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| question re: WSS - have the authors ever addressed why there's SO much more Jets than Sharks in the score/play? | |
| Last Edit: Chazwaza 06:07 pm EST 12/24/21 | |
| Posted by: Chazwaza 05:37 pm EST 12/24/21 | |
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| I adore West Side Story. I think it's a stunning musical. It made for a stunning movie (two, to varying degrees, but I'd say I loved both -- though I *vastly* prefer the original, as a film of the musical, outside of the wretched and short-sighted decision to use brown-face)... I've seen it on the small and big screen countless times, I've seen it on stage several times, I've performed in it on stage, and I've listened to the score more than most musicals (which is a lot). But I am still left with a question about it, which I've thought about since I was a teen... Why there is such an imbalance in the storytelling and perspective toward Tony and the Jets? The Prologue (at least in the show and original movie, but sadly not in the new movie) opens the musical with BOTH gangs, and both of them expressing through dance. But then we have the Jets Song, which comes after the Sharks are excused by the cops who clearly side with the Jets, and the song tells us about the Jets. There's no Sharks Song or even a verse of The Jets Song or a short reprise of it by the Sharks with new lyrics from their perspective. There's a scene with Riff and Tony. Then Tony gets an entire song (Something's Coming). This makes sense because we get getting an updated Romeo & Juliet, which also focuses on Romeo and his "gang"... and it is through Romeo meeting Juliet that things really get going in the story. Fine. BUT this is a play of its own, not billed as "Romeo & Juliet". Did they ever discuss or write a song for the Sharks or for Maria here? Maria is introduced to us next... with dialogue scene, but no song. Then at the Dance at the Gym, both sides of the gang situation are evenly represented, and Tony AND Maria have equal time on stage for their magical experience meeting each other, seen through dance. But then Tony gets another entire song about his feeling about meeting Maria as he looks for her after the dance. This makes plenty of sense because we are following him as he looks for her ... she would never be allowed to or dare to sneak out and wander the streets looking for him. But still, we now have a second song (in a musical, where the songs matter most) of Tony expressing his thoughts and none from Maria. Then the first time Maria sings is in a love-at-first-sight duet with Tony. A gorgeous and necessary song, but again, Tony's had 2 songs already and she's had none. Not alone, not with Anita or Bernardo etc. Of course later in the show Maria has "I Feel Pretty" (basically a big solo) which is basically her "Maria", neither offers much more insight or action than the other. But Tony's comes early in Act 1 and hers opens Act 2. In many ways I find this brilliant and ultimately balanced... but it does make act 1 and therefor the show, stacked for Tony being our real main character rather than it being equal with Maria, and then we have the 3 songs the Jets have that the Sharks do not, 2 of them being in act 1, making it feel VERY stacked for the Jets too rather than equal with the Sharks. Watching it in 2021 I can just FEEL the sensitive and often-short-sighted modern audiences thinking "oh great, this is all about the white boy, and the poc girl is a prop in his love delusion." However, take the concern of over-sensitive modern misinterpretation away, there is still a VERY Top-heavy Tony/Jets perspective of the play/score in act 1. After the dance, we go to the roof, when the audience is finally alone with the Sharks... we get an "America" that was originally written and performed as just the Shark girlfriends, not the nemesis gang members who the authors are trying to give the same sympathy and understanding and fault associated as the Jets. The movie revision of America, mostly used in revivals going forward and in the new movie, does a *much* better job of giving voice to the Sharks, but in the original (brilliant though it was), they didn't even have this version of America to give them that chance to present their perspective... so I'd have loved to ask the authors about all this before the new lyrics were written for 1961. I won't go through scene by scene... but it continues to be oddly imbalanced, despite seemingly making flawless dramatic sense as the play goes on and being extremely effective. For Tony and Maria, from the dance at the gym on it's two romantic duets and no solos, except the aforementioned "I Feel Pretty" which balances her to Tony's song time slightly, though she