West Side Story Broadway Reviews

But even with its invigorated Tony, the production remains erratic. It has not adequately addressed an imbalance in the acting ranks that muffles one of the turbulent centers of the show: the trigger-happy hatred between the gangs, the white-ethnic J...

But even with its invigorated Tony, the production remains erratic. It has not adequately addressed an imbalance in the acting ranks that muffles one of the turbulent centers of the show: the trigger-happy hatred between the gangs, the white-ethnic Jets and Puerto Rican Sharks. To put it plainly, the Jets, those angry, sneering products of America's social breakdown, have been miscast. They come across in this version as if they were the kinds of classroom scamps who were candidates for detention rather than three-to-five in the state pen. Sure, it's a challenge, embodying a thug while singing Leonard Bernstein's satiny music and leaping gazelle-like to Jerome Robbins's balletic choreography. And yet, they don't for a minute allow us to believe that they could sow violence at the slightest provocation.

Librettist Arthur Laurents has decided to take on the project nonetheless, directing the play himself and abetted by Joey McKneely (reproducing Robbins's original choreography), music director Patrick Vaccariello, and more than a dozen above-the-titl...

Librettist Arthur Laurents has decided to take on the project nonetheless, directing the play himself and abetted by Joey McKneely (reproducing Robbins's original choreography), music director Patrick Vaccariello, and more than a dozen above-the-title producers. They've filled the stage with a big cast and seem to have consciously made the show look and feel as different from the original as they dare. The score is intact, and generally sounds marvelous—far and away, the best element of this production is the big Broadway orchestra playing this music for us. The dancing is intact too, as Robbins ordained, but it is utterly devoid of life or energy, sitting uneasily on performers for whom it was not created.

I give Arthur Laurents credit for wanting to make 'West Side Story' new -- especially given the fact that the Robbins-supervised 1980 Broadway revival, a carbon copy of the original production, wasn't very successful -- but no amount of tough-guy ret...

I give Arthur Laurents credit for wanting to make 'West Side Story' new -- especially given the fact that the Robbins-supervised 1980 Broadway revival, a carbon copy of the original production, wasn't very successful -- but no amount of tough-guy retouching can make 'West Side Story' into anything other than what it is, a starry-eyed group portrait of a bunch of basically nice kids who find themselves caught up in an unforgiving world of violence and hate. To pretend otherwise, as this staging mostly does, is to get wrong what Mr. Laurents and his collaborators got so gloriously right a half-century ago.

The tale of a doomed romance between the sister of a Puerto Rican gang leader and the co-founder of a posse of all-American hoodlums was pretty hot stuff when West Side Story opened on Broadway in 1957. But the key to its visceral power has always be...

The tale of a doomed romance between the sister of a Puerto Rican gang leader and the co-founder of a posse of all-American hoodlums was pretty hot stuff when West Side Story opened on Broadway in 1957. But the key to its visceral power has always been Leonard Bernstein's score, a spine-tingling olio of jazz, Latin and classical textures and rapturous melodies that reveal as much about Tony and Maria's feelings as the wonder-struck lyrics provided by a very young Stephen Sondheim. Those elements are very much intact in the new revival that opened Thursday at the Palace Theatre. But there is a nagging self-consciousness here that clearly owes much to director Arthur Laurents. Laurents also wrote the original book and is determined that this production enhance its authenticity and fair-mindedness.

The idea that a musical as brilliant as 'West Side Story' would require reinventing seems a bit dubious, and the doubts are confirmed by the new Broadway revival. Reconceived and staged by its original book writer Arthur Laurents to achieve a new lev...

The idea that a musical as brilliant as 'West Side Story' would require reinventing seems a bit dubious, and the doubts are confirmed by the new Broadway revival. Reconceived and staged by its original book writer Arthur Laurents to achieve a new level of grittiness, this production features a lot of tweaks -- most notably the use of Spanish for two of the songs and some of the dialogue -- that don't add appreciably to its impact. And unlike the 91-year-old Laurents' recent smash revival of 'Gypsy,' this production is further undercut by some significant deficiencies in the staging and performances.

