Anyone seeing WEST SIDE STORY in D.C. today? — Page 10

Damn. I'm pretty sure the prologue is usually 6 minutes, as I've often heard the phrase "in 6 minutes of dance & music, you know the entire story," or something to that effect.

Again, then the tempos must also be slower, right?

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Miss Pennywise explained the very opening much better than I did. Once the Jets and Sharks start dancing things pick up, but it was getting to that actual part that was very slow.

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Pacing is an interesting issue. Jerome Robbins, in addition to his dance training, worked on many musicals with the old-school director George Abbott, who was the quinetssential "faster/louder/funnier" director.

Also, Leonard Bernstein was a stickler for the correct tempi of his songs, and although he preferred "One Hand, One Heart" so slowly it was more like a hymn than a love song, he was absolutely in love with the excitement of the Latin rhythms he wrote into WSS for "America," the Sharks sections of the Prologue or the Dance at the Gym, as well as the exciting fast tempi he wrote for some of the non-Latino sections of the show, like "Cool" or "Something's Coming" or the Jets sections of the Prologue or the Dance at the Gym.

If the whole score is treated reverentially, it will lack a major part of what makes it soar. (I keep coming back to that word.)

I'm going to repost a story I told about Lenny in an earlier thread about WSS.

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Bernstein is generally awesome.

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Exactly PalJoey, don't forget the complete and utter intensity of "The Rumble." It's written so brilliantly that it just keeps getting faster and faster until there's complete utter chaos, and there's no way it has the same effect when it's played slower (though it is so so so difficult to play up to tempo!)

And even "Balcony Scene" though considered a slower song has a breathless intensity under it, which is certainly appropriate for that scene -- all the staccato notes played under the melody.

And some songs I think you shouldn't be able to help but to play them at their tempo. "Cool" for instance...how can I explain this part without being able to hum it...after the "Crazy, cool, go" bit, and then the opening is repeated...the brass starts a new dance theme that the woodwinds answer...this whole thing lasts until everyone finally comes back in with the words...hope you know what I'm talking about...anyway, whenever I play "Cool," and I reach that part, I obviously drop out for the brass part, but I actually find myself so into the music that I just start singing the part to myself and dancing to it, and once I reach that part of the song, I'm gone, I can't...stop playing or humming or whatever I'm doing.

Granted, he started actually preferring a slower tempo for...not only WSS but other pieces of his as he got older, as demonstrated on that opera special/recording. I can't remember if even the songs we mentioned were slower, but I know a lot of songs were.

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PJ, when you refer to it as the "not very good revival" of 1980, is that YOUR opinion or is that the general consensus? I saw it and did not care for it at all (some really questionable casting, for one thing), but I have no recollection of the critical response. (The fact that I remember ANYTHING from that long ago is remarkable in itself!)

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I remember the reviews being kind of harsh for the 1980 revival. Most said it was rather creaky and showing it's age. I saw it and it was rather under-whelming for the most part.
I have high hopes for this revival. I hear they are correcting some of the costume choices before New York. I am looking forward to seeing it once they tighten polish and tweak after this out of town try out.

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Updated On: 12/21/08 at 07:13 PM

Well...I'm kind of referring I guess to the end of the "fugue." The "fugue" comes up in the music as soon as the words stop.

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Just worked on this show this past summer and have to disagree with whomever said Maria still carries hope, even after Tony’s death, as well as whomever said that the processional offers a ray of hope.

The ONLY sense of hope we get at the end is that the Jets and Sharks leave together, both helping to carry Tony’s body. Maria does not have hope – in her final speech she talks about how she can kill now, because she has gained the ability to hate through Bernardo and Tony’s deaths and all that the gangs have done. She ends it there. I believe her last line is “I can kill now because I hate hate now” before crying and then kissing Tony goodbye (my bad – she has a “Te Adoro Anton” after that) – where do you see ‘hope’ in that?

Anita ends her journey in what we see having that hate and prejudice because of the near-rape.

Hell, even DOC has lost hope for whatever small faith he has in the Jets after walking in on the attempted rape.

I believe it is meant to be Baby John who drapes the shawl on Maria at the end – whomever it is, that is not Laurent’s choice but is in the stage directions of the script; it’s not a new idea by any means.

Furthermore, even the processional was never meant to indicate that then the gangs walked away and lived happily ever after. Through hundreds and hundreds of pages of compiled research for the production I recently worked on, there were a plethora of quotes from reviewers to educators to the original production team who state that the moment is meant as no more than a brief, passing ‘truce’ if anything and the message is not “they’ve learned their lesson”. Whether or not they continue their violence and going out of their way to cause trouble for one another may be in question, but whether or not the hate and prejudice is still there is not; that lives on, unfortunately, despite all of the pain and tragedy it has caused.

I think…people take this story to heart, which is what makes it great art. But your own personal experience of the show is just that – the problem comes when people take that as fact and expectation of what the show must always be. That’s what it sounds like a lot of issue with this production is coming from, just as an observer of the dialogue on this board and someone who has not seen this production yet.

To that I can’t help but point out the irony; of all the shows to have a prejudice around before you’ve even seen it, because of what you’re hearing…really, West Side Story, a show about the dangers in pre-conceiving, is the one so many are doing that for?

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Bringing them all to Page 1

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