What was wrong with the West Side Story revival?- Page 3

[wonderfulwizard11]

Posted: 5/9/11 at 2:32pm

I saw it right after it opened, and I wasn't very impressed. Yes, the score and choreography are brilliant, but the show itself was not that well done. When I think about it now, I only remember Karen Olivo's performance (though I recall thinking Josefina Scaglione was charming as Maria).

Definitely was not a fan of the translations. I understand the dramatic reasoning behind it, but as a result it alienated the audience and was simply confusing; the only moment that I felt worked at all was "I Feel Pretty", which was staged and performed in a way that the translation wasn't as distracting. And I could not believe the absurd choice to translate Maria's last speech- that monologue is the point of the whole show, and by making it party in Spanish, the audience doesn't even get to understand it.

[bwayfan7000]

Posted: 5/9/11 at 2:56pm

Thank you for all the detail, PJ! And I think these things were already partially removed for the tour. As I stated already in this thread, the Anita is the appropriate kind of dancer, which really does make a big difference, it seems.

Posted: 5/9/11 at 10:19pm

PJ--terrific post!

My oh My I had a similar experience with that tour--I wasn't expecting such a faithful recreation of the original production (similar to the London anniversary production I later saw) and was thrilled to get it.

The irony is Laurents seemed to think he was making his revival more gritty and realisitc--yet as has been pointed out here, that simply doesn't work with WSS and somehow makes it seem just more silly and maybe even less "real" in a theatrical sense. I also found it ironic that he carped on and on about how fey the men were in the Robbins' productions--yet I didn't think he managed to solve that whatsoever in his production--in fact I think the lower budget tour that was mentioned had more, umm butch men.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 5/9/11 at 10:25pm

What makes the Jets "fey" (and the self-loathing that usually oozes out of those who use that word is repulsive) is not the fact they they have to have dance training.

It's Arthur's dialogue for the Jets that keeps them from being tougher.

He made an attempt at "artfully" creating timeless teenage tough talk, and he failed.

[Dollypop]

Posted: 5/9/11 at 10:57pm

Our local summer theater is in rehearsal for WEST SIDE STORY. I met some of the Sharks at the supermarket in town the other day. Um... "fey" doesn't even come close to describing these fellows. Maybe they are enormously talented group of guys who will be able to convince local audiences that they are members of a street gang, but I honestly feel this crew would be better cast as Cagelles.

[gvendo2005]

Posted: 5/10/11 at 10:10pm

Does anyone know specifically if Arthur made any cuts or changes to the book in the revival?

[BwayTday]

Posted: 5/10/11 at 10:42pm

Can someone explain what exactly was wrong with Matt's voice? Sure, you may not like his affected pronunciation, but what about him made him so wrong? I am by no means a crazy fan of him, only know him from this. Just wondering.

[AwesomeDanny]

Posted: 5/10/11 at 10:46pm

The problem with his voice is his excess of annoying vibrato. His voice also just doesn't feel as full as others who have sung the role. If he could control his vibrato, he would have a very nice voice, but completely wrong for the part.

[CockeyedOptimist2]

Posted: 5/10/11 at 10:49pm

It also just sounds so nasal. I found him really horrible to listen to both singing and talking in "West Side Story." The way he delivered his lines made me want to laugh at him because he just came off so cheesy (and not in a cute lovestruck boy cheesy way).

[BwayTday]

Posted: 5/10/11 at 11:02pm

Thank you. I can speak nothing to his acting, for I didn't see him. I am usually akin to "brighter" voices (in female or male belters), most high tenors need to have a certain twang to hit those notes, but I understand. The vibrato is kind of excessive, he could have pulled it back I suppose. Thank you for your answers.

[Nickira Margherita]

Posted: 5/11/11 at 1:47am

I loved the revival, I think mainly because of the sheer showmanship of it all. Karen Olivo may not have dance technique, but she can move and has a certain spark when she dances. You can have perfect technique but if you don't have a spark when you dance, I'm not going to care. And she made me care. "America" is my favorite piece of choreography from a show, so I guess I went into it pretty biased. God I wish there were video footage of Chita doing it when she was in the show. (Didn't there used to be a video on "that site" of the original cast performing "Cool"? I'd love to see that one, too. But I would kill for some original Chita footage).

