West Side Story – Broadway Theatre, New York

Isaac Powell and Shereen Pimentel in West Side Story at the Broadway Theatre, New York. Picture: Julieta Cervantes

West Side Story continues at the Broadway Theatre, New York, although performances have been cancelled through to 12 April 2020 due to the coronavirus emergency.

Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Yes, it has its idiosyncrasies, to put it mildly, but Ivo van Hove’s overhaul of West Side Story is a spectacular event.

The production overrides all its pre- and post-opening tumult – rehearsal injuries, cast replacements, #MeToo protests against one of its principals (ballet dancer Amar Ramasar), reams of analysis by Broadway pundits as to the intentions of van Hove, known for his aggressive directorial approach, and his collaborators.

It emerges as its own force of nature. At the same time, it seemingly fulfils the intentions of the show’s pantheon quartet of creators.

For those of you who may need reminding, West Side Story, which first exploded on Broadway in 1957, the first of its six times on Broadway, was based on “a conception” by Jerome Robbins, who directed and choreographed. It boasted music by Leonard Bernstein, a book by Arthur Laurents and lyrics by a Broadway fledgling named Stephen Sondheim.

What they delivered was a contemporary yet timeless retelling of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, a soaring, heart-stopping depiction of love destroyed by a society boiling over with hatred. Romeo became Tony, the respected leader of a street gang of New York youths, the Jets, at war with the Sharks, Puerto Rican immigrants.

Juliet was transformed into Maria, newly arrived to America and the sister of Bernardo, leader of the Sharks. Maria is mentored in this new environment by Anita, Bernardo’s girlfriend.

Their story plays out in a brilliant landmark fusion of music, dance and theatre. Of course, in van Hove’s integration, there is yet another factor: video. It’s perhaps the show’s most controversial element. The back wall of the wide-open set (designed and brilliantly lit by Jan Versweyveld) is constantly filled with gargantuan video. Sometimes it is simply a scene-setter, showing a brooding, urban landscape. Often it closes in on segments of the choreography being performed on stage.

And sometimes book scenes are partially or totally enacted on the big screen. You may get the feeling you’re watching “West Side Story, Yet Another Movie Version”.

The concept is most problematic with the dancing. The video simply dwarfs the on-stage dancers, who can look like a horde of insects scurrying around frantically.

Still, there are many moments when the combination of video, music and story is overwhelming, as in Maria and Anita’s climactic duet ‘I Have a Love’. Gigantic closeups of the two pairs of lovers projected behind them elevate the number’s heart-breaking pathos.

Also riling up the show’s detractors was the choice of choreographer, the Belgian experimentalist Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, brought on to replace Robbins’ revered work with a more modern – perhaps street-wise – approach.

However, to my eyes, the show’s dance, once you adjust attention away from the video, struts, gallops and flies with grand infectious energy and zest. It drives the storytelling, as it should, with gasp-inducing ferocity.

It also melds seamlessly into van Hove’s frequently expressionistic, intense staging, amplifying story points and musical numbers with a fresh point of view. ‘Tonight’, Tony and Maria’s first declaration of their love, has the Jets and the Sharks lined up behind them, tugging them apart.

What I can’t say is how much the two “dance consultants”, who were brought on late in the proceedings, contributed. They were veteran Broadway choreographer Sergio Trujillo (a Tony Award winner for Ain’t Too Proud) and ballet dancer Patricia Lucia Delgado, who is also an associate producer of the show.

Indisputable, however, is the strength of the casting, a company of 53 of multiple ethnicities, including swings and understudies, many of them making their Broadway debuts. There are plenty of facial tattoos and tough-looking streetwear. (An D’Huys did the costumes, Andrew Sotomayor the make-up and tattoo design.). It sometimes blurs the two groups, but the menace and friction between them keep the stage taut.

As Tony, Isaac Powell is terrific, with just a touch of youthful swagger threaded through the desire to break away from the gang life. Among the show’s most revelatory moments is Powell’s rendering of ‘Maria’, 
filling this ode to the girl Tony has just met – and kissed – with humour and unrestrained sexiness along with the rhapsodic ecstasy of first love.

Shereen Pimentel imbues Maria with an appealing womanliness, authentically strong-willed and smart. She could almost make you believe that van Hove’s cutting of Maria’s girly ‘I Feel Pretty’ number was a wise decision, even though it would have been undoubtedly a joy to hear her glorious singing ripple through the song’s lilting melody.

(The doing away with ‘I Feel Pretty’ is probably among the most sorely missed among the various cuts made by van Hove. The show now runs a fleeting 100 minutes or so with no intermission.)

Amar Ramasar is a Bernardo of unbreakable machismo. It’s a machismo that he lavishes understandably on the flash and sizzle of Yesenia Ayala’s Anita, a character further enriched by a deep sense of humanity.

Then, there is the reward of Bernstein’s masterful score, ear-filling and soul-touching, magnificently rendered by the 25-piece orchestra, conducted with palpable passion by music supervisor and director Alexander Gemignani. In a welcome bow to tradition, van Hove keeps the musicians ensconced in the orchestra pit.

Writing about the creation of West Side Story in his book Finishing the Hat, Sondheim tells of what he learned from working with Bernstein. “The largest lesson was the one I took from both his art and his life: namely that the only chances worth taking are big ones,” Sondheim writes. “All the mistakes he made, if indeed they were mistakes, were huge – he never fell off the lowest rung of the ladder.”

The same might be said of van Hove in his rebirthing of West Side Story. It’s the kind of event where even the ideas you might find most egregious still contribute to its memorable impact.

Ron Cohen