How much do you want to bet that Don Scardino’s Lennon musical, due to open on Broadway on August 14th, will totally ignore the central point of John Lennon’s life? You’d have to figure anyone whose name ends with a vowel would probably get John Lennon wrong anyway, especially with Yoko Ono’s support and cooperation being part of the bargain, but the central point is this: the combustability and diamond-sharp edge in the creative output of any genius is often accompanied by personal unhappiness or chaos of one kind or another, and once this artist tries to bring order, mental positivism and serenity into his/her life as an end in itself, it usually means that his/her best work has already been produced. Most of the Pollyanna’s hate this viewpoint because it argues with their belief that positive outlooks are essential components, but it’s true. Once Lennon found personal happiness with Yoko Ono and withdrew into the Dakota and became a good father to Sean and all that domestic stuff, he was finished as a major artist. He was said to be “unhappy” when the Beatles first started to get rolling in ’63 until their breakup in ’69 or thereabouts, but he was at his creative peak all through most of this period. (Same point made by Orson Welles in The Third Man about the productivity of the tumultuous Italians vs. the ordered Swiss.) Art is not about being happy and serene.
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