Free On Sondheim: An Opinionated Guide by Ethan Mordden
Authors: Ethan Mordden
history.
Then, too, musicals of the day juggled a succession of sets alternating from full-stage views to forestage views with sometimes cumbersome mechanical transitions, while West Side Story moved almost cinematically from view to view. The full stage was almost always in use, with smaller sets rolled on for the alleys, a bridal shop, a bedroom. Thus, there were none of the stop-and-start hiccups of the usual production; this gave West Side Story a unique air of suspense and inevitability as it charged from event to event.
Further affirming the show’s unique appeal was its resetting and updating of Romeo and Juliet , with just enough correspondence to give the audience the sense of a new reading of an old story, rather as with the theatre festivals of Ancient Greece. Better, West Side Story was Romeo and Juliet put into music, as Romeo wonders what marvelous adventure is on its way (in “Something’s Coming”), as the lovers take vows in secret (in “One Hand, One Heart”), as Juliet brings up the second-act curtain on a never-fail theatrical irony: the carefree moment before the bad news, in this case of the two deaths in the rumble (in “I Feel Pretty”).
Finally, West Side Story was the first Gesamtkunstwerk among musicals. The term is Richard Wagner’s, meaning, roughly, “all the arts combined in a single organism.” The fusion of script and score dated back to The Beggar’s Opera (1728), in the English genre called “ballad opera.” Dance was integrated in various ways in The Band Wagon (1931), Oklahoma! (1943), On the Town (1944), and The Golden Apple (1954). But West Side Story pioneered a seamless visual flow using a full-scale scenic design (as opposed to Allegro ’s “bare stage with bits and pieces” approach).
Even the cast’s résumés were integrated. The usual musical hired performers strong in acting, or in singing, or in dancing, then tried to blend them, more or less, into a unit. For West Side Story , however, Jerome Robbins wanted people who could do everything. So heroine Maria (Carol Lawrence) and her confidante, Anita (Chita Rivera), could act, sing, and dance. The leader of the Jets, Riff (Mickey Calin), urged transcendence upon his hyper cohort in “Cool”—but he did not then leave the stage to the ensemble for the dance, as he would have in many another musical: he dominated the choreography as he dominated the gang.
Again, West Side Story was a naturalized fantasy. True, the Sharks’ leader, Bernardo (Ken LeRoy), had been dancing since Oklahoma! , which made him far too old for the part. And the hero, Tony (Larry Kert), was a wonderful singer who could neither act nor dance. Still, Kert embodied the ardor that is the salient quality of Shakespeare’s text, that youthful wonder that makes the tragedy all the more harrowing. A song cut during the tryout, “Like Everybody Else,” sung by three of the Jets, emphasizes how the score takes its point of view from not society but its children. “I been to Night Court and I been rolled,” Baby John complains. “Why can’t I be old?” Here we see how much Shakespeare inheres in West Side Story , for Romeo and Juliet is all but overrun with the extravagant self-dramatizations of the young.
The parallels between play and musical are well observed, for Romeo meets Juliet at a ball, gets his close friend Mercutio killed through interference in a duel, and avenges him by killing Tybalt—and this is all in the musical. It does end differently: Maria survives. The authors were considering killing her as well, but Richard Rodgers advised them not to. “She’s dead already,” he told them.
Here are the musical’s characters next to their source counterparts:
In Shakespeare
In the musical
Montagues
Jets
Capulets
Sharks
Romeo
Tony
Juliet
Maria
Mercutio
Riff *
Tybalt
Bernardo
Juliet’s Nurse
Anita
Paris
Chino
Friar Laurence
Doc (proprietor of the local drug store)
The Prince of Verona
A combination of Lieutenant Schrank
Then, too, musicals of the day juggled a succession of sets alternating from full-stage views to forestage views with sometimes cumbersome mechanical transitions, while West Side Story moved almost cinematically from view to view. The full stage was almost always in use, with smaller sets rolled on for the alleys, a bridal shop, a bedroom. Thus, there were none of the stop-and-start hiccups of the usual production; this gave West Side Story a unique air of suspense and inevitability as it charged from event to event.
Further affirming the show’s unique appeal was its resetting and updating of Romeo and Juliet , with just enough correspondence to give the audience the sense of a new reading of an old story, rather as with the theatre festivals of Ancient Greece. Better, West Side Story was Romeo and Juliet put into music, as Romeo wonders what marvelous adventure is on its way (in “Something’s Coming”), as the lovers take vows in secret (in “One Hand, One Heart”), as Juliet brings up the second-act curtain on a never-fail theatrical irony: the carefree moment before the bad news, in this case of the two deaths in the rumble (in “I Feel Pretty”).
Finally, West Side Story was the first Gesamtkunstwerk among musicals. The term is Richard Wagner’s, meaning, roughly, “all the arts combined in a single organism.” The fusion of script and score dated back to The Beggar’s Opera (1728), in the English genre called “ballad opera.” Dance was integrated in various ways in The Band Wagon (1931), Oklahoma! (1943), On the Town (1944), and The Golden Apple (1954). But West Side Story pioneered a seamless visual flow using a full-scale scenic design (as opposed to Allegro ’s “bare stage with bits and pieces” approach).
Even the cast’s résumés were integrated. The usual musical hired performers strong in acting, or in singing, or in dancing, then tried to blend them, more or less, into a unit. For West Side Story , however, Jerome Robbins wanted people who could do everything. So heroine Maria (Carol Lawrence) and her confidante, Anita (Chita Rivera), could act, sing, and dance. The leader of the Jets, Riff (Mickey Calin), urged transcendence upon his hyper cohort in “Cool”—but he did not then leave the stage to the ensemble for the dance, as he would have in many another musical: he dominated the choreography as he dominated the gang.
Again, West Side Story was a naturalized fantasy. True, the Sharks’ leader, Bernardo (Ken LeRoy), had been dancing since Oklahoma! , which made him far too old for the part. And the hero, Tony (Larry Kert), was a wonderful singer who could neither act nor dance. Still, Kert embodied the ardor that is the salient quality of Shakespeare’s text, that youthful wonder that makes the tragedy all the more harrowing. A song cut during the tryout, “Like Everybody Else,” sung by three of the Jets, emphasizes how the score takes its point of view from not society but its children. “I been to Night Court and I been rolled,” Baby John complains. “Why can’t I be old?” Here we see how much Shakespeare inheres in West Side Story , for Romeo and Juliet is all but overrun with the extravagant self-dramatizations of the young.
The parallels between play and musical are well observed, for Romeo meets Juliet at a ball, gets his close friend Mercutio killed through interference in a duel, and avenges him by killing Tybalt—and this is all in the musical. It does end differently: Maria survives. The authors were considering killing her as well, but Richard Rodgers advised them not to. “She’s dead already,” he told them.
Here are the musical’s characters next to their source counterparts:
In Shakespeare
In the musical
Montagues
Jets
Capulets
Sharks
Romeo
Tony
Juliet
Maria
Mercutio
Riff *
Tybalt
Bernardo
Juliet’s Nurse
Anita
Paris
Chino
Friar Laurence
Doc (proprietor of the local drug store)
The Prince of Verona
A combination of Lieutenant Schrank