West Side Story 1980

[Jay Lerner-Z]

Posted: 1/11/12 at 5:17pm

How come it only ran for ten months?

I would've assumed that such a beloved big-name musical might have had more success, especially with Jerome Robbins directing...or maybe it actually was considered a success?

Anybody remember?

[Smaxie]

Posted: 1/11/12 at 5:39pm

PalJoey would be the perfect one to respond to this. I can say that while it didn't bring any particular fresh insight into West Side Story, it was a very solid, faithful production and vastly more satisfying than the recent revival. The leads (Josie de Guzman, Ken Marshall) were a bit pallid, but Hector Mercado and Debbie Allen made up for it. The dancing was particularly thrilling - an element that was greatly diminished in Laurents' version. I don't think the Minskoff Theatre did it any favors, and musical revivals were not quite in vogue the way they became after the Guys & Dolls revival in 1992, so I think it just had its respectable near-year run and departed.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 1/11/12 at 5:59pm

Sigh.

It was a bad time for revivals. They were very much intent on "re-creating" the 1957 original, too much so. And Mr. Robbins had this idea that the Jets should be "all-American," which made them look like a "gay mid-western boy scout troupe," in the words of the very clever Brian Kaman who played Baby John. (He also made up the parody lyric that went "When you're a Jet, / You're a Jet all the way, / From your first pirouette / To your last grand jete." )

I shared my memories in this old thread from 2005:
BLT III: clip from 1980 WEST SIDE STORY Revival

[Jay Lerner-Z]

Posted: 1/11/12 at 6:03pm

Ah, I'm glad it was good - it would surprise me if Jerome Robbins had produced a turkey. I guess it's hard to gauge success from long ago on figures alone - such as the WSS movie, which grossed $43 million total, compared to this week's no.1 movie, The Devil Inside, which has grossed $33 million in just a week!


A 1980 clip, if you're interested

[Jay Lerner-Z]

Posted: 1/11/12 at 6:05pm

Oh, wait - maybe it wasn't so great. Thanks, PalJoey.

Updated On: 1/11/12 at 06:05 PM

[Dollypop]

Posted: 1/12/12 at 1:21am

I saw the show and recall how "graceful" the male dancers were. It wasn't a bad production--it was just "meh".

[PalJoey]

Posted: 1/12/12 at 8:34am

All around, the dancing of the Prologue, the Dance at the Gym, Cool, the Rumble and the 2nd-act ballet were probably better than in any other production before or since. Mr. Robbins drilled them and drilled them, berated them, ridiculed them, challenged them and inspired them. He had at his side, helping him perfect every little movement and attitude of the choreography three people who could have reproduced his choreography on their own: Lee Theodore, the original Anybodys and the founder of the American Dance Machine; Tom Abbott, Robbins's ballet master from the New York City Ballet; and Peter Gennaro, who had been co-choreographer on the original 1957 production and had created all the Shark chroeography.

Robbins was determined to make the dance part of his dance-drama as perfect as it could be--and he did. But the casting and the acting suffered.

That was in part what fueled Laurents to do the opposite on the recent Broadway revival.

Here is more footage from the 1980 production. I only wish you could see them do Cool or the entire ballet (with the Nightmare sequence) but that footage does not exist:

1980 WSS on the Today show, Part One:

http://youtu.be/hsAENm8_pmA


Part Two:

http://youtu.be/YkJ-axYUj24


Part Three:

http://youtu.be/M15T1plZcLU

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 1/12/12 at 1:26pm

I am not contradicting anything paljoey has said about the 1980 revival; he obviously knows it better than almost all of us.

But as someone who has never been a big fan of the show or film, I must say that parts of the 1980 revival gave me a glimmer of why the show has such ardent supporters. The cinematic scene change into the gym, for example, made me gasp. (And I agree with paljoey's assessment of the dancing.)

Ultimately, however, Act II came along, as it always does. I was interested to see Stephen Sondheim admit in FINISHING THE HAT that Act II has little action and is padded with ballads, because I find it interminable.

[ttalovebug]

Posted: 1/12/12 at 2:42pm

Pal Joey-

Does footage exsist of any company dancing the original Somewhere ballet? I was truly disappointed when I went to see the recent tour and saw that the nightmare sequence was cut- and I have read the choreography was from NYCB's WSS Suite rather than the original ballet (please correct me if I'm wrong). I've never seen the original, but just in theory I felt the cutting of the nightmare sequence really made the ballet seem pointless, and excuse for pretty dancing rather than to make a point about how Tony and Maria feel about the possibility of a future. It made their going to bed together look more selfish, when it should be desperate, realizing that they probably won't be together much longer. I've been mesmerized by the Somewhere ballet on the OCR since I was twelve, and very much regret that I've never been able to see what's going on during that piece.

I dream of the day when a truly excellent revival comes along. It's such a shame that both major revivals, while having their strong points, have been so underwhelming. Maybe it just speaks to the genius of the original cast and crew.

[chrisampm2]

Posted: 1/12/12 at 2:43pm

The scene change into the Dance at the Gym in the revival (the only time I saw the Robbins production) is one of my favorite staging moments of all time. When Laurents didn't use it, I knew I was in for a long night.

[gypsy4]

Posted: 1/12/12 at 2:48pm

I just saw the tour last week! what a blast of a show such a young energetic cast thoroughly enjoyed it

[SporkGoddess]

Posted: 1/12/12 at 7:23pm

I saw those YouTube clips of Debbie Allen performing "America" and she looked fantastic. I would have liked to have seen the 1980 revival if just for her.

