It's official. West Side Story ditches some of the spanish — Page 5

I'm pretty sure, between Equity and the actors' agents, they would not be allowed to do any show without bows today. I remember when I worked on a production of MARAT/SADE in college and the director said he wished he could end the show with the riot and then just bring the lights up, but he had to do a curtain call because of the union.

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The rule is that the curtain call is subject to the director's artistic discretion.

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Curtain is right. Please don't tell me that you forgotten how A Chorus Line ends.

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^ The new WSS is NOT a complete replica of the original though. It's just the same choreography. Though many wish Robbin's staging was used. It's not the same situation as ACL.

Updated On: 9/2/09 at 11:01 PM

It's those who rightly or wrongly feel that every aspect of Robbins's direction should be retained that I question.

I'm not saying that Arthur should have retained every aspect of Robbins's direction. I'm saying that what Arthur chose to replace it with, in each instance, failed.

The 1980 Broadway production was a "slavish revival"--look up some of my old posts on exactly how slavish it was--and it ended up a little dull.

This current revival was a boneheaded re-envisioning.

Perhaps Gerald Freedman's 50th anniversary production was the happy medium. Freedman had been Robbins's assistant on the original production in 1957 and has directed it many times ever since.

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Updated On: 9/2/09 at 01:08 AM

"I also have to question whether they would feel so vehemently against the direction at the end of the show if it had been a different director who was not seen as having a such a huge personal vendetta against Robbins."

Not at all. I've only come to dislike Arthur and his vendetta through the changes he's made to the show, not vice-versa.

The whole should-every-aspect-of-the-show-stay-the-same debate...my opinion is something can be changed if it can be improved upon. The problem is there's not much in Robbins' original choreography (and especially in Bernstein's score for the record) that can be improved. Every decision made in this production that was different from the original has diminished the show.

But then again...I'll use the score as my example, as that is what I'm more familiar with...the entire score of WSS is so connected...through its use of musical elements and certain keys that were chosen...the way the musical elements come into the songs (for example: one of the elements is major and minor triads...think of the opening to the jet song...becomes the melody of "A Boy Like That" - "broth-er" and "oth-er.")...the score is so complete and connected, like a detailed story, that if you changed even one thing, it could take away from the connections and cohesiveness of the whole. Perhaps the same is true of the original direction -- one minor change can damage the chain.

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Updated On: 9/2/09 at 11:06 AM