Already eager to start his Broadway career as a composer and a lyricist, he was convinced by his mentor Oscar Hammerstein to debut as the show’s lyricist, the junior member of a team comprised of three well known artists: composer Leonard Bernstein, director and choreographer Jerome Robbins, and playwright Arthur Laurents. WEST SIDE STORY was Stephen Sondheim’s first foray on a Broadway stage in 1957.
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This may be anachronistic, but those in the know ( like Tony Kushner himself) will chuckle because, of course, these relatively new electric trains screech out the opening three notes to “Somewhere.” When you leave a movie and even public transit sounds like music, you know it’s something special.The West Side Story creative team: lyricist Stephen Sondheim, book writer Arthur Laurents, co-producer Hal Prince, co-producer Robert Griffith, composer Leonard Bernstein, and diretor/choreographer Jerome Robbins. Other New York grace notes included a visit to the Cloisters museum uptown (the “wedding scene” moved from the dress shop) and the audio mix’s savvy inclusion of the sound of modern subway brakes. This is a nice historical touch considering Leonard Bernstein’s later affiliation, and it also happens to be where the film’s premiere and press screening was held. (Tony is a Polish Catholic.) There’s also more backstory given about the changes in the neighborhood, like how it is being torn down to make way for New York City’s arts campus, Lincoln Center.
When the cops harass them (not nearly as much as they harass the Sharks), they are taunted as “the last of the can’t make-it-Caucasians,” unlike the Irish, Italians, and Jews who moved out to the suburbs. We learn more about Maria and Bernardo’s family, and there’s additional shading to the Jets as well. It’s silly to do a compare and contrast to the original, but this new version does take a greater effort to round out the characters. Steven Spielberg on the set of ‘West Side Story.’ (Courtesy 20th Century Films)
(Spielberg’s version is even more energetic than the original.) You look at a number like “Gee, Officer Krupke” and it’s vaudeville schtick crystallized in its purest form. Producer Harold Prince, composer Leonard Bernstein, and lyricist Stephen Sondheim, all Jewish, rounded out the principal creative team for its 1957 debut. Arthur Laurents (also Jewish) thought that this felt a little old hat, and pointed to the newest influx of immigrants, whose stories had not been told: Puerto Ricans. The concept was for the doomed lovers to be an Irish Catholic boy and a Jewish girl, a Holocaust survivor who comes to New York via Israel. The original Broadway production from director and choreographer Jerome Robbins (Jerry Rabinowitz) was first conceived back in 1947 as (aha!) “East Side Story,” set on Manhattan’s packed-and-blended immigrant neighborhood, the Lower East Side. The overall Jewishness of “West Side Story” is pretty baked-in, anyway. The essence of Doc is still there, and while it is slightly disappointing that there’s no explicit Jewish representation in this version, casting Moreno in this clutch role is perfect. Having her share a scene with the new Anita (Ariana DeBose) and also sing the tune “Somewhere” (normally sung by Tony and Maria) is an absolute coup for this production. Doc’s drugstore, the neutral ground between the rival gangs the Jets and the Sharks, is now run by his widow, Valentina, played by 90-year-old Rita Moreno, the Puerto Rican actress who won the Oscar for the role of Anita in the 1961 film version. Doc, as a character, is still represented, he’s just dead. The biggest change, and one that may rankle Jewish audiences, is that Spielberg and “Angels in America” playwright Kushner, two Jewish titans of their craft making their third collaboration (with a fourth en route), have mostly eliminated Doc, the drugstore owner, the one Jewish character from the original, and the moral voice of righteousness and reason.īut hold on a minute, let me explain. A still from ‘West Side Story’ by director Steven Spielberg.
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