[AADA81]

Posted: 1/13/12 at 3:16am

I saw the 1980 revival and, while I was glad to be seeing WSS on stage I remember being somewhat underwhelmed. The dancing was impressive but the acting was spotty and overall the show seemed to lack inspiration or energy. I do recall that the 10-month run was considered respectable at the time (it wasn't considered a flop) because the era of decades-long runs hadn't begun yet. "A Chorus Line" was only in year 5 and no one would have predicted it to have another 10 to go. Still, revivals were not the norm they are now in 1980 and audiences were really attuned to seeing new works rather than familiar hits. Times have changed.

[ljay889]

Posted: 1/13/12 at 3:28am

Ultimately, however, Act II came along, as it always does. I was interested to see Stephen Sondheim admit in FINISHING THE HAT that Act II has little action and is padded with ballads, because I find it interminable.

See, I love act 2. "A Boy Like That/I Have a Love" and the rape have got to be the two GREATEST back-to-back scenes ever created for the stage.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 1/13/12 at 8:34am

I must have seen it 100 times while I was working on the revival, and I never found Act II "interminable."

What I did find "interminable," though, was "One Hand, One Heart."

Mr. Robbins referred to it as "The Cigarette Song," because he would get up and leave and come back for the Quintet. He didn't have a cigarette. He would just leave for the song and come back after it.

And that was yet another thing that pissed off Lenny and Arthur.

[mamaleh]

Posted: 1/13/12 at 9:31am

I wish there were footage of the first WSS I saw, back in my student days: the 1968 Lincoln Center production with Kurt Peterson as Tony and Victoria Mallory as Maria. I guess shows were not taped in those days. A pity. That production was fabulous.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 1/13/12 at 10:07am

There's some discussion in the other WSS thread about Kurt and Victoria and Barbara Luna in that Lincoln Center revival.

[zunit1234]

Posted: 1/13/12 at 10:21am

Can someone who was there please describe the the 'cinematic scene change' into the gym? Now I'm super curious, sounds like it must have been so cool.

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 1/13/12 at 12:38pm

See, I love act 2. "A Boy Like That/I Have a Love" and the rape have got to be the two GREATEST back-to-back scenes ever created for the stage.

You and joey are right, but I had to look up the song list to see it. "A Boy Like That" is terrific. So is "Krupke", for that matter.

But I find "Somewhere" every bit as boring as "One Hand, One Heart", and the tedious ballet that goes with the former (the dancing is probably fine, but I really hate that song) dominates my memory of Act II.

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 1/13/12 at 12:44pm

Can someone who was there please describe the the 'cinematic scene change' into the gym? Now I'm super curious, sounds like it must have been so cool.

I'm sure joey can give you better details. I just remember red streamers falling to hang from the ceiling and suddenly we were in the gym. The physical scene itself changed less than the picture we were creating in our minds. And the falling splash of red was like a cinematic dissolve.

It was the very best possible use of theater and even though it was inspired by cinema, it did something that film and TV can't really duplicate.

[zunit1234]

Posted: 1/13/12 at 1:22pm

Ooooh I can see it. Wish I could have *actually seen it. Thanks for describing it.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 1/13/12 at 1:41pm

It's one of those perfect moments where a minor piece of Lenny's music and a minor piece of Robbins's staging united to create a breathtaking moment.

It start with Maria's last line in the dress-shop scene, "Because tonight is the real beginning of my life as a young lady of America." Robbins had her hold her dress out at the sides and start to twirl, in the classic movement of a young girl like Cinderella imagining herself at a ball, twirling and the dress billowing out.

The music is the little repetitive transition figure (DAH-da-da, DAH-da-da, DAH-da-da...), which I remember being told is based on the interval that Lenny used to unite the whole score ("Ma-ri-a!" "Some-where!" etc.), but you'd have to ask someone more musically included to explain how intervals are similar.

Maria twirls, the music builds, she is joined by four Jet and Shark girls, the set for the dress shop slides off, leaving the girls twirling in limbo as the music becomes more and more intense.

The, all of a sudden at precise moments in the build of the music, the girls twirl off, the Jets enter from Stage Right and cross left, the Sharks enter from Stage Left and cross right, the music changes to the piece that opens the gym scene (which Bernstein called "The Blues"), the streamers drop down suddenly from above, and the stage is filled with the kids dancing at the gym, dancing hip-to-hip in a sexually suggestive manner that starkly contrasts with Maria's innocence.

You can hear the build of the transition music and the build with the four Jet and Shark girls in this clip from the movie. But since Robbins and Wise were using a blurred technique for the transition, you won't see the streamers.

http://youtu.be/VC892WVJh4A

The moment when the streamers came down, I believe, is at 0:34.

But I can just hear Mr. Robbins saying, "No, no! That's wrong. That's all wrong. How stupid can you be? That's the wrong moment in the music. You've got it all wrong. Do it again. Take it from Anita's exit." And the stage managers would have to roll on the dress-shop set and roll up the streamers, and everyone in the cast would have to rehearse the transition into the gym scene over and over and over and over and over again, until Jerry Robbins decided it was perfect. Or more likely, till he got tired of making it perfect.

But it was perfect.

[zunit1234]

Posted: 1/13/12 at 2:27pm

wow. Is it weird that I got chills READING that? thank you PJ for so richly explaining.

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 1/13/12 at 6:01pm

Yes, indeed, thank you, joey. Even though I brought it up in the first place, I hung on every word of your description.

Have you ever considered doing some sort of book on Broadway musicals? (I'm sure there's no profit in it for you as author, but I'd buy it in a flash.)

[gypsy4]

Posted: 1/13/12 at 6:06pm

Joey how did that differ from what happened in the current revival? I just saw the national tour of it tour and this is what the streamers came down Maria twirled joined by two dancers and bam we were in the gym. why many may disagree I thoroughly enjoyed Laurent's staging.