never gets her own introspective song like he does, or even the inverse of it, like a "something BAD is coming" type of worry song to compliment his "something good is coming" optimism song... I suppose "I Feel Pretty" is kind of her own blind optimism song despite that something bad is what is coming, so I don't know if this is more Maria's "Something's Coming" or Maria's "Maria", but still Tony has 2 and she has 1. I'm not even saying her having either of those would work dramatically... it likely would telegram what is coming if done later in the play and be heavy handed. But I'm just considering how she had only "I Feel Pretty" in terms of songs that aren't duets. In the Quintet... Maria and Tony are well represented/evenly matched, as are the Sharks and the Jets... but then they throw Anita in there to have her say basically "i'm horny and am waiting for Bernardo to come home so we can have hot sex... and I do not care what else is going on." I can relate, trust me. But... in all my adoration of this show/score, and as fun as that is for Anita, even as a teen I found Anita's section bizarrely lacking and less evenly matched to the other 4. So that doesn't entirely help, because she doesn't have anything especially weighty emotionally or plot-oriented to say. If I'm missing something about the weight or relevance of Anita's section of the Quintet, please tell me! The Jets get not one but TWO more songs without the Sharks -- Cool and Gee Officer Krupke - and the Sharks get zero. "Cool" gives us an insight to their tension going into the rumble, and "Krupke" gives us an understanding of why they "are" the way they are, from their youthful perspective. Why did the writers not think the Sharks needed a song like either of these? Or a verse in them or Shark-version reprise of either? "Two households, both alike in dignity" ... well, both alike in pride and justified motivation, but not alike in terms of stage time or song time or perspective-giving time. "Somewhere" is about both sides, and is originally sung by one of the Sharks girls, but having never seen it done that way I don't know what impact it had in terms of balancing the two sides score time. The dream ballet gives both time. And obviously "A Boy Like That/I Have a Love" gives Anita a solo, and gives both Puerto Rican lead women a chance to battle their difference perspectives and then come together in resigned acknowledgement. This certainly balances out or outweighs Riff doing "Jets Song", but not the other Jets heavy material in the score. Of course I understand the musical isn't written with any of this "balance" in mind... "A Boy Like That/I Have a Love" was certainly not written to balance "Jets Song", and I don't mean to imply that. I'm just doing a score tally, for whatever it's worth, and comparing the weight. Obviously Maria and Anita's musical scene/duet here have WAY more weight and power and impact and plot-relevance than "Jet's Song". And in fairness I should mention we hear nothing musically from Tony in Act 2 except for his section of the Nightmare Dream Ballet ("I will take you away, take you far far away out of here. Far far away till the walls and the streets disappear" until he sings with Maria about how there must be a place a couple like them can be free from the scourge of prejudice keeping them apart and their "families" hating each other, leading into the ballet and then "Somewhere"). So perhaps Tony and Maria are even enough? Hard to say, since a musical doesn't work based on adding up a score throughout the play. I think most audiences, for decades, have seen the *entire* show and felt both sides were respected and represented and that both perspectives were given enough between the score and the book and the dances... and I've always felt that way too. But since the score is what is most accessible, what I've experienced most (instead of the entire show or entire movie)... I can't help but wonder if they ever thought there should be ONE solo for Maria, or a connection from Tony's "Something's Coming" into a verse of it for Maria leading into her first scene. Or ONE song for the Shark men specifically, or ONE verse of the 3 Jets songs to represent themselves. I'm not here with any intention to claim it's racism or intentionally "imbalanced" (which can surely be claimed for the Jets vs Sharks material, but less so ultimately for Tony vs Maria). I can assume it certainly has to some root in the 4 men being white and in the early 1950s, mixed with how close they stuck to adapting *Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet* and how that play plays out scene for scene, character for character. But I find it interesting that not even in this new movie, while Sondheim was alive and engaged, they