Shakespeare's West Side Story

September 26^th – I like my Shakespeare fresh. Not that I don’t enjoy the doublet-and-hose type of production, for a good 70% of his plays my enjoyment is in the quality of the writing, but I would always choose an interpretation of his work, not a recreation.

That’s one of the hallmarks of his writing, that 400+ years later it still resonates with our lives and how we live, and that’s because it deals with the human condition. There’s no fancy gimmicks in the staging of the works, no need for CGI or elaborate sets, the stories stand on their own two feet because it deals with things that are ever in flux but also remain constant; us, our emotions and core instincts, our capacity for heroism in the game-changer that is love and hate.

I’ve done a production of Romeo and Juliet set in a mock up of the Big Brother house, a Macbeth set on a chess board and an Alls Well That Ends Well set in a nightclub and in each case the text crosses the void and sits well in locations so far removed from England of the 1650’s as to be another planet almost; and the fact it effortlessly straddles different genres and time-frames with such ease are what makes Bill’s work so enduring and so relevant: West Side Story (WSS) based on Romeo and Juliet is a case in point.

On this day in 1957 the musical opened on Broadway with no one being at all sure how it would go down with punters reared on a diet of Hollywood extravaganzas with familiar faces and recognisable, safe storylines; the one thing Americans like above all others in their entertainment is familiarity. It’s what drives the makes, remakes and re-remakes of the present day in new film releases; remember that phrase I wrote some while ago that came from the mouth of the new artistic director of a theatre I stage managed?

From now on I only want us to book shows that sell out?

That’s the Holy Grail of Hollywood. Let’s see how many musical performer names you can recognise: Cyd Cherise – Donald O’Connor – Ginger Rogers – Fred Astaire – Gene Kelly. Easy, huh? Now let’s see how many cast members you recognise from the original Broadway and London productions of WSS:

Larry Kert – Carol Lawrence – Chita Rivera – Don McKay – George Chakaris – David Holliday – Mary Preston

I’d lay money on only two of those names being familiar: Messers Rivera and Chakaris, and probably Chakiris only because of what he’s done since WSS. BTW, if you do recognise more than those two then I’d strongly suggest you need to seek professional help in drawing back the living room curtains and letting in a little light.

To say it was a groundbreaking musical in subject matter, choreography and social comment is an understatement. Much like Look Back In Anger, John Osborne’s warts-and-all drama of 1956 did in the UK, so WSS proved to be a watershed in what material the musical could tackle successfully. Unfortunately, as with all things good, the genre has now been twisted into X-Factor Lycra and anything is fair game for musical interpretation now, but back then it really was a significant piece of work and, dare I say it, still is. When the film musical of WSS was released, it, too, confounded all that had gone before, so much so that it won ten Academy Awards out of the eleven it had been put up for and, IMHO, has yet to be bettered even to this day; been equalled but not bettered.

I’ve had the pleasure of working on two stage productions of WSS and watched the DVD on countless occasions and it never fails to captivate and astound, never fails to move and inspire. Apart from modern additions, it’s remained a constant in my top-ten musicals ever since I put it together ten years ago…maybe I’m the one who requires curtain-help…?

Back to the England in the 1590’s. A young W. Shakespeare is in the throes of completing his first quarto of R&J and has high hopes that it’ll run the week, no doubt. What sort of reception it got we’ll never know, what we do know is that in 1662 Samuel Pepys saw it and wrote;

It is a play of itself the worst that I ever heard in my life

So I think we can take it that he wasn’t impressed. Not so the critical reception of the original WSS Broadway production. All were unanimous in acclaiming the work with words like exciting, captivating, breathtaking, hard-edged and provocative sprinkled throughout the first-night revues it was little wonder that WSS has gone on to become the standard against which all other modern musicals would be judged, the majority of them coming up sadly lacking; Mr. Shakespeare would be well pleased.