The Spanish was kinda distracting, but since I know the show I still knew what was going on so it didn't bother me too much. And nothing beats hearing that score played by a full orchestra. I think I was very quick to forgive the shortcomings of the revival because I love the piece so much and will probably see any future professional productions they mount. This is NOT a show that should be done by high schools either, if mainly because the original choreography is iconic and most average high school performers can't do it justice. But I digress.

Why am I always so wordy?

[PalJoey]

Posted: 5/11/11 at 8:56am

You can see the Cool here. But it's not the original cast. It's from the 2nd year with Hank Brujes as Riff not Mickey Calin.

http://www.megavideo.com/?d=AR6D86WL

Posted: 5/12/11 at 1:46am

PJ that's a great point about the Jets--certainly many find the basic idea of men dancing as not tough, but that's just down to stereotypes--though I wonder if Laurents sees it as an insurmountable "problem". The actual choreography is athletic and agressive. I also think Sondheim managed to use Laurent's slang technique far more effectively (and with more sublety) in his lyrics.

That Ed Sullivan Cool was from when the show returned after the tour, wasn't it? 1959 or 60? nonetheless it's one of my all time fave Ed Sullivan clips (man I wish we could get these on DVD)--and I think for a dance piece filmed for tv it's surprisingly well directed. Stunning.

[The Other One]

Posted: 5/12/11 at 7:54am

Having some of the Sharks speak and sing in Spanish some of the time just didn't work. There was also a very casual feel to some of the direction, including moments such as Tony almost blithely walking into Maria's window after the rumble, that did not feel appropriate. The costumes, which came from no single era and at times reflected the 60s more than the 50s, were off-putting. The "Somewhere" ballet should not have been edited.

That said, it is still "West Side Story" and there was so much there of value, so much to treasure in the show, that it packed the punch I hoped for and I am grateful to have seen it.

A moment I remember loving was Maria realizing that she would stand out at the dance precisely because she would be the only girl there in a white dress. There was a great shared acknowledgment between her and Anita that I'd seen in no other production.

I saw it very, very late in its run, just before Christmas. The cast was largely replacements and understudies. Bernardo (George Akram) and Riff (Colt Prattes) were excellent. Maria (Sarah Amengual) and Anita (Natalie Cortez) were very good. Tony (Matt Shingledecker) seemed gay. He also seemed to be having an off-night vocally until, oddly, he went for his highest notes, which were lovely.

I agree with the original poster. I am glad to have seen WSS on Broadway; it is a show without peer.
Updated On: 5/12/11 at 07:54 AM

[wickedrentq]

Posted: 5/12/11 at 2:57pm

I think in general, how much you liked this production depended on how much you were familiar with the show and original/prior productions. I mean, for all the flaws I thought there were, if you went into this never having heard or known anything from WSS (okay, that's pretty rare), I'm sure you would have been blown away by the music alone. And I certainly don't fault anyone who felt that way.

"That said, I really doubt the majority of the audience noticed anything wrong with Karen's dancing"

I don't know, one of the worst aspects of it, for me, was that Graziella was clearly the better dancer, and since the Mambo is essentially a battle, the white girl "won" the mambo. That's just wrong. It seemed very obvious to me that Graziella was the better dancer and drew your attention, so I guess I would think some people noticed that, but hey, I could very much be wrong. But still, it was really bothersome. The white girl should not win the latin dance.

"Does anyone know specifically if Arthur made any cuts or changes to the book in the revival?"

YES! He took out Velma's stupid "ooblioo" line, that made me very happy.

And I think the Tony/Riff dialogue before Something's Coming was different, because I distinctly remember there wasn't an "uncle" and feeling that their friendship wasn't quite as established.

Then there was the fact that the lines were the same, but the direction just killed it, like when Maria's screaming KILLER! KILLER! at Tony, usually she just punches him and then collapses into him; in the revival, she just screamed it and ran into his arms. WTF?

And since lord knows I can't say this enough, let me explain why cutting the nightmare completely ruined the ballet. So both productions kept everything through the "Somewhere" song and through the post-"There's a place for us" repetition. So far we've seen Tony and Maria desperate to escape all the hatred, to find a place to be together, and at this point, they accomplish it, and they're happy. But then the music and the hatred are supposed to even come into their dream escape, the music sooo brilliantly changing from the dream to the nightmare, Riff and Bernardo coming back and killing each other and Tony and Maria not being able to stop it, and forced to be separated. Then they're back to the bedroom in desperation, clinging to each other, hanging on to a very small little hope. There's of course foreshadowing, and I think even they know at that point that while they'll try to escape, everything will get in the way, like it did in their dream. So in their desperation and fear, they make love.

