kozafluitmusique
|
West Side Story: A ReviewSo I saw West Side Story, the preview, last night at the National Theatre.
Overall: It was pretty good however it needs a LOT of work before it goes to Broadway. There were some technical problems, including one possible missed cue in the beginning by the Jets. The Spanish turned my sister off completely from the show forever, though. Personally, on the Spanish, it was only annoying when it came time for intense dialogues, especially when Chino is telling Maria about Tony killing Bernardo.
Matt Cavenaugh (Tony): He gave a convincing performance as Tony. However, his voice had so much vibrato, it almost got annoying at times. I thought of Jordan when I read the playbill, because he's an Ithaca college grad. He relied too much on his mic at times, it seemed.
Josephine Scaglione: My favorite Maria ever. She was SO convincing and her operatic trained voice was PERFECT. Her voice was so powerful it was overwhelming. She was always able to be heard.
(TBC - i gotta go now)
|
dolbinau
|
No mention on the horrible costumes?
|
step_together_step_touch
|
The production photos on the website don't look that great. :\ It looks like some sort of High school production with a much larger budget.
|
kozafluitmusique
|
Well ... I wouldn't say high school with a larger budget. I would say more a Broadway tour that had a fair amount of miscastings.
The costumes weren't horrible ... it was just staged wrong.
It seemed like it was too 'oh we're putting this in the future, but having 50s' costumes with them.
|
WSSfan
|
Come to think of it,did anybody notice the little white dancing shoes on the Jets? They looked all wrong for this kind of musical.
|
WSSfan
|
| step_together_step_touch wrote: | | The production photos on the website don't look that great. :\ It looks like some sort of High school production with a much larger budget. |
That's true, step_together_step_touch. It's really too bad, because West Side Story, as a musical, is so incredibly special and in a class by itself. I'd hate to see it tank on Broadway because of that.
|
Disney-Bway27
|
Personally, I've never been too crazy on the bilingual idea. If you're gonna have it in two different languages, make two productions. 
|
kozafluitmusique
|
Re: Come to think of it, | WSSfan wrote: | | did anybody notice the little white dancing shoes on the Jets? They looked all wrong for this kind of musical. |
I didn't notice them in the show, but on the pictures yeah.
| Disney-Bway27 wrote: | | Personally, I've never been too crazy on the bilingual idea. If you're gonna have it in two different languages, make two productions. |
According to my sister, she noticed it seemed everyone in the audience tuned off during "I feel pretty" in Spanish. I personally liked it, but I heard the English in my head. The dialogue got annoying.
Any other questions about seeing the stage version?
|
Eliot
|
I saw the show New Years Eve. I was doing my best during the show not to fall asleep. They actors were boring, the show was slow and over all I was disappointed in all the songs that I have loved over the years. The show was much too vulgar both in words and actions, i.e. the scene of Tony climbing on Maria in bed. There were quite a few children in the audience, I would say 5 - 10 years old and older, and the sexual overtones were much too inappropriate throughout the entire show. I felt Tony was VERY poorly cast. He was not close to being believable as a “tough guy”. It would be like casting Clay Aiken as the Terminator! Just not believable. Nothing about the wardrobe reminded me of the ’50’s in NY. The rape scene was totally out of control. And, I must have missed the point, but having the young boy “Kiddo” singing “Somewhere” made no sense to me and ruined the song. It was like someone who worked on the show brought their kid with them and let him have fun on stage. Horrible. What did I like about it? Nothing. And I must say, I am pretty easy going and enjoy almost every show I see. As was previously mentioned, the "dancing shoes" the actors were wearing made them look like sissies, not tough guys. And, the bilingual dialog was very annoying. No subtitles anywhere if you didn't speak spanish! The show would not make it a week on Broadway (in my opinion!).
