West Side Story - Recent Bway Revival and Nat'l Tour — Page 2

West Side Story is one of my favorite shows and movies. The Broadway revival has been the only production I've seen live. I will be honest and say I was thoroughly disappointed. Not because it had a lot to live up to in my mind, but I don't think anything clicked in this production. From the choice to translate scenes and songs into Spanish to the costumes to the dumbed down choreography (and the omission of the Nightmare sequence of the Somewhere ballet!) to the child singing "Somewhere"... so many poor choices in my opinion. Also, I did not like Karen Olivo as Anita. She couldn't dance the role, she was Acting with a capital A, and her vocals and acting made you believe she were still performing Vanessa in In the Heights. She just seemed too contemporary for the show, a problem I have with a lot of performers in revivals. It's a pet peeve of mine. A recent offender: I just saw Evita yesterday and Rachel Potter might as well have been auditioning for American Idol with her melismatic take on "Another Suitcase in Another Hall" and with her contemporary musical theatre vowels ("Where am I going tyyyyooo?"). I felt this same way with Karen, but this time she is a pivotal player in the show.

I hear the national tour improved upon the Broadway production. I can't say first hand, but it sounds like they fixed some problems here and there.

It is awful. Just awful.

---

Random comment but is the Rosalia in the Debbie Allen production the actress that played Diana Morales in the ACL movie?

Ding! Ding Ding! Marlothom you hit the jackpot! The Rosalia in the Debbie Allen "America" was the beautiful and talented Yamil Borges, who did indeed go on to play Diana Morales in the film of A Chorus Line.

And standing next to Yamil is a very very young Harolyn Blackwell, who went on from that West Side Story to be an opera star.

Horse Tears, Laurents had to wait until all those people were dead before he could get control of West Side. But he was able to wrest control of Gypsy away from Team Robbins fairly soon after the Broadway run, because it is more of a book-based show.


But you can hear the voice of Arthur loud and clear in Tessie Tura's acid comment about Mazeppa's "ballet," when she says, "Cut the ballet. It stinks anyway"--a line Robbins had uttered frequently during rehearsals and preview of the original West Side...usually within Robbins's earshot.

Arthur claimed he hated Jerry because Jerry had named names, but the real reason Arthur hated Jerry and Lenny and even Steve is that every morning Arthur woke up and remembered that of the four men who created West Side, only three of them would be acknowledged genuises, The fourth was Arthur himself, and he knew he who would never be considered a genius, but always a hack.

That pain made him hate--and hate with a rage I pray god none of you ever witness or feel yourselves.

---

Didn't Sondheim stop talking to Laurents during the run of WSS--or was it Gypsy where they already were at odds? Sondheim has said many times that the truly great, and groundbreaking part of WSS was the staging and use of dance. (Maybe Sondheim and Laurents being at odds started even a bit earlier after hearing Laurents' loud criticisms and objects during p-erformances of Encores' good natured version of Anyone Can Whistle).

I admit it was typically sneaky of Laurents to get around the Jerome Robbins' estate by using their approved dream ballet from the West Side Story Suite that cuts the nightmare, and so getting their approval. The thing is, that ballet comes off as overly sweet and loses half of its power when the nightmare is cut--in fact I'd go as far as to say it loses its very point--it seems inane that Laurents wouldn't realize this. But as PJ says, it's clear he has always been annoyed with the fact that Robbins and Bernstein (and to a lesser extent Sondheim) get more credit, or at least have in Laurents mind, than his libretto.

This is great stuff. I have one of Laurent's books on hold at the library -- I think it was the last book he wrote about working in the theatre. I imagine it will be a very selective history.

BTW, in 2010, OUT had a great interview with Arthur in which some of the very things we've been discussing in this thread were covered. Check it out.
Arthur Laurents Will Not Go Quietly - OUT MAGAZINE

DELETE - DUPLICATE.

---

Updated On: 6/1/12 at 03:39 AM

I only remember two things about that revival. First is the sound of fifty high school students I brought to the show flipping open their playbills and trying to catch some light in the mezzanine when the Spanish lyrics started. Second is Josefina Scaglione's acting in the final scene. She shocked me. It felt like the first time something really authentic happened that evening. The rest was a small series of disappointments when compared to the movie.

"Second is Josefina Scaglione's acting in the final scene. She shocked me. It felt like the first time something really authentic happened that evening."

Every time I saw her - she nailed the final scene and left not a dry eye in the place.

---

I was disappointed to find out that the choreography wasn't changed back to the original when Cortez took over the role of Anita full-time or when the tour started with Michelle Aravena(ironically was Cortez's Diana u/s in A Chorus Line). Both Cortez & Aravena were more than capable of doing the choreography, I just don't understand why is wasn't changed

---

And we reiterate in response:

F#ck him, he's dead.

Signed,
Friends of Arthur's Enemies

---

Something closer doesn't count when it comes to choreography.

---