The production is under the direction of Arthur Laurents, the man responsible for the musical's original book. He has done some tweaking of the star-crossed tale of Tony and Maria, but it still seems a little sketchy and slow, even with some surprisi...

The production is under the direction of Arthur Laurents, the man responsible for the musical's original book. He has done some tweaking of the star-crossed tale of Tony and Maria, but it still seems a little sketchy and slow, even with some surprising innovations. And its emotional impact is oddly muted. Not so those Robbins' dances, which grab you right from the show's Prologue and then explode periodically throughout the evening. One such detonation is the Dance at Gym when the rival gangs go head to head in a swirling, temperature-raising contest; another is 'America,' a high-kicking salute by the spirited Anita and the other Puerto Rican girls to their adopted country.

But even though Laurents has taken some steps to modernize the book—chiefly by enlisting Lin-Manuel Miranda (In the Heights) to translate some of the dialogue and two of the songs into Spanish, ostensibly to impart a more realistic vibe to the proc...

But even though Laurents has taken some steps to modernize the book—chiefly by enlisting Lin-Manuel Miranda (In the Heights) to translate some of the dialogue and two of the songs into Spanish, ostensibly to impart a more realistic vibe to the proceedings—the show too often comes off as perfunctory, a cursory sprucing up of a touchstone that may have been better off left dusty and authentic. And in the end, the play’s dramatic power has nothing to do with contemporary relevance and everything to do with the songs and Robbins’s choreography. In fact, this production exposes too baldly the central flaw of the libretto: Tony and Maria, the Romeo and Juliet stand-ins (played here by Matt Cavenaugh and Josefina Scaglione), may be nice kids, but they’re also the show’s least interesting characters; Tony, in particular, is something of a drip.

The much-anticipated rethinking of 'West Side Story' is neither revelation nor vandalism. It is still 'West Side Story,' with those jazzy, jagged, gloriously (and shamelessly) sentimental Leonard Bernstein songs and (most of) Stephen Sondheim's swagg...

The much-anticipated rethinking of 'West Side Story' is neither revelation nor vandalism. It is still 'West Side Story,' with those jazzy, jagged, gloriously (and shamelessly) sentimental Leonard Bernstein songs and (most of) Stephen Sondheim's swaggering, dazzling lyrics. In other words, it's still a wonderful show. As promised, new director (and original author) Arthur Laurents has darkened the violence in his bilingual revival of the 1957 landmark musical that transports Romeo and Juliet to mean-street Manhattan... The physical production is surprisingly conventional - modest in imagination if not in budget. And despite the tougher edge in Joey Mc-Kneely's reconsideration of Jerome Robbins' character-defining choreography, the second-act ballet sequence, 'Somewhere,' is as sappy as a love-in and sung by a boy soprano. Why do the Jets pretend to row a boat in a hard-hitting 'Gee, Officer Krupke'? And how are we to buy the concept's gritty new realism when the Jets have the same artfully applied smudges on their faces throughout the show?

Forget the Sharks' and Jets' bad boys. It's the girls who rule in this uneven new Broadway production of 'West Side Story,' which manages only intermittently to take us 'somewhere' special... Yes, Spanish is woven into dialogue and songs, including '...

Forget the Sharks' and Jets' bad boys. It's the girls who rule in this uneven new Broadway production of 'West Side Story,' which manages only intermittently to take us 'somewhere' special... Yes, Spanish is woven into dialogue and songs, including 'A Boy Like That' ('Un Hombre Asi'). But because Spanish starts and stops within a scene, the concept feels arbitrary, less organic than even Ricky Ricardo's picante fits on 'I Love Lucy.'

Laurents injected added realism by having the Sharks speak in their native Spanish much of the time. And Lin Manuel Miranda of 'In the Heights' fame had the task of translating two very familiar songs, 'I Feel Pretty' and 'A Boy Like That' into 'Sien...

