"West Side" Sorry

In late September, 1957, I was staying with my grandmother, having been deputized to keep her company while my uncle who lived with her went on vacation. Besides the pleasure of the company of my formidable ancestor, I had the opportunity of reading each day both the New York Times and the Herald Tribune, which my uncle had delivered every morning. Thus, I was able to read the glowing reviews that the theater critics of those papers lavished on a new Broadway musical called West Side Story. 

How wonderful, I thought. A musical not about elephant-high corn, but about the serious business of living in New York City. 

I was unable to catch up with the play during the initial year-and-three-quarters run, which ended on June 27, 1959. I did get to see it after it returned from touring and played Broadway again from April to December, 1960.

I was crushed.

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Now, the one thing everyone knows about WSS is that it takes its story line from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. A professor whom I dearly loved (I should; he hired me) edited a paperback which included the texts of both those plays. For all his good points, Prof. W. was a classic middlebrow, and his book was geared for those people who thought that by seeing/reading WSS they were getting R&J-lite—Shakespeare without all the funny old language, thees and thous and such. For better or worse, though, what they were getting was a work that existed in its own right, without the borrowed stardust of an old classic.

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For me the first indication that WSS was not going to live up to my expectation was the third song, “Something’s Coming,” sung by Romeo, er Tony. 

Could be . . .

Who knows? . . .

There's something due any day—

I will know right away,

Soon as it shows.

It may come cannonballing down through the sky,

Gleam in its eye,

Bright as a rose.

Who knows?

It's only just out of reach,

Down the block, on a beach,

Under a tree.

I got a feeling there's a miracle due,

Gonna come true,

Coming to me!

Could it be? Yes, it could.

Something's coming, something good,

If I can wait.

Something's coming, I don't know what it is,

But it is

Gonna be great!

My thought when I heard this was, “What great thing could happen to a boy in his situation? A college scholarship, maybe?” No, it was nothing more than that old banality—meeting a girl. A miracle, indeed!

And look at the nouns of the lyric: “day,” “sky,” “eye,” “rose,” “block,” “beach,” “tree,” “miracle.” Can anything be more banal than that?

Later, after our prosaic Tony has met Juliet, er Maria, he rhapsodizes thus:

Maria...

The most beautiful sound I ever heard:

Maria, Maria, Maria, Maria . . .

All the beautiful sounds of the world in a single word . .

Maria, Maria, Maria, Maria . . .

Maria!

I've just met a girl named Maria,

And suddenly that name

Will never be the same

To me.

Maria!

I've just kissed a girl named Maria,

And suddenly I've found

How wonderful a sound

Can be!

Maria!

Say it loud and there's music playing,

Say it soft and it's almost like praying.

Maria,

I'll never stop saying Maria!

The most beautiful sound I ever heard.

Maria.

I think you can take it as read that anytime something is compared to a prayer or praying, you’re up against a writer/lyricist who is completely lost.

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Let me turn my attention for a moment to the real Romeo. At the beginning of R&J, Romeo is in love—no, not with Juliet—he hasn’t seen her yet—but with someone named Rosaline, who wants nothing to do with him. Romeo acts like a classic spurned lover;* when challenged by his friend Benvolio, Romeo’s description of Rosaline is purely conventional.

Then, Romeo sees Juliet; Rosaline is forgotten, and I say to myself, “Why should I, an alleged adult, pay any attention to someone who can switch his affections in a blink of an eye?”

My justification lies in the words that Romeo speaks upon seeing Juliet for the first time:

O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!

It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night

Like a rich jewel in an Ethiope's ear.

The words come gushing out spontaneously; they are new, of the moment; not studied, not conventional. A metaphoric masterpiece. Picture it. He is a poet of love.

That is why Romeo matters.

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What can we say about Maria? She has as much (or as little substance) as her lover boy. What has she to say about herself?

I feel pretty,

Oh, so pretty,

I feel pretty and witty and bright,

And I pity

Any girl who isn't me tonight.

I feel charming,

Oh, so charming,

It's alarming how charming I feel,

And so pretty

That I hardly can believe I'm real.

 

Stephen Sondheim, I’m sorry to say, was the culprit (AKA lyricist) who composed the words for Tony’s and Maria’s outpourings. But I think I might just be able to get him off the hook. In May, 1962 he (as lyricist) with his colleagues gifted Broadway with—what I think is its best ever musical—A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. A play with no pretenses to social significance, it brought Roman comedy to 20th century America, packaged as a laugh-filled joyous farce.

The ingenue of the play is Philia, whose song about herself deserves contrasting with Maria and her song.

I'm lovely,

All I am is lovely.

Lovely is the one thing I can do.

Winsome,

What I am is winsome,

Radiant as in some

Dream come true.

Oh, Isn't it a shame?

I can neither sew

Nor cook nor read or write my name.

But I'm happy

Merely being lovely,

For it's one thing I can give to you.

She’s empty-headed--but self-aware—as I hope Sondheim was when he composed Philia’s song and that he was deliberately satirizing the emptiness of Maria’s own fixation on herself. 

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For me the one highlight of WSS, is the song “America.” What drive, what sassiness, what thrusting music! I could listen to it all day.

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What led me to revisit WSS and to write this blog entry was a review of the Broadway cast album by Douglas Watt of The New Yorker (Mar 8, 1958) that I read yesterday. Here is a major excerpt:

At last! Vindication of my view of the work. 

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Please, don’t get me started on Death of a Salesman!

 

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* https://drnormalvision.blogspot.com/2010/05/lovers-and-losers-part-one.html