The Broadway fairies were good to us - tickets for West Side Story were indeed available at TKTS yesterday, so Sarah, Rob, and I went to see it last night. It was awesome. The dancing was incredible. The set design was fantastic and creative. The cast was top notch (although - oddly - Tony and Maria each sounded fine on their own, they sounded fine when singing with other people, but when they sang duets with each other, they did not sound good at all - it was weird).
This revival has the Puerto Ricans speaking in Spanish the majority of the time that they are among their "own kind," and also often singing in Spanish. Sarah didn't care for this directive choice at all (though she speaks fluent Spanish and could follow what they were saying and singing). I know only a smattering of Spanish vocab, and thus couldn't understand what they were saying 99% of the time, but it didn't bother me as much - I can see how it would make sense, it's what 1st generation immigrants often do when among their fellow immigrants. And I'm familiar enough with the music to know what the songs were about in English, but it still did change the experience to not be able to understand what was being sung. I suppose the effect they were going for - aside from the realism - was to alienate English-only audience members to the same degree that the PRs are alienated in the play.
On a similar note - I did notice right away that the words to "America" were different than what I know them to be. I am most familiar with the movie soundtrack, which I listen to pretty regularly, and which casts "America" as the girl Sharks singing the glories of America (idealizing the land and their experience of it, focusing on the possibilities America offers), and the boys keep popping in with sarcasm and the reality of how they are treated here. In the play, it's only the girls singing, one of whom is homesick and idealizing life back in Puerto Rico, while Anita keeps reminding her of the harsh realities of life there, and why America is better than that.
Prior to yesterday, I've only ever seen the play staged once, over a decade ago, at my hometown community theatre. I don't remember noticing this difference in the songs back then, but I also don't remember if I'd already owned the CD and was super familiar with West Side Story back then. . .in any case, Sarah owns the original Broadway recording of the music, so we listened to her version today, and it matched the play exactly.
This just makes me wonder why they changed the lyrics for the movie?
It also makes me wonder why they didn't use the movie version for this revival of the play? I mean, I suppose to be a true revival, it would have to be true to the original. But this production seemed to emphasize the bigger picture issues addressed in the play - of immigration and community violence. The movie version of the song serves these purposes much better, as it is a much more pointed political commentary on both the dreams and the treatment of immigrants (especially non-white immigrants) in this country.
The original lyrics, on the other hand, better serve the individual tragic trajectories of the play: Anita is the one defending America in the song, her blindness to its dangers (whether true naivete or intentional ignorance) is her tragic flaw, and Anita is ultimately betrayed by America, whose violence kills her beloved Bernardo and then attacks her when she tries - even after his horrific death - to continue believing in the promise of America, the violence attacks her as she tries to help Tony and Maria find the somewhere they can live in peace. I guess that makes the same point, teases out the same themes, just on a much more personal scale.
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