The portability of “Lost in the Stars” turned out to be one of its greatest assets in the larger culture. It fits thematically, contextually and musically.” “ ‘Lost in the Stars’ in particular is not just tacked on. “The amazing thing is that the songs from the earlier show fit so well into a completely different setting,” musicologist James L. And when Weill and Anderson came together again to adapt Alan Paton’s novel “ Cry, the Beloved Country” for the stage, Weill and Anderson repurposed what became the title song - as well as “The Little Gray House,” “Trouble Man” and “Stay Well” - for “Lost in the Stars.” published the sheet music of “Lost in the Stars” as a stand-alone song. Edwards) in 1939, then abandoned the project. The composer and lyricist worked on “Ulysses Africanus” (based on a young-adult novel by Harry S. Weill and Anderson wrote the song for “Ulysses Africanus,” an earlier theatrical collaboration that combined references to the Odyssey with a story about a lost African American slave trying to find his way home during the Civil War. Perhaps the most surprising thing about the song “Lost in the Stars” - especially since it’s the title piece of the musical - is that it was what’s known as a “trunk song,” originally written for an entirely different work. “But I’ve been walking through the night and the day,” Stephen sings, “ till my eyes get weary and my head turns gra yĪnd sometimes it seems maybe God’s gone away With that, Stephen launches into the song, a sort of folk cosmology in which God, in creating the heavens, allows “a little dark star” to “slip through his fingers.” God later finds the star and promises that it will never get lost again. “You can ask God to help you,” he tells Stephen. His nephew, a small boy named Alex, suggests the possibility of divine intervention.
Stephen is grief-stricken and horrified that he can’t bring his son home - that his son will likely never come home. He has come to Johannesburg, where his son, Absalom, has been jailed after killing a white man during a robbery. Stephen Kumalo, a black Anglican priest from a small South African village, experiences a crisis of faith. In the title song of “Lost in the Stars,” the 1949 musical by Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson being mounted this weekend by Washington National Opera, the Rev.
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