Laurents goes by the book

He has a reputation for being cranky. OK, downright difficult.

You might think that’s because he’s been brilliantly successful -- yet never quite famous.

Arthur Laurents, however, says he’s enjoyed being behind the scenes. He doesn’t mind that everyone knows the titles, “West Side Story,” “Gypsy” and “The Way We Were.” But few know that his scripts and screenplays helped make them household names.

“I’ve never cared about being a celebrity,” says Laurents, displaying a graciousness that belies his prickly reputation. “People in the theater world know what I do.”

Laurents is in Washington this month directing a revival of “Hallelujah, Baby!,” a Tony Award-winning musical (perhaps once more aimed for Broadway) about race relations that he wrote in 1967 with composer Jules Styne and lyricists Betty Comden and Adolph Green. The show begins performances at Arena Stage today.

“He wrote probably the best book ever for the American musical theater, which is the book to ‘Gypsy,’ followed pretty closely by a musical that changed musical theater, which is ‘West Side Story,’ ” says David Saint, artistic director of the George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick, N.J., which is co-producing “Hallelujah, Baby!” “If he had done nothing else in his life that would be a huge legacy.”

But it wouldn’t have been enough for Laurents, who at 86 has outlived many of his legendary collaborators, including Styne and Green, as well as “West Side Story’s” composer, Leonard Bernstein, and director-choreographer, Jerome Robbins. Still, Laurents accepts that few accolades fall to the author of a musical’s book (the term for the script or libretto).

Consider the way a few of his shows are usually described: “Bernstein’s West Side Story” and “Sondheim’s Anyone Can Whistle.” “I love musicals and I figure [anonymity] goes with the territory,” explains Laurents.

The revival of “Hallelujah, Baby!” has left him feeling relaxed and refreshingly affable. By his own cheerful admission, he’s had a “wonderful time” working and reworking his civil rights musical.

If “Hallelujah, Baby!” does go to Broadway, it won’t be the first time he’s taken this route. “West Side Story” tried out for Broadway in Washington in 1957, and Laurents says that until the first audience saw it, the musical’s creators weren’t sure of its prospects. “I thought it would run [only] three months,” he says.

Nor was “West Side Story” the first time Laurents changed his initial impression of a show. He turned down an offer to write the book for “Gypsy” three times.

He has returned to “Gypsy” on several occasions, most notably directing Broadway revivals starring Angela Lansbury and Tyne Daly. Both actresses, he feels, more accurately embodied the character of Rose than the original star, Ethel Merman. And all three earned more acclaim for starring in the show than Laurents did for writing it.

Over the years, Laurents has found other ways to get his share of recognition. One of the most canny -- and lucrative -- was becoming the first librettist to get a percentage of profits when he was paid for the recordings of “West Side Story,” a show that was initially called “East Side Story” before Laurents changed the original Catholics versus Jews concept to Puerto Ricans versus whites.

That percentage, he admits, has amounted to “a bloody fortune.”