Rumors of a movie based on Jack Kerouacs On the Road have been around for so long that Montgomery Clift, who died in 1966, was once floated for a leading role. Francis Ford Coppola bought the rights in 1979 and has been trying to make the damn thing ever since, on and off. Now, at long last, the film version directed by Walter Salles (The Motorcycle Diaries) is set to open this weekend in the U.K., with an American release in December.
That means its time for yet another moment in the ongoing cultural discussion of the importance of being Kerouac, the yearning anti-stylist whose literary kicks epitomized the arrival of youth culture, and eventually weighed him down into his grave. Seven years ago, a copy of the authors only play, perversely titled Beat Generation he famously hated the burden was unearthed in a New Jersey warehouse. Ethan Hawke, who was once considered alongside Brad Pitt for one of Coppolas film adaptations, headlined a partial reading of the script that year.
This week, in Kerouacs hometown of Lowell, Massachusetts, the play is being staged in its world premiere as part of an annual Kerouac literary festival. Like so much of the writers seemingly bottomless output, its a ragtag assemblage of personality types based on recognizable Beat-era figures Neal Cassady, Allen Ginsberg, Kerouac himself who specialize in creative loafing. Also like so much of his work, its glimpses of humor, inspired wordplay and emotional illumination turn up like welcome signposts amid the aimlessness. Yes, Kerouac had his problems, acknowledged Charles Towers, the artistic director of the Merrimack Repertory Theatre before the show on opening night. Raise your hand if you have no problems, he joked.
As ever in Kerouac, the ill-fated search for enlightenment is central to the play. Supposedly written in one night in the throes of On the Roads commercial success in 1957, Beat Generation follows the sweetly sozzled Buck (the Kerouac character), his pal Milo (Cassady), an unlikely family man holding down a job as a railroad brakeman while struggling to keep his hurtling impulses and his motormouth in check, and their collection of fellow misfits. In three acts, the gang moves from morning at a buddys house (where Buck already needs a new bottle) to afternoon at the racetrack and an awkward evening at Milos place, with a visit from a liberal bishop.
Scenes began and ended with a saxophonist Jeff Robinson, who has portrayed Charlie Parker onstage stepping out of the wings to blow buttery riffs. In a staged reading, the actors held scripts in hand, tossing pages to the floor. The staging was effectively simple: a bare bulb hanging overhead, a sectional sofa.
The third-act scenario also the basis for Pull My Daisy, the short 1959 film that featured Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky, Gregory Corso and other members of the real-life poets brigade would seem preposterous if it werent based on an actual episode that took place at the Cassadys home near San Francisco. While Buck (played with the right tone of openness by Tony Crane) sits at the feet of the bishop asking earnest questions, Irwin (the Ginsberg character, played with a dash of Woody Allen by Ari Butler) and Paul (Orlovsky; William Connell) pepper the clergyman. Do you know about teenagers and how they want to go to the moon? asks Paul.
They volley questions about what is holy until Buck finally gets caught up in the excitement: Hooray for holy! he whoops.
In the first two acts, Milos cosmic nattering all karma and astral planes, a clear precursor to New Ageism, despite the incongruity of his brakemans uniform is the plays beating heart. Energetically portrayed to comic effect by Joey Collins, it was easy to see why Kerouac was so enthralled with his friend Cassady.
But its the Kerouac character who leaves the lingering impression, when he drifts outside at the end of the night to crawl into his sleeping bag under the stars, tootling a few notes of Sinatras In the Wee Small Hours on a pennywhistle. Earlier, when a beautiful woman strode past in heels at the racetrack, Buck mumbled, Why doesnt God just stop the world with a snap of his finger? Its the free-associating Milo who does most of the jazzbo snapping in Beat Generation, but it is Buck who is the real dreamer.
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