Posted: 1/27/20 at 7:20pm
cfbrrr said: "A few things about the cutting of “I Feel Pretty” and the “Somewhere Ballet” that I don’t believe have been mentioned.
First of all, many, perhaps most, people tend to envision/remember “West Side Story” from the 1961 movie rather than via the 1957 original Broadway version — a significant issue given that many things were changed/adapted for the movie, a number of which were attributable to neither Bernstein nor Laurents nor the demoted-as-director Robbins.
In the original, “I Feel Pretty” comes right at the top of Act 2, which is hugely significant because the “Rumble” (not the “Tonight Quintet,” as is often assumed) ends Act 1. And the “Rumble,” of course, is where Tony kills Bernardo, Maria’s brother (who is also her best friend Anita’s lover), right after Bernardo has killed Riff.
The essential point is that when Maria, in the original version, sings “I Feel Pretty,” directly following a tension-breaking intermission, she is *totally unaware* that Tony has just killed her brother, resulting in dramatic irony of the most poignant kind. Though the audience knows what’s up, Maria is still able to bubble with glee over her newfound guy as if everything were right in the world and forever would be. On one level, it’s so deliriously joyful. Yet underneath, it’s so very, very sad. Great writing. Great psychological pacing. (In the movie, “I Feel Pretty” comes rather more daintily in advance of any dead bodies being strewn across the stage.)
And though Mr. Sondheim has for decades loudly voiced his displeasure over what he regards as his unsuitable lyrics for the song (I don’t agree; I cherish them, and remember how much, as a kid, I loved the line “Miss America can just resign&rdquo
, he was the juniorest member, by far, of the quartet of creators of the show, and I seriously doubt whether any of the other three would have “not minded the loss of the song” in the current revival.
”I Feel Pretty” is musically brilliant, with a snappy Hispanic rhythm useful to the show, and a terrific middle section, starting, via the women’s ensemble, in minor mode, leading, with nifty key-changes and inspired text-settings (“this is nót the Má-ri-a wé know,” e.g.) to the final section, with its great and quirky “which, what, where, whom?” interjections and its rousing conclusion. Not only is it Maria’s only solo song [!], its setting with female-ensemble back-up is the original show’s only all-female ensemble number except for “America,” which, as in the movie, has been made into a multi-gender affair in the current revival. (Yet there is much all-maleness that remains . . .)
Thus, “I Feel Pretty” has gone from genius placement (original) to tepid placement (movie) to no placement (van Hove).
As for the “Somewhere Ballet,” let me just state that in the 1989 “Jerome Robbins’ Broadway,” which won the Tony for Best Musical that year, the concluding and climactic set of numbers ending the first act was a suite of dances from “West Side Story,” with the final number of that concluding segment — everything was chosen by Robbins himself — being not one of the flashy, jazzy, energetic numbers, as you might expect, but rather the “Somewhere Ballet,” so touching and so gorgeous in both music and choreography that it brought tears to my eyes on what was a most memorable (and long!) night in 1989. It’s super-obvious how much that number meant to the now-not-able-to-defend-himself Robbins.
In the current revival, not only is there no “Somewhere Ballet,” but the song itself — entrusted on Bernstein’s recordings to no less that Reri Grist and Marilyn Horne — is initiated/dominated by Tony, with him already having had tons of solo opportunities, thereby diminishing any sense of Maria’s parity yet further. A questionable holdover from the movie is worsened by Maria’s now seeming less significant — less eligible even — in Mr. van Hove’s world.
Say all you want about these these two cut numbers not fitting into the revival’s “concept.” I counter that any “West Side Story” that — jettisoning Robbins’ Prologue choreography, perhaps the most important and iconic piece of choreography in The Entirety of the American Musical Theater, in favor of having the rival gangs merely, at the outset, emit “meaningful” stares (their menacing finger-snaps that are *part of the actual printed score* having been summarily junked) — is already dead in the water, with or without superfluous rain.
That there needs to be, or even should be, “modernized” versions of classic shows to render them relevant or even palatable to contemporary audiences is a highly debatable notion — especially when, if then canonized on Broadway and accompanied by commercial recordings/video representations, they come to be accepted by/revealed to large swaths of the public as *the show itself*. Artistic license can be destructive as well as liberating — in the long as well as short term. Murder can result from both a bullet and a virus.
"
I wonder where I Feel Pretty will be placed in Spielberg's film.
