if you adore musical theatreyouwill love this bookisaw the originalwest side story in 1957and the original gypsy in 1959. it was fun to know the inside informationabout each show. irecently saw gypsy with patti lupone. it was exciting to have the knowledge from arthur laurentsat how he made a great show even better. the book deserves better than an average of three stars. read it. you/ll thank me.

One would think that at 90, Arthur Laurent could look back on his successes and enjoy them. Instead, his new book //Mainly On Directing// is a polemic diatribe against most of the directors he's worked with on shows that have failed, or those who have revived one of his shows without his input on the production. While titled //Mainly On Directing//, there is very little about the art of directing, but mostly on the people he's worked with that have wronged him in one way or another. He starts out by bad-mouthing Sam Mendes for his revival of //Gypsy// and blames all involved in //I Can Get it for You Wholesale's// failure (albeit, it did get Barbara Streisand nominated for a Tony, but still lost money), but apportions none for himself.

On a personal level, Laurents does give a fair amount of background on the relationship he had with Tom Hatcher, that lasted more than 50 years, until Hatcher's death in 2006. It would be nice to recommend //Mainly// as a good book on the history of Broadway theater, or on musicals in general, but it just isn't. It is the memoir of an aged icon of the industry, still grinding an ax over ancient perceived wrongs, with some interesting side stories about the people he worked with and the productions they did together.

Nobody can talk about theater today with more passion (and dispassion) than Mr Laurents. He pulls no punches, but also gives credit where its due. In his latest book, he talks about many of his past shows, with particular attention to the last few reincarnations of "Gypsy" (with Bernadette Peters and Patti Lupone), not to mention others back to Ethel Merman, the original Rose- he's seen them all.

His books are all fascinating reads for anyone with interest in theater, and this one is as good as it gets - this man has been a player in NY theater since the 1940s and he doesn't miss a beat.

I was prepared for the glowing words about everything associated with Laurents from his writing to his directing on and on. But, his attacks at others get really old quickly, starting with Sam Mendes.

I saw the original "Gypsy" and "I Can Get It For You Wholesale," musicals about which Laurents writes at great length. Of course, Laurents believes that only the "Gypsy" revivals that he directed got things right. He blames everyone but himself for the failure of "Wholesale." Laurents is not happy about Hammerstein's mentoring of Sondheim. Perhaps if Laurents had a mentor, that person could have told him to check with others frequently because you [Laurents] lack self awareness (its not "in your bones," a phrase that Laurents uses many, many times in this book).

I was so looking forward to this book after Laurents' first book and I kept reading with less and less enthusiasm as he ripped other artists apart and built himself up all the while repeating himself in ways that are ridiculous when one considers that this book had a real live editor. There is little or no information about shows such as Anyone Can Whistle or Do I Hear a Waltz and tons about the very flawed directorial jobs he did on Gypsy (the latest revival...the other two were superior in every way) and West Side Story. Mr. Laurents seems to believe that the material to which he was a major contributor doesn't work as well as it once did (in the case of West Side he is not wrong) but puts down "musical comedy" and builds himself up as the savior of a Broadway he calls Chernobyl. Perhaps these are the rantings of a 91 year old man, but it comes across as mean spirited and wrong headed. And worst of all the book tells us nothing about directing. Or even any of his secrets. It just tells us that without him the successes would have been failures and that Harold Rome didn't have musicals in his bones. Crazy! Badly edited and incomplete and very frustrating for fans of musical theatre.