|
|
|
|
|
Maria shines bright as a new star
Jet powered: Spectacular dancing in the streets in West Side Story. Pictures: Alastair MuirWest Side Story
The New Alexandra Theatre
***** FEW musicals, if any, have the power, raw
emotion and sheer brilliance of West Side Story and by staying true to
the 1957 original this production makes it easy to see how one show
could unleash theatrical shockwaves still felt today. Musicals came of age when this one show proved
musicals need not be frothy, light-hearted song and dance romantic
comedies, they could also be theatre, real drama, with music, songs,
book and dance all combining to tell their part of a serious story. The original had a young, largely unknown cast
and this international touring production has even stayed true to that
but what a cast it has unearthed. Jerome Robbins’ original choreography
is demanding, with exciting contemporary dance, full of energy and
aggression mixed with ballet and the young cast did not let the show or
its heritage down. They were superb to a man – and woman of course -
with strong leads and talented, confident support. Louis Maskell gave us a sensitive rather than a
macho Tony, the drugstore delivery boy who had moved on from the Jets
street gang, but as the song says, “When you’re a Jet, you stay a Jet
. . . “ He has to deliver some of the most iconic songs
of the show such as Maria
and Tonight and does not
disappoint with a lovely, powerful, light tenor. His regular Maria, Katie Hall, last seen in
Birmingham last year as Christine in the tour of
The Phantom of the
Opera, was ill, but cometh the hour . . . cometh Charlotte
Baptie whose days as an understudy are surely numbered. Remember the
name because you will definitely hear it again. She is a star in the
making if any producer or casting director is listening.
She has stage presence, she can act and as for
singing . . . she has a voice of purity and clarity that can be diva
powerful or soft, almost like praying, when needed, you can hear every
word and she can hit top notes with ease that only pianists with long
arms can reach. Her duets with Tony are a pleasure to listen to
and the operatic duet, A Boy Like That/I have a love
between her
and the excellent Djalenga Scott as Anita is one of the
highlights of the show. Baptie also has fabulous diction, even through
her Spanish accent you could hear every word. Accents, in all
productions, can play havoc with dialogue, even here a few words were
lost elsewhere amid the Spanish and New York twangs. Scott was another with a clear voice and she
gives us an assured Anita, sexy and sassy. Hers is a pivotal character,
the final piece in a tragic jigsaw where every attempt to bring an
element of sense and acceptance between the warring immigrant factions
of newcomers, the Puerto Rican Sharks, and the Polish-American Jets,
each battling for control of worthless streets on the upper West Side of
Manhatten, is met with hostility and violence. Leading the Sharks is Javier Cid as Bernado,
Maria’s brother and Anita’s lover. He is a boy with not so much a chip
as a full bag of spuds on his shoulder, living in a monochrome world of
us and them and Cid gives him a lithe arrogance, bristling with anger
against the more thuggish Riff, leader of the Jets played with a macho
air bordering on psychotic by Jack Wilcox who gave a chilling rendition
of Cool where you could almost feel the pent up hatred. Both are supported by two excellent gangs in the
big cast of 33, including, among the Sharks, Sinead Kenny, playing
Consuela, who hails from that hotbed of Puerto Rican immigrants, Four
Oaks in Sutton Coldfield. Sinead made her professional debut in
9 - 5
The Musical, which played the Alex
Among the adults, the grown ups, West End regular
David Delve as Doc, who runs the rundown, neighbourhood drugstore, has
the most to get his teeth into and does it well as a despairing, lone
voice trying to bring some reason to the chaos around him.
Lt Schrank, played by Jason Griffiths, is the humourless, racist bigot of a NYPD detective charged with cleaning up the area, who, if anything, makes the tensions worse while Officer Krupke, the beat cop, played by Sion Tudor Owen, seems to have no higher purpose in life than to be the butt of the bittersweet jokes in the Jet’s Gee Officer Krupke song, one of the few moments of humour. Tudor is also part of another lighter moment, and again the butt of jokes, as Glad Hand, trying to arrange the dancing at the social evening where the air crackles with hostility and where Tony meets Maria. Anybody’s, played by Charlie Cameron, the girl
wanna-be gang member, brings some amusement as do Tony and Maria in
their exchange in the dress shop leading to the touching
One Hand ,
One Heart but in the main there is nothing much to smile about. A
train crash is happening before your eyes and originally Jerome Robbins,
and now his former assistant Joey McKneely, directing and reproducing
the original 1957 Robbins choreography, builds up the tension and the
pace to its inevitable, tragic conclusion. This is one of the few
musicals that ends not with a big upbeat number or dance routine, but in
the depths of depression in virtual silence. Much is made of legendary director and
choreographer Robbins, and of the music of Bernstein along with the
lyrics of the then virtually unknown Sondheim but Arthur Laurents
deserves much credit as well for the book, taking Romeo and Juliet and
putting it into a 1950’s gang setting. No one would have swallowed the
sleeping draught ending and faked death of Juliet in 1957 Manhattan,
least of all Maria,
The whole production is helped by Paul Gallis’s set of moveable gloomy walls of tenement fire escapes with a changing backdrop of grainy shots of New York slums with clever lighting from Peter Halbsgut creating everything from despair to hope, in the Somewhere ballet for example, romance to sheer panic. The whole scene is then brought alive by
Bernstein's glorious score played by the excellent 19 strong orchestra,
an orchestra big enough to even have a leader, Tina-Jacobs-Lim. These days 19 is unheard of in a musical, let
along a touring production, and what a difference it makes. Bernstein
had 31 at the Broadway opening, and perhaps today’s budgets don't
stretch that far, but there were still enough members to give a full
sound and a symphonic feel under musical director Ben Van Tienen. I must confess that when I entered the theatre
West Side Story was my favourite musical and when I left absolutely
nothing had changed. To 19-04-14. Roger Clarke
|
|
|
|
