Time Magazine Article, is WSS Overated?

[Unknown User]

Posted: 3/26/09 at 8:40pm

I found this article kinda inane. The "critic" starts the piece by saying:


"As someone who likes to think I have a fairly complete education in the Broadway musical, however, one show holds a special place: West Side Story. Of all the widely accepted masterpieces of the genre, it's the one I have never seen onstage. Nor even ? until a few weeks ago, when I finally broke down and rented the DVD ? the multiple-Oscar-winning 1961 movie. Of course, I know most of the Leonard Bernstein?Stephen Sondheim score; I've seen enough clips to be familiar with the famed Jerome Robbins choreography; and I'd have to be a pretty benighted theatergoer not to know at least the central conceit of the story ? Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet transplanted to the street gangs of New York City in the 1950s."

WHA?? He's a musical theatre critic for a major nationwide magazine and had never seen even the movie of WSS till now?? That seems like a drama critic saying he had heard enough excerpts from Hamlet so didn't need to bother seeing the full thing.

And his verdict is it's not quite the classic it's meant to be. yet he bases this verdict solely on the revival which he even aknowledges is quite changed from the original production. This bit floored me:

"What's more ? a heresy to even suggest ? I wonder if this score really belongs in the very top rank of American musicals. The jazzy, modernist, Gershwinesque rhythms of some of Bernstein's music ? "The Jet Song," "America" ? are still striking and original. But is there a duller love ballad in any major American musical than "Maria" ("Maria! I just met a girl named Maria!"), or its Muzak-ready twin brother, "Tonight" ("Tonight, tonight/ There's only you tonight")? "

??? I love both songs, particularly Maria, and maybe he overdosed on cover versions of it or something but come on. He can't think of ANY Broadway ballad that's mor boring or Muzak-ey than those two great love songs? WTF?

http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1887470,00.html

[BustopherPhantom]

Posted: 3/26/09 at 8:46pm

I'm not a big fan of the song "Tonight" either, and only slightly more fond of "Maria," but I fully admit to the fact that I overdosed on those two songs when I was younger.

And the score is a classic.

[ljay889]

Posted: 3/26/09 at 8:47pm

ATC is discussing this ridiculous article too. I LOVE those two songs.

[RentBoy86]

Posted: 3/26/09 at 9:12pm

I think the show as a WHOLE is slightly over-rated, but I think "Guys and Dolls" is more over-rated as a classic than anything else.

[Gobstopper]

Posted: 3/26/09 at 9:20pm

What kind of Communist doesn't like the song "Maria?"

[CurtainPullDowner]

Posted: 3/26/09 at 9:24pm

He's whack about the score but pretty much right on about this new production.

[Schmerg_The_Impaler]

Posted: 3/26/09 at 9:29pm

Weird, I've always thought "Tonight" was a really energy-driven, dynamic-sounding love ballad, and I thought it always stood out from other romantic duets. It's always been one of my favorites. Then again, the singers make the song. I've heard some really horrible renditions.

[Unknown User]

Posted: 3/26/09 at 9:35pm

CurtainPullDown it does seem he's pretty right on about the actual production--or at the least I see where he gets his thoughts from so that bugs me less. It's the fact he disguises his review as him deciding if WSS deserves its classic status or not and decides it doesn't quite based on the revival. WHA?

And I get overdosing on Maria and Tonight (though he doesn't say this explicitly)--I went through a period where I'd always skip them, but now thankfully am back in love with them. but seriously calling them some of the dullest songs in ANY major Broadway show? Seriously? Seriously??

[SporkGoddess]

Posted: 3/26/09 at 10:47pm

I think WSS's score is amazing, but maybe people find it overrated because it's played so much. I mean, a lot people can't take "I Feel Pretty" seriously anymore since Anger Management used it. Or those Gap commercials, which people in my high school used to make fun of.

Updated On: 3/26/09 at 10:47 PM

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 3/26/09 at 10:48pm

Frankly, when I listen to West Side Story, I often skip over Maria. I don't hate the song, but it's probably my least favorite in the show.

And I don't think it's that absurd the guy never saw it before. It happens. Some shows slip through the cracks for even the most fervid of theatregoers, I'd guess. I've never seen one moment of Guys and Dolls in any form. Camelot as well. It happens.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 3/26/09 at 11:25pm

While watching previews and performances during the 1980 revival, Jerry Robbins used to get up and leave during "One Hand, One Heart" and come back in for the Quintet and the Rumble.

He called it his "cigarette song.'

[WishingOnlyWounds2]

Posted: 3/26/09 at 11:25pm

The show: No.
This revival: Yes!

[CurtainPullDowner]

Posted: 3/26/09 at 11:35pm

Phyliss, if you skip MARIA or any other song, you are depriving yourself of the brillance of the entire score.
The way Bernstein used the melodies or partial melodies throughout the piece are beautiful, MARIA is an aria when sung correctly and as a lead in for TONIGHT, it's jaw-dropping.
There has been a lot of talk that Tony is a thankless and unfullfilled role, but I have seen it acted and sung to he point that you follow his story till he's tragic death.

[RevolutionaryCostume]

Posted: 3/26/09 at 11:39pm

I consider myself pretty well-educated in musical theatre.

I've rented "West Side Story" more times than I can count over the years. . and it always bores me to the point where I have to turn it off.

Different strokes, I guess.

-Jacob.

[CurtainPullDowner]

Posted: 3/26/09 at 11:46pm

If you want to stroke, there are movies for that.
The thing about Art, is everyone sees it differently.
Your opinion is totally valid.
I can't watch THE OFFICE.

