The Stage

West Side Story

Published Friday 25 July 2008 at 12:00 by Mark Shenton

It’s nearly 51 years since the original production of West Side Story premiered on Broadway in September 1957. But the amazing part it played in the evolution of the modern musical in creating a vibrant contemporary music drama that both portrayed and heightened real-life situations, and anchoring it in a structure that seamlessly combined fiery urban street ballets and a score of classical breadth and depth, is newly revealed in a production that makes it as freshly minted and alive again as the day it was written.

The claim has often been made against West Side Story that it can seem dated, but Joey McKneely’s production has freshened up its look, with two sets of somewhat lumbering metallic balcony fire escape platforms (designed by Paul Gallis) dividing and connecting against evocative black and white photographic projections of New York scenes. The spirited and appropriately youthful ensemble cast, whose three principal actors are double cast to alternate with each other, both meticulously honour the past glories of the original Jerome Robbins choreography, while recreating it in the present with both athleticism and grace (and incidentally fully earns this production’s place at London’s leading contemporary dance theatre).

It is sadly, of course, partly the case that the story remains as frighteningly resonant and relevant today as it ever was - not a week goes by without reports of another London teenager falling victim to knife or gun crime. And this story of gang culture - and the romance at its centre between American Tony and Puerto Rican Anita that tries to rise above it but tragically fails - still has a fierce lesson to teach.

But both Arthur Laurents’ book and the Bernstein/Sondheim score reach beyond the specifics of its fifties New York milieu to make something genuinely universal and infinitely moving of it, as the rapturous ecstasy of unexpected young love is beautifully conveyed in classics such as Tonight. Bernstein’s enduringly distinctive musical syncopations are rendered with renewed freshness, vitality and vivacity under the baton of principal conductor Donald Chan.¬¨‚Ć