Article on WEST SIDE STORY revival

You know, with this thing called the internet, it's easy for things to be verified. Laurents wrote The Time of the Cuckoo, not The Sterile Cuckoo. Also, I do dislike when writers feel a need to take a swipe at The Music Man while praising West Side Story. Music Man is a strange, subversive show in its own right, with a highly idiosyncratic score. The hometown folksiness of it is always overemphasized in a condescending manner by writers who want to wonder aloud how it beat West Side Story for Best Musical.

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The writer said he corrected the mistake. I e-mailed him!

edit: he said there seems to be 2 versions online. One updated and one not.

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Updated On: 3/24/08 at 12:45 PM

"if you're a fan of the show WEST SIDE STORY, you're probably more a fan of the movie (to be honest)."

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Cannot let that slide, sorry. While sometimes it's hard for me to remember what a great movie it is, it still..."lessens" aspects of the show. Here are some examples:

-the last note of "Something's Coming" is changed so it doesn't end on a lowered 7th (an important part of unifying the entire score). In the Broadway score, that lowered 7th has a wonderful effect--it creates a small dissonance, making the song sounds like it hasn't fully ended because the note remains unresolved. The resolving doesn't come until the beginning of "Maria" -- it starts on the note that ended "Something's Coming" and resolves it - showing that musically, Maria was what was coming. Besides, the way the note sounds just irks me in the movie.

-I understand that, especially for the Prologue, they had to stretch it out, but did they have to stick "Cool" in there? Structurally, it's much more fascinating to see how when "Cool" comes around, it arises out of elements of the Prologue, but putting it directly in there just eliminates that

-cutting of the ballet. Okay, so there were always problems staging it, but musically, the way Bernstein lets it go from the perfect world to the "Rumble" is just an amazing lesson in musical transitions

-Richard Beymer. Hopefully that's self-explanatory.

I could go on, but you get the point -- I am soo much more a fan of the original show than the movie. I think it's unfair to generalize like that -- sure, most of our visual experiences with WSS was through the movie, but don't assume we don't strive to know more about the production than just watching the movie.

Now that that's over, another great quote by Arthur:

"Whatever changes he makes to the tone of the show, Laurents admits the music is its greatest asset." All right, not a direct quote, but still...thank goodness.

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Arthur is not going to be able to make those kids savage unless he rewrites some of the ridiculous "Womb to tomb" and "Sperm to worm" made up slang he invented in 1957.

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The book is the weakest part of West Side Story. The made-up slang makes me cringe.

Wonder if Laurents will have Tony and Maria roll around the floor while they sing "Tonight?" Good thing there are no live animals in the show.

It's playing DC December-January and going to Broadway in February, supposedly.