West Side Story

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West Side Story

On April 8, 2012, we were treated to a colorful performance of the classical American musical, “The west side story”. The Westside story is an America musical with the original book written by Arthur Laurents, the music is done by Leornard Bernstein. This musically was inspired by William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. The dance transfers the Elizabethan works of art into the modern times New York. The love story Romeo and Juliet is translated into the modern youthful couple of Maria and Tony. The dance revives the age-old feud between the Capulets and the Montagues but now taking the form of rival street gangs that are mostly run by teenagers, these are the Jets and the Sharks. The play was performed at the Academy of Music
Philadelphia, PA 19102. The infamous balcony scene of the comedy is translated into a project fire escape in a New York apartment building (Wise, Et al. 2003).

When the curtain rises, we were treated into suspense created by a brief silence that goes for close to five minutes. The scene is that of an old warehouse and instead of a play, the audience is treated into a dance by two gangs with a sinister cloud depicting the mood. The sinister mood establishes the emotional climate and enables the audience to prepare for the impending action. The Jets is a teenage gang that is focused on keeping away any Puerto Rican gang from its territory. On the other side are the Sharks who are a Puerto Rican gang and who are in constant rivalry with the Jets.

The two rival gangs agree to meet for a dance in the neighborhood gymnasium to come up with a tentative date of a major fight and to choose the venue and acceptable weapons. During the dance, there is a moment of climax whereby Maria, who happens to be the sister to Bernardo the Sharks leader, gets to meet a member of the rival gang, Tony and falls in love with him. The aspect of them coming from two rival gangs, forces them to engage in their love secretly. There comes about the song and dance sequence, “Somewhere”, where the two elope from the foulness and bleakness of reality into a fanciful ideal world. In “Maria”, Tony narrates about his feelings about his newfound love and in “I Feel Pretty” Maria narrates of her feelings towards the miracle of love that has now struck her.

The two lovebirds dance through their emotions in a poignant scene of the neighborhood fire escape dancing to the excellent ballad of the score, “Tonight”. The two undergo a mock marriage in a bridal shop where Maria works rendering the posture dummies as the guest. The two perceive the mock marriage as a serious one. The dances, “One Hand, One Heart”, excellently emphasize on their love. However, this love is bedeviled by the fact that the two belong to rival gangs. The rivalry result into Tony taking the life of Maria’s brother. Although she accepts to forgive him, Tony is later executed by a retaliating Shark.

I enjoyed the script and acting of the dance as it seemed very effective in bringing out the major themes of the story. The dance is a hybrid, a musical dance with exceeding spoken dialogue as opposed to the traditional opera-style recitative. However, the cast seems to have been chosen primary based on their dancing acumen as opposed their acting ability. The casts’ theatrical specialization tended to ameliorate the dated aspects of Shakespearean romantics. The production team acted with energy and verve. However, there was evidence of a little inconsistency with the enactment of “Somewhere” close to the opening of the second act. During this instance, the big dance piece is programmed by the choreographer to end up being flashy and dramatically apt. The dancers tend to negotiate through the pieces with myriad complexities of the score and style.

What I considered as special from the performance is the effective display of character by the actresses, especially the woman lead.  The woman lead role is considered to be tough one by anyone’s definition, although the actor knocked it out perfectly which meant that she illustrated the almost impossible combinative skills of high level dancing, acting and singing. This is in addition to a having a boy-like character because of the aspect of belonging to a gang while still maintaining her femininity to fit with the romantic aspect of the dance.

The Maria character was well exhibited. She was a fiery and convincing actor. The singer exhibited an intense rich dark voice intricately connected with vocal maturity that outlined her do or die passion. She also exhibited the light and dark contrast that exists with an individual who sings with a tone between tenor and soprano an in the processes coming up with another dimension.

The male lead, Tony, was daunted with the unbelievable responsibility of exhibiting an off-the-rack good-boy character of which he well executed in minimal lines that included a not convincing dialogue followed by a succession of superb musical numbers. When it came to the part of performing “Something’s Coming”, the actor had the audience appalled. The musical performance ended up rendering him credible by giving it nuance and depth.

What I would consider as the editing techniques that stood out as special were those executed during the choreography. The choreography of the dance sessions varied throughout the production. There were key dancing scenes that involved dances between the two opposing neighborhood gangs. The dance scenes represented superb representation of ensembles of musical theatre dance. The performers perform in complete unison and synchronization. There entire plot on the other hand can be accredited as to having a musical that indeed enables the dancers to retell the story through movement as opposed to words. With the use of intricate ballet, the performance perform the bulk of the dancing an in the process capture the beauty exhibited in the passionate love between the young couple.

Works cited

Wise, Robert, Ernest Lehman, Jerome Robbins, Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim, Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer, Russ Tamblyn, Rita Moreno, George Chakiris, Boris Leven, Robert E. Griffith, Harold Prince, and Arthur Laurents. West Side Story. Santa Monica, Calif: MGM Home Entertainment, 2003.

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