By Peter Sprigg
Financial relief is not the only thing Washington is sending to New York City this year. A new production of “West Side Story,” in previews at Washington’s National Theatre through January 17, will head to Broadway for a March 19 opening.
Audiences most familiar with the 1957 original (or the 1961 film) will note some dramatic changes – one of which has been widely noted, while another has been largely overlooked.
It’s been much noted that this update of the Romeo and Juliet story, in the context of gang wars between Puerto Ricans and whites in New York City, is now bilingual. For the sake of authenticity, Hispanic actors been chosen to play the Puerto Rican characters, but significant blocks of dialogue and song lyrics have also been translated into Spanish. Fortunately, the story line is so familiar that not too much is lost on those of us who speak no Spanish.
When my wife and I attended the play, however, what struck us was something the critics have mentioned only in passing—its hyper-sexualization. This detracts from, rather than adding to, the revised play’s authenticity.
For example, at a dance in a gymnasium, the white women are all in miniskirts—which did not come into fashion until the 1960’s. The dancing itself goes well beyond the Elvis Presley-style hip wiggles which scandalized America in 1957, and instead resembles the “dirty dancing” of the 1980’s and later. It’s hard to believe reports that the production “reproduced Jerome Robbins’ original inspired choreography.” As the Wall Street Journal noted, the characters “grind and grope their partners in ways that are much more suggestive than in the original.”
Things only got worse. By the time the production was over, we had been treated to simulated intercourse, simulated masturbation, and a simulated rape.
The song “Gee Officer Krupke,” always one of my favorites because of its parody of sociological fads, was simply impossible to applaud because the choreography was so crude. As only one example—we know that the lyric about having “a social disease” is a double entendre, which can refer either to sociological problems or to sexually transmitted diseases. Is it really necessary for the actor to scratch his crotch to drive the point home?
The dialogue has also been re-written from the original to include more than one mocking reference to “abstinence,” which drew laughter from the audience. The production is being directed by Arthur Laurents, now 90, who actually wrote the book for the original play. But the digs at “abstinence” are an anachronism for a play set in 1957, when the word would not have been used this way.
Josefina Scaglione, the 21-year-old Argentine unknown who was discovered on a YouTube video and picked to play Maria, deserves to become a star. The sets effectively evoke the mean streets of New York. And the music remains as memorable as ever. I’ve frequently found myself humming, singing, or whistling “Maria” or “Tonight” in the days since seeing the play.
However, the website for “West Side Story” under “age appropriate” says it is “suitable for all audiences.” It most emphatically is not. It is a shame that an adolescent obsession with sex at its crudest level (even on the part of a 90-year-old writer/director) is being allowed to overshadow “West Side Story’s” important themes of race and culture, violence and vengeance, and love.
Peter Sprigg is vice president for policy at the Family Research Council and was a professional actor for ten years.
