sits on your shoulders, and you do it. Nobody knows where ideas come from. Do you know where they come from?

156
00:13:02.300 --> 00:13:02.700
Sometimes.

157
00:13:04.640 --> 00:13:15.320
Like, some get them from music, some get them from reading a book, some get them from looking at a picture at the Art Institute. You can get an idea walking down the street, and you don't know where it comes from.

158
00:13:16.820 --> 00:13:26.820
So this idea came to you, and you did the ballet, an American pattern. And the audience response was very strong.

159
00:13:28.620 --> 00:13:35.660
And yet, it strikes me that if you were doing, and you danced the lead role, you were the heroine.

160
00:13:36.180 --> 00:13:36.180


161
00:13:37.780 --> 00:13:47.400
It strikes me as kind of surprising that you would choose this as a theme for a ballet, because it's in no way, whatever, reflective of Ruth Page's life. Or is there something that happens?

162
00:13:47.400 --> 00:13:58.180
Well, you don't have to dance out your own life. You have an idea. I mean, why would you dance your own life? I think that would be stupid.

163
00:13:58.400 --> 00:14:01.300
Why would you dance a life so alien and different from yours?

164
00:14:01.300 --> 00:14:08.660
Well, because it was an idea that interested me. It was an idea. A very interesting idea, actually, I think.

165
00:14:11.720 --> 00:14:23.380
Do you think that today, if you did that ballet today, I mean, it is in many ways, if you look at it from the point of view of today, almost the beginning of a woman's lib ballet.

166
00:14:23.640 --> 00:14:23.960
Yes, it is.

167
00:14:23.960 --> 00:14:26.380
I mean, she does break, you know.

168
00:14:26.380 --> 00:14:34.180
We wanted to revive it. I haven't succeeded in doing it yet because I don't have a company. But I would like to revive that ballet. I think it would be interesting now, very.

169
00:14:34.940 --> 00:14:35.960
There's a film of it.

170
00:14:36.780 --> 00:14:37.640
A sort of.

171
00:14:37.700 --> 00:14:42.620
A sort of a film, a record-keeping film, I believe. Have you looked at it recently?

172
00:14:42.840 --> 00:14:52.900
No. It's not very good. Part of it's left out. It's not a very good film, but it would help me to remember it very much. It would help me to remember it.

173
00:14:52.900 --> 00:15:05.900
Now, if you decided to revive it, Ruth, having the film, but not having the film, having the ballet complete, in other words, just parts of it on film, how would you go about reconstructing the parts that.

174
00:15:06.520 --> 00:15:17.080
Well, the ballet's all there. It's just you don't see all the little details in it. It's too small. You can't see all the details. You'd have to either make them up or try to remember them.

175
00:15:18.940 --> 00:15:21.960
Is that, is there any other notes that you would have?

176
00:15:21.960 --> 00:15:22.960
Yes, it's all written out.

177
00:15:24.520 --> 00:15:26.540
But not in the notation system written out?

178
00:15:26.960 --> 00:15:27.580
Not written out.

179
00:15:27.580 --> 00:15:29.180
Just in my own.

180
00:15:29.300 --> 00:15:30.000
In your own?

181
00:15:30.140 --> 00:15:31.700
In an immeasurable fashion.

182
00:15:34.800 --> 00:15:37.700
That nobody can understand except me, and I can't always understand.

183
00:15:41.120 --> 00:15:45.360
After an American Pattern, in January, as a matter of fact, of 1938.

184
00:15:47.640 --> 00:15:49.560
That was Frankie and Johnny, wasn't it?

185
00:15:49.560 --> 00:15:57.680
Well, it was before Frankie and Johnny, because what happened was the Chicago City Opera Company reorganized.

186
00:15:58.980 --> 00:16:09.620
The Chicago Opera Company reorganized, became the Chicago City Opera Company, and decided and brought in a Philadelphia, Catherine Littlefield's Philadelphia Ballet.

187
00:16:09.680 --> 00:16:10.280
That's right.

188
00:16:11.860 --> 00:16:21.700
I gather that there was something of a public outcry about the fact that somebody that you were going to no longer be head choreographer for the Chicago Opera.

189
00:16:22.040 --> 00:16:23.400
Do you remember anything about that?

190
00:16:23.880 --> 00:16:29.400
Sort of vaguely. I don't remember too much, but I think she only stayed a little while, didn't she?

