THEATER REVIEW
“West Side Story”
Grade: C
Through June 26. 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays; 2 p.m. Sundays; 2 p.m. Saturday (June 25 only). $38-$58. Jennie T. Anderson Theatre (at the Cobb Civic Center), 548 S. Marietta Parkway, Marietta. 404-377-9948, www.atlantalyrictheatre.com.
Bottom line: A show that's showing its age.
At the time of its 1957 Broadway debut, "West Side Story" was heralded as a cutting-edge, up-to-date musical revision of the classic Shakespearean tragedy "Romeo and Juliet." The feuding Montague and Capulet families became the Jets and the Sharks, rival New York street gangs (one white, the other Puerto Rican) who are jockeying for turf, and the token star-crossed lovers appeared as a young interracial couple named Tony and Maria.
It isn’t necessarily any reflection on director Alan Kilpatrick’s current Atlanta Lyric Theatre staging to suggest that, nearly 60 years later, the show now seems like a nostalgic relic of a bygone era, a decidedly dated period piece on its own accord, and arguably well past due to be remodernized or reimagined all over again.
Most of the famous score, featuring songs by Leonard Bernstein (music) and Stephen Sondheim (lyrics), remains as glorious and memorable as ever: "Maria," "Tonight," "America," "I Feel Pretty," "Somewhere." But whatever once felt fresh and inspired about Arthur Laurents' script has grown a bit stale and dull — which possibly, or at least partially, is a reflection on Kilpatrick's Lyric production.
A few technical glitches on opening night will improve, no doubt, over the course of the show’s run: sluggish scene changes; faulty body mics; erratic lighting cues; occasionally flat accompaniment from the Lyric’s 13-member orchestra, conducted by music director Eric Alexander.
So, too, might some of the acting performances strengthen with time. As the doomed Tony and Maria, both Tim Quartier (recently seen in Theatrical Outfit's "The Light in the Piazza") and Katie Mariko Murray (who's based in New York) compensate with their accomplished singing abilities for what they lack in terms of generating much romantic chemistry between their characters.
The other major roles are portrayed acceptably, if not very charismatically: Nathan Lubeck as Riff, Tony’s best friend and the leader of the Jets; Chase Peacock as Bernardo, his Sharks counterpart and Maria’s brother; and Chelsea Belcastro as Anita, Bernardo’s girlfriend.
If you’ve never seen the show on stage before, it may leave you with an even greater appreciation for the fantastic 1961 movie version, and a couple of beneficial changes that were implemented in the transition. For example, the Jets’ comic-relief song, “Gee, Officer Krupke,” played a lot better earlier in the film, as opposed to feeling totally incongruous here, performed in the wake of the story’s pivotal, deadly “rumble.”
And “Somewhere,” which made a lovely and intimate duet for Tony and Maria on screen, was initially conceived for the stage (by director/choreographer Jerome Robbins) as an overblown production number, a solo sung by an otherwise incidental Shark girlfriend (albeit beautifully here by Chani Maisonet), and featuring a derivative ballet sequence like one of those Agnes de Mille choreographed for several Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals of the era.
The highlight for Lyric choreographer Cindy Mora Reiser’s large ensemble of dancers is the energetic “Dance at the Gym” routine. More questionably, during the “Cool” number, she has various Jet girlfriends suddenly dancing into the scene, doing their bit, and then simply dancing right back out of it.
Its underlying issues about racial tension and gang violence are as time-ly as ever — but, as a piece of musical theater, "West Side Story" doesn't hold up as especially time-less.
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