The Kushner/Spielberg adaptation of "West Side Story" is on the way, which inspires some thoughts--
-This musical was the work of four affluent gay white men. The men were: Jerome Robbins, Arthur Laurents, Stephen Sondheim, and Leonard Bernstein. The men (with the possible exception of Sondheim) were/are insufferable, and they fought a great deal. Sondheim was a Young Turk, and he had to be deferential to his elders. (Though this bothered him. Also, he wanted to be both lyricist and composer in his career. He wouldn't even get to do this on his *next* big project, "Gypsy.")
-As gay men in an earlier era, Robbins, Laurents, Sondheim, and Bernstein were all contending with the Love that Dare Not Speak Its Name. And this is the best way to understand "West Side Story." It's about forbidden love. Easier to graft that story onto an undercooked racial-tension plot--than to tell the blunt truth. For this reason, I wonder if it's really a good idea to try to "update" this work. To make it more palatable to modern audiences. To make it more culturally well-informed. I wonder if this kind of effort always results in a strange, ungainly Frankenstein's monster. Similar questions arose with a major revival of "Carousel" a few months ago.
-In "West Side Story," Sondheim reveals his split personality. There are two kinds of Sondheim songs. One is a soaring, simple "Porgy and Bess"-ish aria. Famous examples are "Losing My Mind," "Johanna," "No One Is Alone," "Anyone Can Whistle." Then there is the wordier, more cynical, more guarded Sondheim. You see this Sondheim in "Finishing the Hat, " "That Frank," the title song from "Into the Woods," "On the Steps of the Palace."
-What's striking to me about the "West Side" ballads is how little ambivalence they seem to express. You don't really see the twisted, gnarly, acidic, tormented Sondheim you will meet later in "You're Gonna Love Tomorrow," or "In Buddy's Eyes," or "Not a Day Goes By." Perhaps that's because youth is not really a good companion for ambivalence. And "West Side Story" is Sondheim in his youth. The clay has not fully hardened. That's a remarkable thing. (Sondheim would work hard to channel this youthful lack of ambivalence years later, when he wrote "Our Time" for "Merrily." Wonderful!)
-Sondheim is obsessed with words, among other things. And structural/plot innovation. You see the word-obsession in "Maria," which is about, in part, the actual melody of the syllables Ma-REE-uh. ("I've found how wonderful a sound can be.") "Gee, Officer Krupke" came about, in part, because Sondheim just wanted to get the word "f**k" into a Broadway lyric. No one had ever done that before. ("Surprise them.") Years later, in "Sweeney Todd," Sondheim wanted his villain masturbating on-stage--again, largely just because this had never been seen on a Broadway musical stage before.
-"Tonight" is a triumph because it looks very closely, strangely closely, at the word "Tonight." "Tonight" can be a noun. This time, now, is tonight. ("Tonight won't be just any night.") The word can also be an adverb. ("I'll see my love tonight.") It can also be understood as an antonym for "today":
Today, all day, I had a feeling
A miracle would happen.
I know now I was right...
For here you are
And what was just a world is a star...
Tonight....
I love that. I think it works because lovers, in the height of passion, are allowed to reach for heightened diction. This is why we have opera. Love allows these two unpolished teenagers to discover new depths of seriousness in themselves. And you, in the audience, can "buy" it. It feels right. (And the metaphor! "What was just a world is a star...tonight...." Chills, Steve! Chills!)
-"Gee, Officer Krupke" is another stand-out, if you ask me. That's because it comes from psychological insight. Bratty, smart teenagers do indeed get off on making fun of their elders--in the language their elders would actually use. (Trust me: I'm a teacher.) Sondheim takes that observation and runs with it. And form and content match: The grating jauntiness of the melody makes you want to scratch yourself. It provokes in you the sense of unrest that you would, indeed, feel if you were a delinquent teenager. A triumph.
-The two big failures in this show are "America" and "I Feel Pretty." That's because the young uneducated women on stage seem, suddenly, to be clever gay male Phi Beta Kappa graduates from Williams College. These songs are just an opportunity for Sondheim to show off. They don't feel authentic; they're distracting. Sondheim himself has said as much--and he has learned his lesson.