191
00:16:29.520 --> 00:16:32.460
Yes, she did. And they brought you back.

192
00:16:32.460 --> 00:16:46.040
However, it was at that point that you then moved right in to the WPA, offering them your services as their ballet director.

193
00:16:46.340 --> 00:16:50.960
You and Bentley, with Bentley with you. For which you were paid $150 a month.

194
00:16:51.140 --> 00:16:53.640
I remember that. And the dancers were paid $94.

195
00:16:53.860 --> 00:16:54.200
Right.

196
00:16:54.700 --> 00:16:56.220
I remember that very well.

197
00:16:57.420 --> 00:16:59.560
But, it was a very productive move.

198
00:16:59.560 --> 00:17:03.360
Oh yes. That's the best opportunity I've ever had.

199
00:17:04.360 --> 00:17:05.360
What made it all so good?

200
00:17:05.680 --> 00:17:11.720
Well, because I had a free studio, I had a free pianist, I had a free modern dance company, I had a free ballet company.

201
00:17:12.040 --> 00:17:17.260
I had all the time I wanted. They didn't limit me at all. I could do whatever I wanted.

202
00:17:18.360 --> 00:17:23.720
Harry Minner was the director of the whole project, and he said, Ruth, I don't know a thing about ballet. Do whatever you please.

203
00:17:23.720 --> 00:17:32.160
Well, this was ideal. And we did. We had a long class in the morning. We were working on technique, and then we rehearsed all afternoon.

204
00:17:33.240 --> 00:17:37.600
It was a wonderful opportunity. I've never had an opportunity like that since.

205
00:17:38.600 --> 00:17:42.180
And, I think it produced what you've said is one of your best films.

206
00:17:42.180 --> 00:17:43.560
Frankie and Johnny, yes, it did.

207
00:17:44.220 --> 00:17:49.480
Now, how did Frankie and Johnny begin? I mean, had you always been thinking, where did the idea come from?

208
00:17:50.740 --> 00:17:58.100
You know, I'm not sure whether somebody suggested the idea to me or whether I thought it. I can't remember.

209
00:17:59.340 --> 00:18:07.420
I really don't remember. I have a book in my room called Frankie and Johnny about this thing that tells the story of Frankie and Johnny.

210
00:18:07.540 --> 00:18:10.480
It's a simple, perfect story for a ballet, really.

211
00:18:12.320 --> 00:18:17.100
And I was lucky to have Jerry Moroes, who wrote this marvelous score for it.

212
00:18:17.100 --> 00:18:25.700
I think it's a perfect ballet score for that. Not a ballet, ballet, but perfect score for a work of that sort.

213
00:18:26.320 --> 00:18:29.060
And the music just makes that ballet, I think.

214
00:18:30.020 --> 00:18:34.820
I think the ideas make the ballet, too. I mean, that's one that is on film and that I have seen.

215
00:18:34.820 --> 00:18:42.360
That is quite a stylish, stylized, witty.

216
00:18:42.860 --> 00:18:46.000
Yes. I think it's a marvelous ballet. I really do.

217
00:18:46.000 --> 00:18:46.740
So do I.

218
00:18:47.820 --> 00:18:51.460
And I hardly ever say that about my ballet. Bentley and I did it together.

219
00:18:53.040 --> 00:18:55.500
And it just seemed so right.

220
00:18:56.060 --> 00:19:03.700
Now, how did it go with Steps, sort of as you went through the creative process of developing it, you and Bentley and Moroes doing the music?

221
00:19:05.680 --> 00:19:07.320
Well, I don't remember.

222
00:19:07.800 --> 00:19:10.080
I mean, did you sit down and...

223
00:19:10.080 --> 00:19:12.220
We didn't sit down. We got up and danced.

224
00:19:13.980 --> 00:19:16.200
We didn't sit down at all.

225
00:19:17.360 --> 00:19:19.780
And I got a wonderful solo in there.

226
00:19:20.320 --> 00:19:20.920
Yes.

227
00:19:22.060 --> 00:19:24.060
I made that for myself.

228
00:19:25.600 --> 00:19:27.380
Bentley's part is nearly as good as mine.

229
00:19:28.680 --> 00:19:29.360
It's true.

230
00:19:31.860 --> 00:19:33.240
Oh, we have to change tapes. Okay.