In 1949, Jerome Robbins first approached Leonard Bernstein and Arthur Laurents with the idea of a modern day Romeo and Juliet, but with an Irish Catholic Romeo and Jewish Juliet, living on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. After drafting it, the trio shelved the idea for almost five years before restarting. In 1955, they picked it up again, changing the focus of the musical to what it became, a decision which Bernstein immediately fell into, saying that he “felt the form”. This form became one of America’s most beloved musicals, West Side Story, a story about a white Romeo, a Puerto Rican Juliet, and two rivaling gangs.
Aside from just the music itself, the lyrics to the songs are witty, well thought out, and honest. Maria and Tony’s songs are romantic and brimming with hope and love – everything they sing about reaches beyond the petty disagreements between the competing gangs, and they truly cannot imagine their tragic fate. “America”, sung by the Shark girls, is a clever debate of the pros and cons of living in America and of their past lives in Puerto Rico. Even in the funny “Gee, Officer Krumpke”, the lyrics capture the speech, as well as the misunderstanding and overall insecurity the boys feel about where they are in life. West Side Story is so great because uses the outline of the Romeo and Juliet story as a commentary on gang violence between whites and Hispanics in NYC in the 1950s. Obviously, a show full of love ballads between Maria and Tony wouldn’t be so exciting nor as powerful or inspiring.
OBC (“Maria” & “Tonight”)
And gang violence was not a random change of direction for this modern retelling of the classic story. This was a problem prevalent in the 1950s and inspired the writers to tell this story. The 1950s brought an era of youth gang violence to big cities, including New York City. Though less cohesive than earlier gangs, these groups were clearly more violent. The New York City Youth Board, which tried to prevent and control gangs, defined characteristics that the gangs possessed, including that gang behavior was “normal” for these youths. The gangs were cohesive and had defined roles and organized warfare. Further research with the Morningside Heights Gang Project from 1953 through 1959 disproved that as an overall trend and defined different types of gangs, still prevalent today in one form or another. Delinquent gangs in the 1950s were primarily in order to perform illegal acts and social interaction was secondary. Today, these groups are known to be the most “corporate” of gangs and tend to be involved in the drug trade. These gangs are violent in order to obtain what they want. Violent gangs, on the other hand, were organized for violent activities and the emotional gratification that came with it. These were the primary gangs of the 1950s, though they still continue today and was a place for youths who did not fit in with larger society; they were groups with a flexible structure, which easily adapted to feed the emotional desires of its members. The last group, social gangs, were relatively permanent and cohesive organizations of members with intimate relationships.
But why was a 1950s musical revived in 2009? A show is only successfully revived on Broadway when the issues it addresses are again relevant in the present, and gang violence is a continuing issue in today’s society. Actually, gang violence is even more prevalent today than in the past. In 2015, gang shootings made up more than half of all shootings in NYC. Between 2014 and 2015,
the murders in the city increased 5.5% and gangs are responsible for 40% of them. Another widespread problem amongst gangs is the danger that family and loved ones, as well as other nonaffiliated victims, are placed in by gang violence. Gangs will target the family members of rival gangs and will harm whoever is in the way of gang warfare. Kids particularly are affected by posttraumatic stress disorder caused by gang violence and worrying about the welfare of friends and family members. Like in the 1950s, these rivalries between gangs are over turf, though they are more heated and violent than in the past. Gang membership is relatively mixed race, though it is usually dictated by the populations of groups in state prisons and by highest state ethnic populations.
The trend amongst gang members in the past and present is that they tend to come from poorer and underprivileged areas and families. Though the police continue to make strides in shutting down these gangs, new groups are always appearing and are always capable of becoming violent, a problem more prevalent today than in the 1950s. Gangs today have a reputation for violence and murder, rather than petty crime and family-like groups. The worst case scenario depicted in West Side Story is a reality often seen in the news today, and this show serves as a reminder that at any time, gang tension is likely to erupt into violence.
The praise of West Side Story carried over to the present day. Though the ensemble acting in the new cast is not as praised as the rough around the edges original cast, having parts of the score rewritten in the native tongue of the Sharks, adds the grittiness that the mid-twentieth century did not allow, says Laurents, director of the revival. The cast did not seem to embody the characters as the original cast did and the revival performers had the polished professionalism that the original cast lacked but made for an authentic performance, the leading actors received praise for their performances and were accredited to adding new dimensions to the characters. Musically, Lin Manuel Miranda’s translations furthered the separation between the feuding gangs in the show, adding to the authenticity of the show, but also bothering some older (not as open) theatregoers, which is to be expected. This shows some success to these changes. If the audience was so bothered by it, so uncomfortable with it, the performance was obviously getting its point across. It is a show about the dangers of not accepting cultural differences, yet even a modern audience seems to struggle realizing this. The revival is praised as proving that the play is timeless, and the changes – the deepening and darkening of the show – only improves the original work.
Revival Cast (“Tonight”)
Sondheim wrote a letter to Bernstein in which he said, “West Side Story is as big a step forward for you as it is for Jerry or Arthur or even me and, in an odd way, I feel proud of you. May West Side Story mean as much to the theater and to people who see it as it has to us.” Little did he know that West Side Story would leave the legacy that it did on the theatre community and on the world. This is theatre’s goal – to leave a mark on its audience – and West Side Story still has an impact today. Its score embodies the heart and soul of the work as a whole, and that is why it stands on a pedestal as an album encompassing New York City as a whole.
