REVIEW: ‘West Side Story’ a Classic’s Classic

	REVIEW
	If you go “West Side Story”WHEN: 8 p.m. today (friday), 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. Saturday, March 16 and 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Sunday, March 17 WHERE: Popejoy Hall, Center for the Arts, UNM campus HOW MUCH: $37.50, $52.50 and $80 at www.unmtickets.com or at the Center for the Arts box office.

What makes a Broadway musical a classic?

Is it a classic because it’s been a commercial hit on Broadway, because it’s stuck around, because it’s won multiple Tony Awards, because it’s had notable revivals or because touring productions pop up every few years?

Some musicals of the last 50-plus years sport those achievements, but they may not be classics. To me, a classic is on a higher plane because of a convergence of other attributes.

“West Side Story,” which premiered in 1957, certainly fits that category.

There’s the memorable Leonard Bernstein-Stephen Sondheim score. The power of the songs grow out of the intertwined mastery of Sondheim’s lyrics and Bernstein’s music. Ordinary Americans can sing – not just hum – the lyrics of “Maria,” “Tonight” and “When You’re a Jet.” And they will sing with gusto and on key. There’s Jerome Robbins’ magical choreography that fuses the beauty of classical ballet with the muscularity of modern dance. The music and the choreography are central elements in the success of the national touring company’s production of the musical that is on stage at Popejoy Hall this weekend.

Another attribute of “West Side Story” is that the story is a brilliant updating to mid-20th century New York City of Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet.”

Arthur Laurents’ book of the musical brings to life a story of star-crossed young lovers Tony and Maria. Like Romeo and Juliet, the tale of Tony and Maria ends tragically. Shakespeare placed Romeo and Juliet in rival families. Laurents has Tony in the Jets, a street gang that’s a rival to the Sharks, the gang that Maria’s brother Bernardo is in.

There is also an ethnic factor – the fear of the outsider, of the immigrant – that resonates today. The Jets are working-class white. The Sharks are working-class Puerto Rican.

The individual performances in the touring production were wondrous, starting from Addison Reid Coe’s Tony to Maryjoanna Grisso’s Maria. Michelle Alves was a firecracker of an Anita especially in leading Rosalia and the Shark Girls in the vibrant singing and dancing of “”America.”

The male and female ensemble members were as athletic in their dancing as they were defiant and angry in their acting. The touring production effectively and with little distraction injected Spanish dialogue and lyrics. I don’t think I’ve ever heard the amplified sound of a Popejoy pit band seem as bright and as crisp as the one for “West Side Story.”

J. Michael Duff is music director. James Youmans’s scenic design, Howell Binkley’s lighting design and Peter McBoyle’s sound design, when considered together, heightened the drama of the storytelling and the scenes.