[jejr]

Posted: 3/26/09 at 11:47pm

When the original production opened the score was considered one of the best ever. It is only through the years and hearing it too much that people seem to get tired of parts of it. The original production was breath taking and Larry Kert made you feel for Tony from beginning to end. Carol Lawrence was magnificent. You really had to see them on stage to get the full impact. The curtain scenes for both acts left you limp. Something a film could not do. I doubt that most of the posters were fortunate enough to have seen the original. I did and it is one of the highlights of my theater going - UNFORGETTABLE.
Updated On: 3/26/09 at 11:47 PM

[PalJoey]

Posted: 3/27/09 at 12:24am

I think it's really cool that he gets to be a theater critic at Time magazine without ever knowing West Side Story.

I think "being qualified" is overrated, don't you?

[Unknown User]

Posted: 3/27/09 at 12:43am

"While watching previews and performances during the 1980 revival, Jerry Robbins used to get up and leave during "One Hand, One Heart" and come back in for the Quintet and the Rumble.

He called it his "cigarette song.' "

HAHA to be fair--while he may have not liked the song--it woulda been my cigarette song if I was directing it too. It's a static staging, and it's not a song I'd wanna hear and watch several times a day--though in the context of the full show I love it. But I'm sure Jerry meant more by that

[Unknown User]

Posted: 3/27/09 at 12:48am

"Frankly, when I listen to West Side Story, I often skip over Maria. I don't hate the song, but it's probably my least favorite in the show.

And I don't think it's that absurd the guy never saw it before. It happens. Some shows slip through the cracks for even the most fervid of theatregoers, I'd guess. I've never seen one moment of Guys and Dolls in any form. Camelot as well. It happens. "

Yep and that's fair enough. The difference is you're not calling Maria one of the dullest ballds in ANY Broadway show, and you're not the musical theatre critic for a national magazine.

[Unknown User]

Posted: 3/27/09 at 12:51am

Jejr said:

"When the original production opened the score was considered one of the best ever. It is only through the years and hearing it too much that people seem to get tired of parts of it. "

Reading the press of the time, a lot of the theatre critics didn't get the score. It certainly wasn't considered one of the best ever until it came back to Braodway in '59 and the movie when it became a hit (as Laurents himself likes to rant on about the original cast album wasn't even a huge seller by cast album levels--the soundtrack was when it hit).

Of course that's not unusual. The majority of critics have not liked the music for nearly any of Sondheim's shows until they come back as a revival when they're a classic--taking it even further back Tchaikovsky's now classic ballet scores were deemed by Russian ballet critics as unmemorable, unmelodic and undanceable. It seems to be almost the norm for these great groundbreaking pieces.

[wickedrentq]

Posted: 3/27/09 at 10:55am

That's funny about OHOH. Even from a musician perspective, I was allowed to conduct that song at certain rehearsals -- as opposed to the crazy 6/8, 3/4 of America, and 4/4, 2/4 of the Quintet, OHOH is just a slow 3/4, so that was the only song I was allowed to conduct. Don't get me wrong though, it's actually hard to play so quietly, but it's so so beautiful when you get it right, especially the opening, interlude, and end. That final note...love it.

Now, about this article... I already wrote a letter to the editor, posted on ATC, but I'll just post my anger again because boy, his comments on the score...

Tonight is bland?? Is he like deaf to the orchestra under it?? Those staccato notes we play that keep getting higher, faster, louder, it drives the song, makes it sound like its pulse is racing. Not to mention the importance of the Somewhere interludes.

And Maria...Tony is so excited by the sound of the name of his first love, that he takes off in front of the orchestra in the middle, when the orchestra takes over the melody, he just zooms ahead...that's bland? Especially when Larry Kert sings it, it's simply eargasmic. What a beautiful, simple way of defining first love. I mean, those 3 notes...

And as a brilliant poster on ATC mentioned, I bet he never heard of tritones or hemiolas. Then I'll add, or could tell you how Somewhere is present in most of Tony & Maria's songs, or know that A Boy Like That and I Have A Love are the same song...how the music drives the drama more successfully in this show than in any other.

Bernstein was a GENIUS and the score for WSS is just...in a class of its own.

At work, apparently my boss already read the article because when I screamed out "what??" in anger, he already knew what got me so upset.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 3/27/09 at 11:25am

Phyliss, if you skip MARIA or any other song, you are depriving yourself of the brillance of the entire score.

Rarely, at least after a first listen, do I ever listen to any score in its entirety. I'm sure I'm not alone. There are plenty (I'd dare say most) scores I love where there's a song here and there that I don't care for.

I don't think it's a lynch-worthy offense that he'd never seen the show.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 3/27/09 at 11:57am

I just want to know how he got the job at Time magazine.

Updated On: 3/27/09 at 11:57 AM

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 3/27/09 at 12:50pm

Okay.

But - with the revival getting underwhelming notices and a trend as of late to profess that the movie wasn't all that great (which I disagree with, no matter what Rita Moreno and Stephen Sondheim say) and this being his first exposure, what's the big deal?

Everyone admits the dialogue for these tough guys is laughable. People think Maria looks Irish. Almost NO ONE like Cavenaugh. If this was my first exposure to the show in performance, I'd probably shrug it off, too.

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 3/27/09 at 12:53pm

The material's fame and accolades are very well-deserved. Not overrated at all.

This production, however, doesn't do justice to the material. Based on Brantley's review (and other raves) the current revival is overrated.