Romeo and Juliet Part 7: West Side Story

There isn’t much I can say about West Side Story that hasn’t already been said, so I’m going to keep this short.

West Side Story is billed as a musical retelling of Romeo and Juliet set in the 1950’s New York City. The Montagues and Capulets are replaced by two street gangs, the Jets and the Sharks. The Jets appear to be of many ethnicities, but the Sharks are all Puerto Rican. 

The story is told through song and dance. The ethnic rivalries seem unmotivated, and the “gang” dialogue sounds like it was written by people who’ve never met gang members, and is spoken by actors who have never heard gang members speak. I just can’t believe that street gangs would have referred to each other as “buddy-boy” and “daddy-o.” It always sounds fake. They sound most authentic in the “Officer Krupke” number, where they explain how the criminal justice and social services systems have completely failed to address their problems.

You can definitely see Romeo and Juliet  in this film, but for me, it’s different enough that I think it’s actually a different work. Still, I enjoyed it a bit more than the ballet version. I understand Broadway musicals better than ballet. Your experience might be different. 

This production currently ranks as my fifth favorite Romeo and Juliet.

Here’s the overall ranking so far:

Romeo and Juliet. Dir. Joan Kemp-Welch. Perf. Christopher Neame, Ann Hasson, and Robin Nedwell. Thames Television, 1976. DVD, A&E Television Networks, 2005.

Romeo and Juliet. Dir. Franco Zeffirelli. Perf. Leonard Whiting, Olivia Hussey, and John McEnery. 1968. netflix.com, 19 SEP 2013.

Romeo and Juliet. Dir. Baz Luhrmann. Perf. Leonardo DiCaprio, Claire Danes, and Harold Perrineau. 1996. DVD, Twentieth Century Fox, 2007.

Romeo and Juliet. Dir. Alvin Rakoff. Perf. Patrick Ryecart, Rebecca Saire, and Anthony Andrews. 1978. DVD, Ambrose, 2000.

West Side Story. Dir. Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins. Perf. Richard Beymer, Natalie Wood, and George Chakiris. 1961. DVD, MGM Home Entertainment, 2003.

Romeo and Juliet. Chor. Kenneth MacMillan. Perf. Angel Corella, Alessandra Ferri, and Michele Villanova. Teatro Alla Scala, Milan, JAN 2000. DVD, Euroarts, 2002.

Shakespeare Series: Romeo and Juliet. Dir. Larry Sullivan. Perf. Alex Hyde-White, Blanche Baker, and Dan Hamilton. Shakespeare Video Society, 1982. Amazon.com, 15 AUG 2013.

Love's Labour's Lost Part 2 - Branaugh

Ever wonder what it would have been like if, instead of writing for the London stage in the late 1500s/early 1600s, Shakespeare had been writing musicals in the 1930s? Me neither. But one man has chosen to answer this question: Kenneth Branaugh.

Usually Branaugh’s approach to Shakespeare (and yes, I’ll get to his Henry V and Hamlet in due course) is fairly conventional. He’s just not a big risk-taker. So it’s a bit of a surprise that he would take the leap to make a Shakespeare Musical. And he mostly hired the right cast: Alicia Silverstone makes a great princess, Richard Briars has to be in all Branaugh’s Shakespeare movies (I think there’s a contract or something), and if you’re doing a musical, you want to hire Nathan Lane. Lane would make an awesome Don Adriano, but that role inexplicably went to Timothy Spall, who you’ll recognize as Peter Pettigrew from the Harry Potter movies. Nathan Lane ends up playing Costard, who is morphed from a country bumpkin (probably what Shakespeare meant by “clown”) to an obnoxious travelling vaudevillian.

Here are some quick notes I made while I was watching this:

• Branaugh is getting a little long in the tooth to play a romantic lead.
• Alicia Silverstone has an amazingly expressive face, and appears to understand what she’s saying (not a given in Shakespeare movies!).
• Dear Mr. Spall: TURN IT DOWN!
• Cut the “I Get a Kick Out of You” number.
• Cut the synchronized swimming number.
• Richard Clifford is a great Boyet. Give us more Boyet!
• It would be interesting to see what Baz Lurhman would have done with this.

If I had seen this in the theater, I would have been disappointed by the absence of The Pagent of the Nine Worthies scene. Since that’s usually the best part of the play, I’m glad they included it in the bonus features. This cast actually didn’t do this scene very well, so I understand why most of it was cut, but I would rather they had reshot it with some better ideas. This might be all the proof you need that comedy is actually harder than tragedy.

It’s one of Shakespeare’s comedies: It’s not that good to begin with, so while you could make it awesome, you can’t really ruin it.