Laurents injected added realism by having the Sharks speak in their native Spanish much of the time. And Lin Manuel Miranda of 'In the Heights' fame had the task of translating two very familiar songs, 'I Feel Pretty' and 'A Boy Like That' into 'Siento Hermosa' and 'Un Hombre Asi.' The result is very effective and certainly deepens the characters. The problem is the renewed focus on gritty realism forces more scrutiny on the rest of the elements. The gang members are hardly threatening at all.

An air of immediacy and spontaneity infuses all of Arthur Laurents' high-impact staging. He retains the original vibrancy of this street-gang Romeo and Juliet while giving it a harsh, jagged edge. Laurents, author of the book, has said he wanted to p...

An air of immediacy and spontaneity infuses all of Arthur Laurents' high-impact staging. He retains the original vibrancy of this street-gang Romeo and Juliet while giving it a harsh, jagged edge. Laurents, author of the book, has said he wanted to put danger back into the 1957 show, after too many productions (and the 1961 Oscar-winning film version) had made the rival Jets and Sharks seem too much like adorable musical-comedy versions of juvenile delinquents.

It's tempting to reward this uneven but enjoyable revival — helmed by 91-year-old Laurents himself — solely for the bilingual innovation. But for 52 years, the Jets have had the upper hand over their Spanish-speaking rivals, the Sharks, in this m...

It's tempting to reward this uneven but enjoyable revival — helmed by 91-year-old Laurents himself — solely for the bilingual innovation. But for 52 years, the Jets have had the upper hand over their Spanish-speaking rivals, the Sharks, in this musical retelling of Romeo and Juliet set among mid-'50s Manhattan street gangs. The Jets have more lines and more scenes; they get three songs of their own — one which exists solely to establish their superiority ('When you're a Jet you're the top cat in town'). They even had their own language: 'Daddy-O,' 'Cracko-jacko,' 'Buddy boy.' Now, Laurents and Miranda have leveled the playing field; by translating a few key scenes — our first encounter with Maria and Anita (the sensational Karen Olivo) in the bridal shop, the pre-'America' banter between the Puerto Rican guys and their girls — the Sharks have more presence. By letting them sing in Spanish, they reclaim their own language as well.

In the production that opened Thursday night at the Palace Theater, which lovingly replicates Mr. Robbins’s balletic choreography, what prevails is a tenderhearted awareness of the naked vulnerability of being young and trapped in an urban jungle. ...

In the production that opened Thursday night at the Palace Theater, which lovingly replicates Mr. Robbins’s balletic choreography, what prevails is a tenderhearted awareness of the naked vulnerability of being young and trapped in an urban jungle. Half a century ago middle-class adult theatergoers were shocked and appalled by the brutality of the ethnic gang warfare of “West Side Story.” (The first sentence of Brooks Atkinson’s review in The New York Times said that “the material is horrifying.”) This time audiences — the grown-ups, anyway — are more likely to respond with feelings of parental protectiveness.

Arthur Laurents, who wrote the book back in 1957 and directs this production, has snipped that 'the original was about dancing and singing.' Clearly he thought that not enough attention's been paid to his own contribution over the years. So he set o...

Arthur Laurents, who wrote the book back in 1957 and directs this production, has snipped that 'the original was about dancing and singing.' Clearly he thought that not enough attention's been paid to his own contribution over the years. So he set out to boost the narrative 'Romeo and Juliet' transposed to New York gangs in the late 1950s in his revival. Because who wants to see 'West Side Story' for the dancing and singing, right?

Fortunately for a new generation yet to see this show produced at this level, it retains the heart, soul and original moves and sounds of a theatrical masterpiece with Leonard Bernstein melodies so beautiful they reverberate deep in your chest. And y...

Fortunately for a new generation yet to see this show produced at this level, it retains the heart, soul and original moves and sounds of a theatrical masterpiece with Leonard Bernstein melodies so beautiful they reverberate deep in your chest. And yet this new production also radically updates and rejuvenates the show’s social milieu. It’s an ensemble-driven change—rather than the individual lead performances—that dominates the feeling and impact of this production.