didn't even give the Sharks a non-translated Spanish section of Jets Song or Krupke for the Sharks to do to even things out for a 2021 re-vision of it, which seemed hell bent on downplaying any representation of the Sharks as *just* a rival gang, let alone even a gang at all. And again, I love West Side Story. I think it's genius, created by geniuses, and is one of the greatest musicals ever written (top 5 for me I think). And it seems to somehow have always worked as a play. But I've always wondered why, as a play about two equal sides who are both right and both wrong, both experiencing prejudice and systemic oppression, taking it out on each other and fueled by racism ... why do we get more Tony than Maria (at least 1 more song for him than her) and SOO much more Jets than Sharks (3 full songs for them and 0 for the Sharks originally... but since 1961's revision of "America", 1/2 song for Sharks and 3 songs for Jets). And while I think it's pretty perfect as is in most ways, and I wouldn't want to risk f*cking that up... these 4 geniuses were all alive and working at least until the mid 1980s, and had 30+ years to consider adding or altering something to help even it out if they wanted to. I'm not saying they should have wanted to, but I am a bit curious why they didn't want to. Sondheim can talk till he's blue in the face about why he's embarrassed by the lyrics to "I Feel Pretty" (i think he's 100% wrong, and his issue with it actually feels pompous and classist and insulting the audience and/or the character, not at all the humble acknowledgement of truth he clearly thought his criticism of it was). But if he was going to be embarrassed by something that misrepresented the Puerto Rican characters I'd have thought it would be that he and his collaborators didn't give them nearly enough voice in the score, not harping on his belief that an ESL immigrant girl wouldn't know words like "alarming" and "charming" when giddily showing off her joy -- either in English or in her native Spanish, depending on how you see the scenes with no white people in them. I also wonder why Spielberg and Kushner seemed so willfully ignorant or perhaps dismissive of just how important the extensive amount of Robbins' choreography was to the language of the musical and specifically in how much the authors leaned on it or employed it to give voice to the perspective/expression of the Sharks. One of my key issues with the new movie is that this aspect feels even more bald-faced and apparent with the removal of the Sharks from the Prologue, for example. And I'm just curious if the Sondheim, Bernstein, Laurents, Robbins or even Prince have ever written about this or answered questions about it. |
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| re: question re: WSS - have the authors ever addressed why there's SO much more Jets than Sharks in the score/play? | |
| Posted by: bobjohnny 11:37 am EST 12/26/21 | |
| In reply to: question re: WSS - have the authors ever addressed why there's SO much more Jets than Sharks in the score/play? - Chazwaza 05:37 pm EST 12/24/21 | |
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| I interviewed Arthur Laurents on this subject right before his "Spanish-language" WSS opened on Broadway. He thought having a lot of the dialogue in Spanish would make audiences identify with the Sharks. I told him that audiences didn't identify with the Sharks because those characters didn't have many songs, unlike the Jets, who get to sing three songs plus the "Tonight" ensemble. I said that the movie version partially rectified this problem by giving the Sharks "America" to sing along with their girlfriends. Laurents got angry. He responded that the movie was horrible. He didn't agree that the Sharks needed more songs. He was not a man who admitted mistakes. | |
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| re: question re: WSS - have the authors ever addressed why there's SO much more Jets than Sharks in the score/play? | |
| Posted by: mikem 07:21 am EST 12/25/21 | |
| In reply to: question re: WSS - have the authors ever addressed why there's SO much more Jets than Sharks in the score/play? - Chazwaza 05:37 pm EST 12/24/21 | |
