In a modern society as today, West Side Story still graces our many stages, and millions of people will willingly flock to see such a musical. Firstly West Side Story’s dark theme, sophisticated music, spontaneous, dance, and brutal reflection of social problems which marked a turning point in American theatre. The previous “musical comedy” had been overturned as West Side Story became “musical theatre,” as directors and actors realised for the first time that the principles of serious drama should be applied to serious musicals.
The “West Side Story” Broadway production team in 1957: (l. to r.) lyricist Stephen Sondheim, scriptwriter Arthur Laurents, producers Hal Prince and Robert Griffith (seated), composer Leonard Bernstein and choreographer Jerome Robbins.
West Side Story is sometimes remembered as an old-school classic —but in fact this tale of rival gangs on the streets of New York broke all the rules. This is still relevant today, gang crime is still a serious issue that takes hundreds of young lives with unneeded fights over territory, initiation and the need to feel as if they belong to a unwritten society.
Racism is still another sad and unjustified issue that is unfortunately still occurring, right this second as Americans protest for young black men such as Mike Brown, and Eric Ferguson being unlawfully killed, and immigrants being verbally abused for "taking all of the jobs", regardless of who is being racially abused, racism is race less and personally I think that it is disgusting that things like this are still happening in 2014, but it shows that although we've come along way as a world we are still relating back issues seemingly to be of the past which are prevalent in West Side Story.
West Side Story was basically new territory, and it changed the face of musical theatre, suddenly all the elements in the form of music, lyrics,dance, and acting merged into one unified voice, pushing the story. Musicals used to just be about smiling and doing pretty steps but director/choreographer, Jerome Robbins enabled characters to dance because they had to, because there was simply no other way for the adrenalin and anger-filled kids to release the pent-up anger and restless frustration boiling beneath the surface. With the elements of the form so well merged, the result was outstandingly completely original.
West Side Story made such an impact that we still study it today as a society, I am studying it now as a dancer, because of all the historical and contextual issues surrounding such a musical, and the inspiring director/choreographer that created it. West Side Story is about many things: race and power, belonging and frustration; but most of all it’s about the brutality of prejudice, and its implications for true love. In the musicals of the ‘20s and ‘30s (Babes in Toyland, No No Nanette, Anything Goes) love was predominantly idealistic, naive, and simple: Boy and girl fall in love, something or someone challenges their love, but love conquers all, ALWAYS. The ‘40s saw the rise of Rodgers and Hammerstein favourites like Oklahoma(1942) and South Pacific(1943), in which obstacles became deeper and more complex but love still prevailed in the end. But all that changed in 1957. Not only was Tony and Maria’s love story complex, it was also very adult, very political . . . and impossible. Love wouldn’t win, couldn’t win in the shadow of such hatred and prejudice. West Side Story faced, for the first time in a musical, the harsh reality that things don’t always work out and sometimes hatred has the final say. It’s a painful universal truth that we can still pluck out of today’s headlines, as society is never completely full of happy endings as we see in the mass media.
It would have been better here for you t have discussed how the themes are portrayed in WSS and then discuss how they are still relevant today.
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