|
kozafluitmusique
|
| Eliot wrote: | | I saw the show New Years Eve. I was doing my best during the show not to fall asleep. They actors were boring, the show was slow and over all I was disappointed in all the songs that I have loved over the years. The show was much too vulgar both in words and actions, i.e. the scene of Tony climbing on Maria in bed. There were quite a few children in the audience, I would say 5 - 10 years old and older, and the sexual overtones were much too inappropriate throughout the entire show. I felt Tony was VERY poorly cast. He was not close to being believable as a “tough guy”. It would be like casting Clay Aiken as the Terminator! Just not believable. Nothing about the wardrobe reminded me of the ’50’s in NY. The rape scene was totally out of control. And, I must have missed the point, but having the young boy “Kiddo” singing “Somewhere” made no sense to me and ruined the song. It was like someone who worked on the show brought their kid with them and let him have fun on stage. Horrible. What did I like about it? Nothing. And I must say, I am pretty easy going and enjoy almost every show I see. As was previously mentioned, the "dancing shoes" the actors were wearing made them look like sissies, not tough guys. And, the bilingual dialog was very annoying. No subtitles anywhere if you didn't speak spanish! The show would not make it a week on Broadway (in my opinion!). |
I actually thought it was cute and powerful "Kiddo" singing the song.
But I agree with the whole would not make a week on broadway - def. not.
|
Disney-Bway27
|
What a shame. West Side Story is an absolutely wonderful show with a deep storyline, beautiful music, and a tearjerking ending, and its revival fails on Broadway because it's looking to do something innovative.
Screw bilingual WSS. Bring back Sondheim's English lyrics dammit! 
|
WSSfan
|
| Disney-Bway27 wrote: | | Personally, I've never been too crazy on the bilingual idea. If you're gonna have it in two different languages, make two productions. |
That would be a good idea too, Disney-Bway27. However, I don't think there's enough money for them to do a second Broadway production of WSS.
|
WSSfan
|
The best thing to do: Cling to the old, original WSS. | Eliot wrote: | | I saw the show New Years Eve. I was doing my best during the show not to fall asleep. They actors were boring, the show was slow and over all I was disappointed in all the songs that I have loved over the years. The show was much too vulgar both in words and actions, i.e. the scene of Tony climbing on Maria in bed. There were quite a few children in the audience, I would say 5 - 10 years old and older, and the sexual overtones were much too inappropriate throughout the entire show. I felt Tony was VERY poorly cast. He was not close to being believable as a “tough guy”. It would be like casting Clay Aiken as the Terminator! Just not believable. Nothing about the wardrobe reminded me of the ’50’s in NY. The rape scene was totally out of control. And, I must have missed the point, but having the young boy “Kiddo” singing “Somewhere” made no sense to me and ruined the song. It was like someone who worked on the show brought their kid with them and let him have fun on stage. Horrible. What did I like about it? Nothing. And I must say, I am pretty easy going and enjoy almost every show I see. As was previously mentioned, the "dancing shoes" the actors were wearing made them look like sissies, not tough guys. And, the bilingual dialog was very annoying. No subtitles anywhere if you didn't speak spanish! The show would not make it a week on Broadway (in my opinion!). |
That's too bad, Eliot. I'm sorry to hear that it was so disastrous and that you were subject to such a disappointing evening. Somehow, I felt that the new Broadway revival of West Side Story would be sort of a dud, and more vulgar and boring. I don't know how, but my gut instinct told me that it would turn out that way. One of two things will happen to this WSS revival, I think: A) It'll require much, much more work prior to its formal debut on Broadway, or (B), it'll tank on Broadway, no matter what.
Come to think of it, I'd seen a revival of the stageplay of Oklahoma here in our area afew years ago, and it was a disaster. Wierd as it sounds, that's part of how I came to perceive the whole idea.
Eliot: As a devout fan of the movie West Side Story, may I make a suggestion? If you have CD's of the original Broadway stage production of West Side Story, or even the film version of WSS, or if and when the film version of West Side Story comes back on TCM, or to a real revival movie theatre in your area, that's something to really fall back on--as a consolation and a treasure to hold onto--to show that WSS is still what it was in its day and still is; a vibrant, dynamic great, golden oldie-but-goody musical/movie classic. Hope I've been of some help here. [/i]
|