The musical’s status as a masterpiece rests largely on its two most exceptional assets: the expansive push and pull of Bernstein’s score, and the extraordinary mix of truculence and grace in the dances created by the show’s original director-ch...

The musical’s status as a masterpiece rests largely on its two most exceptional assets: the expansive push and pull of Bernstein’s score, and the extraordinary mix of truculence and grace in the dances created by the show’s original director-choreographer, Jerome Robbins. But modern audiences, weaned on the sour milk of irony, have a built-in resistance to song and dance in a dramatic context, especially one so violent as West Side Story’s. The show had to adapt, and Laurents has labored—within the constraints of what remains a faithful account of a 1950s musical—to disguise its traces of old-fashioned corn and bring its themes into hardened focus.

In this staging, there are notable improvements, starting with the danced Prologue, in which the Jets and Sharks seem more numerous and threatening than ever before. Similarly, the near- rape of Maria’s friend Anita is more realistically terrifying...

In this staging, there are notable improvements, starting with the danced Prologue, in which the Jets and Sharks seem more numerous and threatening than ever before. Similarly, the near- rape of Maria’s friend Anita is more realistically terrifying. Maria and the Latino girls who sing the comic song “I Feel Pretty” are shown doing things, such as nail polishing. Each gang member now has more of an individual personality.

The darkening touches that librettist-director Arthur Laurents has added seem natural rather than intrusive: the cops more nakedly bigoted than of old, the 'Somewhere' dream and the ending more overtly hopeless. With a story and score so widely famil...

The darkening touches that librettist-director Arthur Laurents has added seem natural rather than intrusive: the cops more nakedly bigoted than of old, the 'Somewhere' dream and the ending more overtly hopeless. With a story and score so widely familiar, putting much of the Boricuan song and speech into Spanish adds a salsa flavor instead of confusion.

The consummate craftsmanship of 'West Side Story,' with its matchless ability to weave a solemn narrative through music and dance, still dazzles after more than 50 years. Leonard Bernstein's majestic score, in particular, is undiminished, shifting fl...

The consummate craftsmanship of 'West Side Story,' with its matchless ability to weave a solemn narrative through music and dance, still dazzles after more than 50 years. Leonard Bernstein's majestic score, in particular, is undiminished, shifting fluidly between blasts of syncopated brass fueled by testosterone and rage, and some of the most achingly beautiful expressions of love ever sung. So it's rewarding to report that after nearly three decades' absence from Broadway, this masterwork has been given the revival it deserves. Under the knowing direction of Arthur Laurents, the 1957 show remains both a brilliant evocation of its period and a timeless tragedy of disharmony and hate.

Now the ninety-one-year-old Laurents is laying his claim to ownership: in this bold makeover, the story rules. From the musical’s first beats—which tone down the finger-snapping thrust of Bernstein’s signature prologue with pauses that allow us...

Now the ninety-one-year-old Laurents is laying his claim to ownership: in this bold makeover, the story rules. From the musical’s first beats—which tone down the finger-snapping thrust of Bernstein’s signature prologue with pauses that allow us to take in the individual gang members—Laurents announces his intention to leave his fingerprints on the classic. They don’t smudge its beauty; in fact, his attempts to heighten the show’s realism only enhance it. In his version, the gang members actually look like teen-agers; the Latina chorus girls are not Broadway beautiful; the costumes (by David C. Woolard) and set designs (by James Youmans) explore the subtle, shadowy ranges of a color palette that takes the show away from glitzy spectacle and toward a grittier, more muted stylization. By eliminating blackouts between scenes, Laurents also adds to the story’s tension. The evening as a whole feels sculpted—no gesture, no word, no visual choice is arbitrary or wasted. Laurents’s most innovative touch is to have the Puerto Ricans sometimes speak and sing in Spanish. Fifty years on, in a multicultural America, this decision makes the production feel fresh,