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| (spoilers, unsurprisingly) I only have a general familiarity with WSS, so my thoughts may not be completely supported by the text. But I don't think it's strange that the Jets are more featured than the Sharks because the Jets are Tony's milieu, but the Sharks aren't really Maria's milieu. She's not a Shark. We see her at the bridal shop, and with Anita; that's her milieu. In terms of the relative emphasis on Tony vs Maria, Laurents could have emphasized them both equally in the beginning, but I think the musical's structure is much more interesting. Tony is an easy entry point for the Broadway audience member in the 1950s, so it makes sense to start with him. Maria is younger, has less life experience and is less fully "formed," so she starts the musical a bit less fully formed as well. Then, as the show progresses, there is a shift more towards Maria, because she has to carry out their legacy after the curtain falls. For her to be the one left standing in some ways seems natural with the shifting emphasis over the course of the show. And Maria has grown over the course of the show. The Maria of the final scene is not the same Maria we first met. I'm not sure Tony has changed as much. |
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| re: question re: WSS - have the authors ever addressed why there's SO much more Jets than Sharks in the score/play? | |
| Posted by: TheOtherOne 08:00 pm EST 12/24/21 | |
| In reply to: question re: WSS - have the authors ever addressed why there's SO much more Jets than Sharks in the score/play? - Chazwaza 05:37 pm EST 12/24/21 | |
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| To the best of my knowledge I don't think the authors ever specifically addressed this, but I think Laurents tried to with his 2008 (or 2009?) revival by having certain dialogue and song lyrics translated to Spanish. He also treated "Gee, Officer Krupke" less as comic relief from post-rumble tension and more as an expression of the anger felt by the Jets. As we know, this met with limited success when applied to the book as he had originally written it. I wonder if Spielberg and/or Kushner were inspired to develop their movie by Laurents's goals with this revival. |
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| re: question re: WSS - have the authors ever addressed why there's SO much more Jets than Sharks in the score/play? | |
| Last Edit: Chazwaza 08:39 pm EST 12/24/21 | |
| Posted by: Chazwaza 08:23 pm EST 12/24/21 | |
| In reply to: re: question re: WSS - have the authors ever addressed why there's SO much more Jets than Sharks in the score/play? - TheOtherOne 08:00 pm EST 12/24/21 | |
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| It's funny he tried to make Krupke more an expression of anger, given that he has said (at least in the 1985 symposium another poster posted, which partly inspired me to write this thread) that he was the 1 of the 4 creators who thought and argued that "Krupke" had to go there because it would work dramatically for the audience even if it wasn't logical for the characters reality. And everyone relented and then he was right, it worked to let out steam from such an intense section of the play (like in Shakespeare). And Sondheim also said in this symposium that he thought switching it for the 1961 film didn't work as well as it does in the stage musical. Unless I'm misremembering which is entirely possible, the video is too long to go back looking for confirmation. I think Laurents was desperate for his show to have more relevance in a modern time... ironically, perhaps he should have not directed it himself as a 90 year old white director who'd written it and had his own notions of it for 50 years, and let someone else bring a new vision to it (like god forbid a hispanic director). (And I'm not saying this show needs to be directed by a non-white person, obviously it's at least 50% if not 65% "about" white characters -- though perhaps that's exactly why it would benefit from a non-white director, but anyway, the point is that Laurents was not the fresh take for it that was needed) and Ironic that he had the new Spanish lyrics phased out (which I agree ultimately are not the solution, unless there are subtitles, which is a whole other complicated thing). He also, ironically, made a rightfully big deal about a global casting search for a hispanic actress to play Maria ... and ended up casting a very very talented but extremely light-skinned Argentinian actress. Given the enormous backlash/criticism about In the Heights movie putting dark-skinned latinx people of that neighborhood in the background and erasing that reality/representation... I assume this Maria casting would have gotten a much bigger critical backlash today, and with twitter, than it did in 2009. I'm sorry but in the marketing photos you wouldn't even know she was meant to be a different race than Tony, let alone how that was the primary conflict of the story, if you didn't know what the show was about already. Not to take away from her authentic latinxness, but it seems a bit shortsighted given the intention. I'm probably not supposed to or allowed to say that but, look at the marketing photos. And my point was that it seems part of the lacking in perspective-ness that allowed Laurents to direct the revival himself. |
