December 27, 2019
Re-imagining a classic is a lopsided proposition. Chances of making it better are slim and of making it worse, immense. Of course West Side Story was itself an adaptation of Romeo and Juliet but given the passage of several centuries, that update was probably in order. It’s been a good long while since the show first opened on Broadway in 1957 but only a decade since the most recent revival here. Too soon? Maybe.
The show’s still in previews until opening night on February 20 so this is a first take on a work in progress and therefore totally unfair. First, the good. The cast is solid, attractive, young and talented. The music is the original music from this show, and still great of course. The choreography is changed up from what we saw in the 1961 movie and still works pretty well, tho now more Zumba than ballet. The cast is fit and flexible, very Equinox-y ripped, and tatted up as folks often are this many years later. The back wall is a gigantic video screen that displays not only footage shot outside at other times but also some live views captured by videographers moving among the cast onstage in real time. That generally works well, particularly some drone shots that float a viewer dreamily down gritty industrial looking streets and the verite pov’s of some dynamic action scenes.
What didn’t work as well for this viewer was the story itself. In the original there was gang tension between newcomers, the Puerto Rican Sharks and their aggrieved Anglo counterparts fearing replacement, the Jets. It was a tale of xenophobia and racism that ought to resonate powerfully today, although four generations or so later it’s a stretch to cast Puerto Ricans in the outsider role they played in the 1960’s WSS. Ordinary racism certainly hasn’t gone away in the last decade, but ignoring Trumpism’s role in explicitly demonizing immigrant outsiders seems like a missed opportunity in this re-imagining.
Then there are anachronisms that place an ATM machine and a familiar yellow and red “We Card” poster inside Doc’s 1960 soda shoppe. Huh? Officer Krupke’s anthem was a light hearted, if biting, and irreverant moment in the original. Here it’s performed with what feels more like anger while a montage of police brutality unfolds on a giant screen behind the actors. Oh, and Officer Krupke’s badge, as depicted prominently in the montage, suggests he’s a mall cop ‘Special Officer’ not one of New York’s Finest. What the hay? Was this a deliberate choice or just sloppiness? Whichever, it felt off that the violence was apparently being mainly unloaded on the Jets rather than the Sharks. And why does a diverse gang like the Jets even care about the Sharks who seem, without the dark makeup and exaggerated accents of the original that so infuriated Rita Moreno, to have migrated from maybe only as far away as Randall’s or Roosevelt Island? Why aren’t they defending their UWS turf from a predatory gang of real estate speculators hellbent on the economic cleansing of their hood, we wondered? Isn’t that the actual battle front today in our city? Just look at the gentrified West Side that replaced the scrappy, working class neighborhood this musical made famous. Doc’s soda joint is probably a Starbucks now and Maria’s sweatshop a luxury loft or a yoga studio.
And don’t even get us started on the fog and rain effects that seemed to come and go almost randomly, at one point producing such a downpour that it seemed like it might flood the orchestra pit. We sat there wondering why are we even thinking about this in the middle of a performance? But all in all, everyone else seemed to enjoy the show, even giving it an extended standing O before shuffling out of the Broadway Theater and melting away into the Times Square night. Opening’s still two months away and anything can happen between now and then. They’ve got the finest ingredients to cook up something special and maybe they will. Could be, who knows? 3/5 Stars.
