Ivo van Hove’s revival of 'West Side Story' for Broadway may seem outrageous to some musical theater purists, but it breaks all the right rules for the right reasons. Read our review
the wildly popular 1961 film starring Natalie Wood and Richard Beymer. Because let’s be real: That’s the version of Tony and Maria most people have stuck in their head. And it’s what audiences are comparing any staging to: whether it’s in a high school auditorium or in the 1,700-seat Broadway Theatre.
The large cast of young dancers and actors in the latest incarnation are recognizable as denizens of the 21st century . When we first see them, they enter a bare stage and form a line at its edge as an unseen camera slowly pans over their faces, which are projected on a monumental hi-def screen that fills the entire back wall behind them. We observe neck tattoos, scars, piercings; they’re dressed in hoodies, sweatpants, and bomber jackets.
We are now a culture that expects faces to become photos for them to be consumed, our “stories” are mini-movie scenes that are shared and go viral. So it tracks that when we see Riff and Tony , along with Maria , Anita , and Bernardo , they’re layered digitally on the upstage screen, along with the rest of the Jets and Sharks.
The pivotal moment for this production — when it truly escapes the strictures of its precursors and achieves a new level of genius — comes during the song “Tonight,” traditionally staged with Maria on her tenement building fire escape to reference thebalcony scene on which it’s based. Here, without any set to speak of, the duo start on the ground, touching one another tenderly.
A savvy use of the screen comes when, during “America” — the rambunctious song that pits the Puerto Rican men and women against each other as they argue about the advantages and humiliations of living in New York City — we see images of current neighborhoods of Puerto Rico, which then transition to video of the U.S.-Mexico border wall, starting in Tijuana and then moving east along the rift. When a rainstorm later bursts, flooding the stage, it’s the rupture we all need.
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