This past Wednesday I went to the opening night performance of Columbia College’s rendition of the musical West Side Story directed by Stephanie Shaw. There was a lot of singing and dancing, as well as action; that made you feel as if you were in the cast yourself. When I say rendition I mean Columbia’s production of West Side Story was like none I had ever seen and I have seen many West Side Story productions. It does get old but this performance had something different and new.
For those who are familiar with West Side Story it is an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet love story and takes place in the west side of New York City, at the end of summer. It is at a neighborhood dance where Tony (American Romeo) and Maria (Puerto Rican Juliet) meet (love at first sight) and the two rival gangs the Jets (Americans) and the Sharks (Puerto Ricans), challenge each other to a rumble. The love between Toni and Maria is forbidden, they come from two different walks of life but they are determined to make it work, even if that means running away to be together.
The Jets opened with the classic entertaining finger snapping and dancing and then the Sharks can in, which lead to a well-choreographed fight between the two gangs. There were flips and cartwheels off the stage and they ran right by you through the aisles, it was exciting. Paul Nawrocki played Tony to a T. With a strong voice and stage presence, his performance was perfect. Laura Salas, who played Maria, has an unbelievable voice, it was so beautiful and she was the perfect cast for the character Maria. No matter how many West Side Story productions I see it is without fail that the character Anita is my favorite. She has a little more attitude than innocent, childlike Maria, and Eleni Kanalos fit the part well, the attitude and stage presence of Anita was there.
Like I mentioned before there was a lot of stage action and aisle action. The two rival gangs were enjoyable in their performances and although it was entertaining, some actors disappointed me. Alex McCrary, who played Riff, simply didn’t hold up to his character when it came to singing. His voice was too soft when it should have been loud. I wanted to think it was the microphone being too low and the background music being too high, but it wasn’t, it was simply disappointing.
West Side Story just wouldn’t be the same without the award winning songs and Columbia added a little more. The lyrics were different and the scenes that they were sung in were not like the original theatrical production. For instance, in one scene when the cast sings the song “America” it usually is sung between the men and women, a battle of singing back and forth to each other. But in this production it was sung among only the women and went back and forth from one character’s affection for her native country of Puerto Rico and to the other women singing of their love of America, it was different and enjoyable.
You had to use your imagination when it came to the set design, which was a little bare, only metal construction looking platforms on the right side of the stage or stage left to be technical. Of course props were added when needed, like a bed for Maria’s bedroom and the over done love scene between Tony and Maria, which I felt to be unnecessary, and a counter top, tables, and chairs for Doc’s Drug Store. All in all with the set dressing, using my imagination wasn’t a bother because the play was so upbeat.
West Side Story was the first musical production I had ever attended at Columbia and it won’t be the last. I was happy with the show and would surely go to another. If you are interested in seeing some of the talented students at Columbia go see West Side Story, it was a charming and entertaining rendition of a classic.
5 comments:
First off, you're very good about informing the uninformed, if you get what I mean. I've never seen any performance of West Side Story, and though I knew the general outline, you helped fill in some blanks. It makes the rest of your review easier to understand when I know what exactly the play is about. You also pinpoint precise details that you enjoyed about the show, instead of just either broadly going "It sucked" or "It was great".
You're pretty consistent about your opinion, which I'm fairly sure is positive, seeing as how the only negative seemed to be the actor who played Raff (or Riff, I don't want to go back and lose my spot here...) and his too soft vocals. I feel like you could have wrapped up the entire review a little better, instead of just ending on the negative aspect. It felt like there wasn't a concluding paragraph, summing up your feelings in their entirety. But that's a minor quibble. I think the only thing to work on is don't be afraid to inject even more opinion into the piece, it seemed at times as if you were holding back, especially in regards to the actor you thought didn't hold up to the rest of the production. Really nail down why you think he wasn't any good. Overall, though, this had a nice flow.
I'll second what Jordan said about information and about assertion. You provide some solid background and make your point without being heavy-handed. Probably the area you could focus your efforts on is the "precise description" part? You're very thorough with the physical description, the sequence of events, and so forth, but something of the emotion of the event isn't quite coming across for me. I think it might be the opening paragraph, actually--especially the blah opening sentence--that's throwing me off here. That paragraph seems like a kind of a placeholder; maybe you should go back, once you finish the review, and revisit your lead, developing more of a hook to get your reader into your main ideas and impressions right out of the gate?
Starting off your review, you did an excellent job of explaining the story of West Side Story and how it relates to Romeo and Juliet. You explained precise details about whart you liked in the show and not as much as what you did not enjoy. I felt like you held back a little and you could have given more.
Your review was easy to follow and had a nice flow that I could keep up with what songs they song to what the staged looked or could have looked like.Im not quite sure with your ending though. I feel like you wanted to say more but you didnt so you just ended with something negative without back it up. Overall you did an excellent job.
Great job of being thorough within your first few paragraphs with details. When you introduce an idea or argument you are consistent with backing up within the next sentence or paragraph.
When you talk about things that happen chronologically in the play introduce them in the order that they occur in the play, it makes it easier for the reader to understand that your review is stemming from something that already has a strong narrative thread throughout. When you introduce characters and talk about their flaws keep it separate from introducing a character and praising them. It is hard for the reader to read the review and have ideas coming from both sides of the argument. Good piece of writing...
You jump around abit structure-wise but aside from these issues this is a great review from someone who knows what they're talking about re: "WSS". On a side note, who actually directed this? Sheldon or someone else? Just curious as another reviewer said Sheldon.
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