Now let's take out the nightmare. So far we've seen Tony and Maria desperate to escape all the hatred, to find a place to be together, and at this point, they accomplish it, and they're happy. Then we go back to the bedroom and they reaffirm there's a place for them, and they'll be okay, and despite the fact that he killed her brother, they make love?? It makes sense that they do it because of the desperation and fear the nightmare brought on, but without the nightmare? That's just stupid and selfish.

[Performer]

Posted: 5/12/11 at 3:01pm

Personally, I absolutely loved this production. While it was probably because I had nothing to compare it to (it was my first time seeing the show), I thought it was just wonderful. While it may have had flaws - yes, I think the Spanish was a little frustrating to understand for someone like me who was not familiar with the actual english lyrics - I think that overall, it was still so so great.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 5/12/11 at 4:12pm

In a concert setting, like the NYC Ballet or Jerome Robbins' Broadway, the ballet without the nightmare is beautiful: a gorgeous piece of pure dance. It doesn't have to have a dramatic effect.

In the show, the ballet without the nightmare is insipid. A Gap commercial.

Robbins knew that--and devised the nightmare to bring Tony and Maria back to the world they had to face. Bernstein knew that--and composed the music to jolt the audience back to that place with Maria and Tony. The collaboration between Bernstein and Robbins was symbiotic. Lenny's music fit perfectly on Jerry's movements and Jerry's sense of drama and dynamics were the perfect physical expression of what Lenny felt.

Arthur know that too--and hated it. He waited 50 years to destroy it. He knew that the overall effect of Robbins's contribution to the show could be lessened by eliminating the nightmare from the ballet. Just like he knew that "dumbing down" Anita's choreography would also lessen the effect of dance in the show and make the audience focus more on Anita's acting in the two melodramatic scenes in Act Two.

It was an act of premeditated, cold-blooded revenge, artistic vandalism, artistic terrorism even. As one of their colleagues said to me recently, "How could anyone who had been part of creating something so beautiful go out of his way to destroy the beauty his collaborators created?"

And the son-of-a-bitch got away with it.

Updated On: 5/12/11 at 04:12 PM

[Oldschool]

Posted: 5/12/11 at 5:15pm

Pal Joey, spot on. Laurent's hated that the show was known for Robbins/Bernstein rather than Laurents. He deliberately downplayed the choreography to focus on the story. Claims that the use of Spanish made it more "real" are a fallacy. It's a crutch, a device, rather than making a functional contribution to the show. Lastly, and this is most important to why the revival sucked wind, was acting. The Jets, more so than the Sharks, couldn't act. It's not enough that you can dance, you've got to be able to act. The Jets couldn't act. To quote an audience member at the first invited preview in DC, at intermission, "They sound like a bunch of of gay computer geeks." While the pejorative is unfortunate, it does go to the fact that the cast didn't convey menace whatsoever. They didn't make anything feel real. Only the fight scene had tension. Tony seemed much too innocent to be an ex member of a gang. Tony had no edge whatsoever. He could have been plucked out of some teen magazine. One actors of the Jets, in a scene in Pops reminded me of "Doogie Houser." If nothing is a stake, then there's no tension and no story. In the Sharks, Chino was horrible. Yes, he's supposed to be shy. But the staging in the revival provided little connection between him and Bernardo, other than proximity, and his killing of Tony doesn't feel real. When he appeared from behind the set to shoot, I didn't care. That's really too bad.

[Patash]

Posted: 5/12/11 at 5:26pm

For me what the Broadway production lacked was a belief in the passion of Tony and Maria. There was none. No fire, no passion, no love shown. Without that, there really is no reason for the entire play.

[Kalimba]

Posted: 5/12/11 at 5:56pm

Besides the wonderful dancing by the ensemble, the production was devoid of any passion. Certain understudies who shall remain nameless had no business being allowed to go on.

[gvendo2005]

Posted: 5/12/11 at 10:41pm

Apparently "Gee, Officer Krupke" was tried with an F-bomb in put-in rehearsals in New York. Does anyone know if it finally made it to the stage?