"West Side Story:" Hijacked and Raped

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.

A Very Brief Word About the Theater

Why go to see a play?  Instead of, say, reading a novel?  They're both about stories, right? And some plays are even based on books, often well known.

"It's a night out," some might say.

"Or, I like to see live acting. No matter how many times it has been rehearsed, anything could happen and, arguably, no two performances are ever exactly the same."

Leaving comedy aside, the main reason to go to the theater, I think, is to experience emotional behavior of the sort that can't easily be expressed safely in ordinary life.  Often, such emotions are transgressive in nature -- the sort we often feel, but have to suppress because they are dangerous or antisocial. In this respect, one can argue the theater functions as a sort of safety valve.

I mention this because I just received a brochure in the mail from New York's Roundabout Theater Company, a respected non-profit entity that puts on Broadway plays. "Take A Ride On Our Emotional Roller Coaster," the cover of this flyer, announcing the 2019-2020 season, urges.

If you are interested, check out the company's website.

A Good Project for Lin-Manuel Miranda

Whatever happened to Maria?

How did the remainder of her life play out after Tony, the young white man she wanted,  was shot dead by her fellow Puerto Rican-American Chino at the end of "West Side Story?"  Maria, readers will recall, got the gun after Chino dropped it and threatened to use it to kill both others and herself, but couldn't pull the trigger. So there she was, still alive when the final curtain came down.

Arthur Miller's "All My Sons" Remains Relevant

The on-line version of The Wall Street Journal recently posed a question for readers: should startup technology companies in the U.S. be open to financing by Chinese venture capital?

Those responding must follow WSJ civility guidelines and identify themselves.  The paper then publishes a few answers soon after a question has been posed.

Vulnerable Women and "What the Constitution Means to Me"

I was recently in New York and, among other things, saw a much-discussed play on Broadway entitled "What the Constitution Means to Me."

In truth, it is more of a one-woman monologue than a play, although at the end, there is a brief debate between Heidi Schreck, the author and chief actor, and one of two school-age girls as to whether the Constitution should be kept or scraped.  Audience participation -- cheers or boos for the various points made -- are encouraged at that part of the show.

I mention this because Schreck focuses mainly on the 9th and 14th Amendments to the Constitution, the latter of which in particular underpins the Supreme Court's decision that a person's right to privacy (unmentioned explicitly in the Constitution) allows a woman to get an abortion without government interference at least in the first trimester of her pregnancy.

This is a hot topic at the moment because various individual states have recently passed legislation would undermine or overrule that decision. Moreover, because of recent changes in the make-up of the Supreme Court, it is possible Row v Wade, the landmark ruling on abortion, will eventually be revisited.

New York City's Fourth Dimension

In the preceeding post, with considerable help from a 1948 essay by E.B. White, I wrote about three types of New Yorkers: long-time residents, commuters and goal seekers who come from elsewhere, the third category being the most important.  But the city, and especially Manhattan, has an increasingly important fourth dimension: tourists, or very short-term visitors.

Defined as anyone who stays overnight or comes from at least 50 miles away, New York is expecting a record 67 million visitors in 2019, up from about 65 million in 2018 and only about 44 million in 2007 when former mayor Michael Bloomberg launched an effort to promote the city's attractions.

Most of these people will visit, or stay in Manhattan, which has a population of only 1.6 million people.  The population of all five of New York City's boroughs -- Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, The Bronx and Staten Island -- totals about 8.7 million.

I mention this because, as the New York Times noted, Broadway theaters have just had another record fiscal year (it ends in May, and then come the annual Tony awards) with 14.8 million people, spending about $1.8 billion on musicals and plays that qualify as "Broadway."  There are currently 41 Broadway Theaters, located near Times Square or at Lincoln Center, all of which have 500 seats or more.

Then, beyond that, and not counted in the attendance and spending statistics mentioned above, there are "Off-Broadway" theaters (at least 99, but less than 500 seats) and "Off-Off-Broadway" venues, which have less than 99 seats.

While most tourists probably attend long-running musicals for the most part, their spending has definitely helped promote a very encouraging revival in straight plays, both new works and first-class revivals of great plays from the past.

Broadway is alive and well if increasingly expensive when it comes to ticket prices (they have in recent years soared relative to the rate of inflation). But the industry's policy is to fill up every theater every night and as such, same-day discount tickets (half off in many cases) go on sale at three locations in Manhattan every day. Thousands of people take advantage of them.

Is Broadway Part of "The Problem?"

What is the problem?

In a slightly earlier post, I discussed the notion that America seems to be a nation of two narratives, and that has led to an extremely divisive political climate.

1) As a result of immigration and associated demographic shifts, whites appear to be heading toward minority status and as a result, power and culture will and should change.

2) White culture and white power should continue indefinitely, in part by curbing immigration, but also by getting rid of certain government programs and preferences for minorities such as affirmative action that are artificially and unfairly boosting such populations.

How does Broadway figure in this divide?

"The Little Foxes:" a Play for Our Time

I just saw the current Broadway revival of Lillian Hellman's play "The Little Foxes," first performed in 1939 and subsequently made into a film starting Bette Davis in 1941.

Hellman was a Southern, Jewish, ultra-liberal author and playwright (she was a member of the Communist Party for a couple of years) and "The Little Foxes" depicts how the rapacious pursuit of wealth in a capitalist environment crushes human values, destroying marriages and families in the process.