-Eager for this movie! Eager and skeptical. Such is life!
-This musical was the work of four affluent gay white men. The men were: Jerome Robbins, Arthur Laurents, Stephen Sondheim, and Leonard Bernstein. The men (with the possible exception of Sondheim) were/are insufferable, and they fought a great deal. Sondheim was a Young Turk, and he had to be deferential to his elders. (Though this bothered him. Also, he wanted to be both lyricist and composer in his career. He wouldn't even get to do this on his *next* big project, "Gypsy.")
-As gay men in an earlier era, Robbins, Laurents, Sondheim, and Bernstein were all contending with the Love that Dare Not Speak Its Name. And this is the best way to understand "West Side Story." It's about forbidden love. Easier to graft that story onto an undercooked racial-tension plot--than to tell the blunt truth. For this reason, I wonder if it's really a good idea to try to "update" this work. To make it more palatable to modern audiences. To make it more culturally well-informed. I wonder if this kind of effort always results in a strange, ungainly Frankenstein's monster. Similar questions arose with a major revival of "Carousel" a few months ago.
-In "West Side Story," Sondheim reveals his split personality. There are two kinds of Sondheim songs. One is a soaring, simple "Porgy and Bess"-ish aria. Famous examples are "Losing My Mind," "Johanna," "No One Is Alone," "Anyone Can Whistle." Then there is the wordier, more cynical, more guarded Sondheim. You see this Sondheim in "Finishing the Hat, " "That Frank," the title song from "Into the Woods," "On the Steps of the Palace."
-What's striking to me about the "West Side" ballads is how little ambivalence they seem to express. You don't really see the twisted, gnarly, acidic, tormented Sondheim you will meet later in "You're Gonna Love Tomorrow," or "In Buddy's Eyes," or "Not a Day Goes By." Perhaps that's because youth is not really a good companion for ambivalence. And "West Side Story" is Sondheim in his youth. The clay has not fully hardened. That's a remarkable thing. (Sondheim would work hard to channel this youthful lack of ambivalence years later, when he wrote "Our Time" for "Merrily." Wonderful!)
-Sondheim is obsessed with words, among other things. And structural/plot innovation. You see the word-obsession in "Maria," which is about, in part, the actual melody of the syllables Ma-REE-uh. ("I've found how wonderful a sound can be.") "Gee, Officer Krupke" came about, in part, because Sondheim just wanted to get the word "f**k" into a Broadway lyric. No one had ever done that before. ("Surprise them.") Years later, in "Sweeney Todd," Sondheim wanted his villain masturbating on-stage--again, largely just because this had never been seen on a Broadway musical stage before.
-"Tonight" is a triumph because it looks very closely, strangely closely, at the word "Tonight." "Tonight" can be a noun. This time, now, is tonight. ("Tonight won't be just any night.") The word can also be an adverb. ("I'll see my love tonight.") It can also be understood as an antonym for "today":
Today, all day, I had a feeling
A miracle would happen.
I know now I was right...
For here you are
And what was just a world is a star...
Tonight....
I love that. I think it works because lovers, in the height of passion, are allowed to reach for heightened diction. This is why we have opera. Love allows these two unpolished teenagers to discover new depths of seriousness in themselves. And you, in the audience, can "buy" it. It feels right. (And the metaphor! "What was just a world is a star...tonight...." Chills, Steve! Chills!)
-"Gee, Officer Krupke" is another stand-out, if you ask me. That's because it comes from psychological insight. Bratty, smart teenagers do indeed get off on making fun of their elders--in the language their elders would actually use. (Trust me: I'm a teacher.) Sondheim takes that observation and runs with it. And form and content match: The grating jauntiness of the melody makes you want to scratch yourself. It provokes in you the sense of unrest that you would, indeed, feel if you were a delinquent teenager. A triumph.
-The two big failures in this show are "America" and "I Feel Pretty." That's because the young uneducated women on stage seem, suddenly, to be clever gay male Phi Beta Kappa graduates from Williams College. These songs are just an opportunity for Sondheim to show off. They don't feel authentic; they're distracting. Sondheim himself has said as much--and he has learned his lesson.
-Eager for this movie! Eager and skeptical. Such is life!
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