“West Side Story” is getting an update. Bill Whitaker reports on the new twists making their way to one of America’s most iconic musicals.
Broadway is dark. Curtains won’t rise again before the new year. But we have a revival of our look at the new production of “West Side Story.” As we first reported this February, days before it opened and weeks beforeCOVID-19 temporarily shut it down, a new team of creative artists has staged a radical reinvisioning of the classic musical.
When the original “West Side Story” opened in 1957 it caused a sensation with the innovative fusion of dance, music and theater – a reimagining of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Tony and Maria are the star-crossed lovers. Rival street gangs, the Jets and the Sharks, become the Montagues and the Capulets.
We were given unprecedented access to the making of the new production. It’s stripped down, fast and gritty – a “‘West Side Story’ for the 21st century.” We started rolling our cameras this past October in a manhattan dance studio.
The first notes of Leonard Bernstein’s music and Stephen Sondheim’s lyrics stirred treasured memories.
But Ivo van Hove, a Tony Award-winning director, known for his cutting-edge productions, promised something new: a more raw and raging “West Side Story.”
It’s Van Hove’s first Broadway musical. Updating this American masterpiece was his idea. The Belgian director says the story is universal. “Jumping into this American classic,” correspondent Bill Whitaker said in a conversation with van Hove. “There must be things about this that just scare you? Everything scares me about this,” van Hove said with a laugh. “It’s a huge challenge, because everything has to be on the highest level, the singing, the dancing, and the acting. And of course everybody has an expectation.” The songs and Arthur Laurents’ story are the same, but the dancing is all new. Van Hove tapped choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, his friend and fellow Belgian, to design more contemporary, street influenced movement.
“This is your first Broadway production,” Whitaker said to De Keersmaeker. “This is a different animal.” “Would you call it an animal? What kind of animal? A lion? a serpent? A dragon? Maybe a dragon.” De Keersmaeker responded while laughing. “It’s huge. It’s a lot of people. It’s– a lot at stake. And it’s– it’s teamwork. You know, with clear leaders being Ivo and I.”
Their young cast reflects America today. In this version the Jets are not all white. And the Sharks are not just Puerto Ricans. They’re recent Latino immigrants. Thirty-three of the 50 cast members are making their Broadway debuts.
“It’s not easy to sing these songs. You have to dance at the same time,”van Hove said. “Also… you have to be able to act. So that’s a very difficult thing when you’re very young and ha– and when you don’t have a lot of experience. Van Hove is animated, decisive; De Keersmaeker calls herself a patient collaborator. “I’m not a general. I’m not like, ‘Cha, cha, chack.'” De Keersmaeker said. “We start to shape it together with the dancers.” Her style is vastly different from the original, balletic dancing of director/choreographer Jerome Robbins, immortalized in the 1961 movie. “So how do you change something like America, the way she throws the dress around?” Whitaker asked De Keersmaeker. “Those dresses are very beautiful,” De Keersmaeker said.
