The 2020 version of "West Side Story" opens on Broadway today (Feb. 20, 2020) and before the reviews are published tomorrow, I thought I would put forth my impressions, having seen the show just over a week ago near the end of its exceptionally long run of "previews."
My headline to this post pretty much says it all, but let me start out on a high note: Shereen Pimentel, who plays Maria has a lovely voice and, thankfully, she isn't over-miked as the singers in many Broadway musicals are. She doesn't, however, look much like the innocent girl we expect of Maria based on past productions and that may well be one reason why one of her signature song's from the past, "I Feel Pretty," is missing from this show.
The official reasons are 1) that it was dropped to speed up the action and 2) that it was dropped because Stephen Sondheim, who wrote the lyrics, says he is embarrassed by the song despite it's popular success.
Of the four big names behind the original production: Jerome Robbins (concept and the original choreography now largely scrapped; Leonard Bernstein, music; Arthur Laurents, script, and Sondheim, lyrics), Sondheim is the only one still alive. He's currently working on a new film version of the musical due out at the end of this year.
A January 22 story in the New York Times about the new production says, quite accurately, that, on the basis of the first three minutes of the new production, "if you have any expectations for 'West Side Story,' they should be immediately discarded."
The new show is not a revival. Rather it is described as a "reinterpretation of the classic musical with a modern flair." The cast is largely composed of people of color (think "Hamilton") and the production seems aimed at new generations addicted to viewing everything on screens.
There is no set -- the new version opens on a blank, black stage, the back of which becomes a huge video screen onto which are projected super-sized shots of the action as it takes place on stage, largely from camera persons who wander amid the action. While the effect may seem up-to-date (think sports stadiums and rock concerts where without huge screens, many of those in attendance wouldn't really be able to see what was happening in any detail), in a Broadway theater, it's a major distraction.
One simply doesn't know where to look: at the huge images on the screen, or at the now greatly diminished, almost miniaturized, actors on the stage. If the former, what's the point of sitting in very expensive seats in the theater? If the latter, why the distraction? One can't help having one's focus jump around in an exceptionally annoying fashion.
Sometimes the live action takes place on only a small portion of the stage, such when it occurs inside a room. Then, one has a TV-like PiP (picture-in-picture) effect where one simultaneously sees a blow-up of what's going on projected on "the big screen") with a little box of essentially the same thing contained within it. I say essentially because the cameras aren't showing exactly what any particular member of the audience may be able to view. Once again, where should one look?
The story, readers may recall, is all about a turf fight on the Upper West Side of New York between the Jets, a gang of late adolescent whites who view the territory as rightfully theirs, and the Sharks, a gang of similarly aged immigrants from Puerto Rico. A slightly older former Jet, Tony, is reluctantly dragged back into the action to help out with a key "rumble" that is about to occur. He, of course, in events leading up to that, falls passionately in love -- at first sight -- with the Puerto Rican girl Maria.
Unlike most Broadway musicals that preceded "West Side Story," there is no happy ending and the new, 2020 version is even more of a downer than the original, thanks in part to a graphic rape or attempted rape scene involving Maria's friend Anita. On the big screen, the audience sees one of the Jets clamp her breast while he or someone else puts a hand on her genitals. Shortly thereafter, she's on the floor with gang members around and on top of her, one of whom has his pants pulled down.
Strangely, she seems to recover from this rather quickly as the show continues.
It's a #MeToo incident for sure, and in that respect, reflects internally a controversy that is haunting the show outside on the street. There, a group of mostly women have been protesting the presence in the cast of Amar Ramasar (playing one of the lead roles). Ramasar was recently first dismissed and then after an internal review, rehired by the New York City Ballet after he and a couple of other since-departed NYCB dancers exchanged sexually explicit photos of female dancers, one of whom has forgiven Ramasar, but the other hasn't. (Ramasar wasn't performing the role on the evening that I attended the show.)
But back to the two gangs: the actors playing the Jets and Sharks look very much alike, resplendent with aggressive tattoos, and too old for the part. It's very difficult to tell them apart and as a result, the fighting scenes look pretty much like random brawls, at times broken up by 40s or 50s era police dressed and equipped as they would have been in the original Broadway production. They are either disconcertingly or hilariously (if you prefer) out of place and when a fight stops and the modern gangs stop fighting and slink off when one simply blows a whistle, the effect is ridiculously unbelievable. One wants to guffaw at the creators as opposed to laugh in what may be meant as comic relief.
What's the point? Well, at one point to remind viewers how contemporary and "relevant" this show is, some B-roll footage of Trump's border wall briefly appears on the big screen, behind the action on stage. Get it? The perceived threat of immigrants?
Well. I could go on, but the above is probably more than enough.
For alternative views -- and I suspect they will be MUCH more favorable -- read the reviews that come out tomorrow.
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