West Side Story
"Why do we always have to do rather cheapish stories in musical comedies? Why can't we do something where we use the best part of ourselves? Why do I have to go over to the ballet company?... Why did Lenny have to write a symphony? Why did Arthur have to write [ a serious play ]? I said why can't we put all that together into a work that we like and try our best to put our best features that we're capable of into a work?... So we did."
- Jerome Robbins |
Necessary Realism
The world of Broadway was on its way to reaching that theoretical "holy grail" of a musical. It had been set on the right track by Hammerstein and Kern in Show Boat, followed quickly by Rogers and Hammerstein in Oklahoma!, which created a new standard as far as musical theatre goes, providing a baseline for everything that followed. However, this show brought on the Golden Age of Broadway. An important stage in history but, nonetheless, a flawed one. Something was missing from the musical environment, and it was something vital to achieving that overall excellence wanted so badly on the big stage. Ironically, this aspect, the presence of which was holding back evolution from actualizing the concept of perfection, was the idea of perfection itself. The cheerfulness present in the Golden Age's "tie-up-all-the-strings happy ending" was just never present in the real world, day to day lives of Broadway's audience. The solution to this problem, and the final turning point in the history of New York's Great White Way, was Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim's modernized version of Romeo and Juliet, West Side Story. Below is perhaps the most popular number from this bridge in Broadway's history. It's America. Enjoy.
Building Bridges
In 1949, composer Leonard Bernstein received a call from Jerome Robbins concerning an idea for a new Broadway show. Loosely based on Shakespear's Romeo and Juliet, Robbins' idea was titled East Side Story. The male and female lead would be Catholic and Jewish, living, as the name suggests, in NYC's Lower East Side. Unfortunately, when the two creators decided their librettist would be Arthur Laurents, complications arose due to scheduling problems. The project was put off for nearly six years and, when they finally did begin to put work into East Side Story, the whole Jewish/Catholic conflict seemed old and unimportant. Meanwhile, in Los Angleles, an outbreak of gang violence was big news, and was being talked about on many radio stations. The creators realized that this would make a much more enthralling story, if the characters in the musical were from two rival gangs - Puerto Rican (Sharks) and white ethnic (Jets). Another important change was the name. East Side Story was changed to West Side Story. A little into the pre-production process, Bernstein began to understand that this particular show required strong lyrics and even stronger music. This was, in actuality, a task that couldn't be accomplished alone. Thus, Stephen Sondheim, previously mentored by Oscar Hammerstein, was recruited as the team's lyricist. After this, actors were drafted and rehearsal begun.
The Tragedy Factor
When someone says the word "Broadway", the image that comes to your mind is most likely Michael Crawford, wearing a white half- mask, belting out the chilling ballad The Music of the Night in Phantom of the Opera, or Andrea McArdle dancing around the stage in a bright orange wig singing Tomorrow from Annie. A scene absent from your imagination is Tony, the male lead in West Side Story dying in the arms of his lover, Maria, after being shot. Why? Because it just doesn't seem to fit in the whole Broadway environment. This is the reason why the three deaths that occur in Bernstein and Sondheim's masterpiece were, while revolutionary, not welcomed with open arms as the concept of music and plot mixing was in Show Boat and Oklahoma!. The creators, foreseeing this, altered West Side Story's plot from the work on which it was based, Romeo and Juliet. In the latter, both the male and female leads die. Thinking the addition of a fourth death to the musical would simply be too much sadness for the audience to deal with, given that for the last decade and a half, The Golden Age had been spinning out show after show, each with a happy ending. When the show premiered on September 26th 1957, almost all reviews were positive, and yet many of the people that came to see the musical found the tragic plot and subject matter somewhat off-putting. To boot, West Side Story lost all the major Tony nominations to a musical much more classic and Golden Age; The Music Man. So how, you ask, does a violent musical about gangs and fighting that lost to a show about the River City Boys' Band qualify as the third major and essential turning point in the history of New York's Great White Way? Simply because the death and sadness found in West Side Story is more similar to life on Earth than anything that came before it. This masterpiece, perhaps simultaneously the happiest and saddest love story ever portrayed on stage, is what makes modern Broadway modern. Bernstein and Sondheim created a work that reflected the worst aspects of reality onstage while still being able to effectively tell a touching and relatable tale of two star crossed lovers living on the lower west side of New York. In essence, they created a perfect musical. Something that had never been, and will never be achieved again. Below is the most famous love song on Broadway at the time. Tonight.