Music by Leonard Bernstein
Book by Arthur Laurents
Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Choreography by Jerome Robbins
Musical direction by James Dunsmore
Directed by Joey McKneely
Despite a few turns of phrase that sound decidedly odd these days, West Side Story wears its 57 years very well indeed. If it's possible to dispute its place as the greatest musical of all time, a position in the top ten cannot be denied it, or only with a good deal of bad grace. A singularly happy combination of an inspired adaptation of Romeo and Juliet to (what was then) modern times, a dazzling musical score, witty, often trenchant lyrics and some of the best choreography ever seen on Broadway have ensured the work's enduring popularity.
This current production is part of the international touring production mounted for the 50th anniversary celebrations. In other words, it's been running, probably in more than one country at a time, for over 6 years, which is just a little mind-boggling. It would be impossible if one expected to see the same cast all the time; that's not an issue, however. Judging from the bios in the programme, the show gets cast 'locally', and the only real drawback there (at least in an English-speaking production) is that the on-stage accents (speaking and singing) tend to drift in and out of more or less effective variations on American. It's a little distracting, but you get used to it.
The staging is fairly simple, mobile wings designed to look like the rusting iron apartment balconies and fire-escape ladders of the back streets of New York, while black-and-white New York streetscapes were projected on the back-drop. It was perhaps not quite grubby enough to be really evocative of a depressed, low-rent, city district - but then, you need a clear stage to dance on, so realism only goes so far.
The cast was young, but only Katie Hall, as Maria, really seemed like an adolescent; the others all came across as, I imagine, their real ages, early 20s for the most part. Hall, however, was very nice, sweet-voiced, and physically with a little roundness to the face, as if she was just growing out of childhood, just beginning to bloom, exactly right for the 16 year-old Maria. She made the most of the character development too, ending with some real gravitas.
Louis Maskell also has a nice voice, but the voice production is a shade uneven. There are some notes which, when he leans on them, lose focus and start to slide in pitch. However, the top is fairly secure, and he negotiated the notoriously difficult ending of "Maria" very well. Dramatically, however, he came across as too 'white collar', to my mind, and could have done with being less preppy. It undermined his apparent relationship with the rest of the gang. We get the idea that Tony's growing up clearly enough, but he seems to have grown too far away from them to react so violently (or what should have been violently) during the Rumble. This was the one part where I thought the dancing lacked punch, they were handling the choreographed fight almost cautiously, so both the knifings came across as calculated, rather than as shockingly sudden.
This was, on the whole, a very solid performance all the way through, well danced and well sung by the cast, and with crisp playing from the band (and the sound system very much better than the last time I attended a show in this theatre). Act 1 was weaker, the conflict between the gangs not quite coming off as vividly as it could. While Jack Wilcox was a sound Riff, Javier Cid, as Bernardo, needs to work on his stage laugh. It sounds very phoney, and it was difficult to believe in an atmosphere of simmering tension when one of your gang chiefs sounds more like a villain from an Edwardian melodrama than a streetwise teenager. Even "Cool", snappy though the dancing was, didn't have quite enough of an edge of menace to it.
Act 2, on the other hand, began with a sparkling "I Feel Pretty", a wonderful contrast to the stark ending of the first half, and if the Dream Sequence still feels like a bit of a waste of time (and that's the show's fault, not the players') it was followed up by a really sharp-edged "Gee, Officer Krupke", which set us up nicely for the assault on Anita (Djalenga Scott, very good) and its tragic outcome. That said, the producers of the show need to look into a different gunshot sound for that last scene. That the audience should jump when Chino shoots Tony is one thing; that they should laugh is quite another. Still, judging from the sniffles I was hearing behind me in the final minute or so, and the applause that greeted the cast, the moment was not irretrievably ruined. West Side Story has not lost its power to enthral an audience.
[Next : 29th January]
No comments:
Post a Comment