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| re: question re: WSS - have the authors ever addressed why there's SO much more Jets than Sharks in the score/play? | |
| Posted by: Singapore/Fling 08:29 pm EST 12/24/21 | |
| In reply to: re: question re: WSS - have the authors ever addressed why there's SO much more Jets than Sharks in the score/play? - Chazwaza 08:23 pm EST 12/24/21 | |
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| Did you see the van Hove? I thought he found a nice way to infuse a darker energy into Krupke... and to the piece as a whole, helping it feel more relevant and balanced for contemporary sensibilities. I certainly missed many of his choices while watching the new film, which for me never found a way to make sense of hard-scrabble tough guys who pirouette. | |
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| re: question re: WSS - have the authors ever addressed why there's SO much more Jets than Sharks in the score/play? | |
| Last Edit: Chazwaza 08:45 pm EST 12/24/21 | |
| Posted by: Chazwaza 08:45 pm EST 12/24/21 | |
| In reply to: re: question re: WSS - have the authors ever addressed why there's SO much more Jets than Sharks in the score/play? - Singapore/Fling 08:29 pm EST 12/24/21 | |
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| I haven't... yet (wink). But I can only echo your issue with the new film not making sense of the even grittier versions of the Jets not being made sense of in the language of the film, and calling out that waiting at least a minute into the prologue (who remembers exactly how long?) to have the Jets start dancing, and making the Prologue mostly about the camera dancing and following the Jets around as they do grounded and non-dance movements most of the time, except for the inexplicable and awkwardly sporadic times they do turn into choreography... AND cutting the Sharks out of the prologue and the ballet-dancing-street-roaminig/waring prologue entirely... really messed up any chance of the gritty hard-scrabbled tough guys who pirouette making sense. I think if you opening with the choreography and the music is used, as written, to underscore and motivate that, rather the using the music for the editing of the non-choreographed reality, then you don't have to make sense of it. Or... at least, you don't have to worry about it. That's the best you can do. Audiences will go with it or not. But it was designed to open this way for a reason... doing it that way, with the stylized street gang movement quickly morphing into the gang-ballet, at the beginning, is really the only chance you have of it working. |
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| re: question re: WSS - have the authors ever addressed why there's SO much more Jets than Sharks in the score/play ?did Sheldon Harnick "lyric-shame" Sondheim? | |
| Posted by: bmc (bmccabe67@comcast.net) 07:25 pm EST 12/24/21 | |
| In reply to: question re: WSS - have the authors ever addressed why there's SO much more Jets than Sharks in the score/play? - Chazwaza 05:37 pm EST 12/24/21 | |
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| I think in the book SONDHEIM & CO>, Sondheim mentions ' showing off ' the I feel pretty lyric, and harnick said somthin like 'really steve?. Sondheim cooled to the lyric After that; or is my memory playing tricks on me. By the way, a brilliant analysis /Chazwaza | |
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| my problem with Sondheim's problem with "I Feel Pretty" | |
| Last Edit: Chazwaza 08:13 pm EST 12/24/21 | |
| Posted by: Chazwaza 07:58 pm EST 12/24/21 | |
| In reply to: re: question re: WSS - have the authors ever addressed why there's SO much more Jets than Sharks in the score/play ?did Sheldon Harnick "lyric-shame" Sondheim? - bmc 07:25 pm EST 12/24/21 | |
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| Thank you for the generous words! Glad you found it a worthwhile read. And yeah, I don't doubt that Harnick said something like that. I'd say he was wrong too. It seems to me that "I Feel Pretty" exists in one of these options of dramatic reality: A) All characters speak in 95-100% English because it's a play written to communicate to an English speaking audience. So even when Spanish speaking characters (who, in the reality of their current lives, likely all speak some English, and most of whom are actively learning it) speak, it is translated *by the play to the audience* to English so that it can be understood, because presumably everything a character says or sings in a play is there for a reason and must be understood by the audience. In this reality, Maria is, in theory, speaking in Spanish for "I Feel Pretty", because she's speaking to Puerto Ricans only, but it's magically translated for the audience into English so we can understand it, as well as into rhyming lyrics that fit onto music because it is a song. B) Unless we hear them use Spanish (which we do occasionally), the Puerto Rican characters ARE speaking English. This is true of many immigrants who are trying to assimilate into a place with a different language (in America or otherwise). I think it was largely understood that to take advantage of the supposed opportunity available in America, you would have to speak the language that is the primary language of the country and the exclusive language spoken by the people in charge. (I'm not saying this is fair or right, I'm just discussing what the reality was). Insisting on speaking English to each other (as Anita often does) in order to practice, or just doing it without calling attention to it, is not far fetched at all. A smart young woman like Maria, at her age especially, would surely be actively learning and using English. How pompous of Sondheim and insulting to Maria for him to think his use of words like "alarming / charming" and "stunning, entrancing, committee, dizzy/fizzy" etc are beyond what Maria would have been able to know at that point in her time in America. If anything, his lyrical "showing off" actually sounds like a young person learning these medium-level vocab words and using them to show off herself. Apparently this wasn't intention of Sondheim, but to me it is much more believable that Maria IS using words she just recently learned. A more sophisticated English thinker/speaker would probably not express themselves the way the lyrics of this song are written. So if we're to believe she's expressing herself in Spanish because she's speaking to only Puerto Rican immigrants and they're all using only Spanish when not in the company of English-speakers, then why wouldn't she be using words at this medium-vocab level? And if we're to believe she is expressing herself in English, a language she is currently learning and using to assimilate, with a sharp and sponge-like mind of a teenager, and is choosing words she may have recently learned that express her giddy joy ... then why wouldn't see be using the words in the lyrics? Unless his issue is that she's doing such "clever" or "sophisticated" ***rhymes***... to which I have to laugh. We do not think Maria is actually rhyming, whether the lyric is: "it's alarming how charming i feel" OR "I feel dizzy, I feel sunny, I feel fizzy and funny and fine, And so pretty, Miss America can just resign." ... because this is a musical. And fun internal rhymes like this: "I feel pretty, Oh, so pretty That the city should give me its key. A committee Should be organized to honor me." ... are not Maria showing off. In the reality of a musical (at least most musicals, including this one), Maria does not know her words rhyme. Because of this, it is Sondheim showing off, but showing off to underline and/or achieve a higher level of expression of Maria's feeling here... and it works. The song has more zip and buzz and communication of what Maria is experiencing in her head and heart in this moment *because* of a little internal rhyme there. What he thinks is weaker writing or a betrayal of the character or the reality of her given circumstances is actually unfair and working to have the opposite effect for the *musical*. In a musical everyone sings and when they do they rhyme. Something perhaps Sondheim conveniently forgot in order to have a baby to throw to the wolves of humility. And in fact sometimes people express themselves in a song in more heightened ways than they would if it were spoken dialogue. This is part of the format of a musical... Every character who sings rhymes. In a musical, other than diegetic songs, the audience understands that NONE OF THE SONGS are the characters *actually* singing in the actual reality of the story. The story is being told and the character's thoughts and feelings and often dialogue are being expressed with song, and dance. We do not watch the Prologue and think these gang members are meant to be actually dancing through the streets of NYC... we understand it is an artistic expression to represent them roaming the streets... just as we do not think when someone sings AND their lyrics (through which they express their thoughts or dialogue during a song) RHYME, as almost all lyrics do, that the character is actually rhyming their thoughts, or would be rhyming their words if it were spoken dialogue rather than lyrics. So for him to have an issue with her having the apparently astounding wit it might take to do internal rhymes or rhymes of words she may not even be that familiar with, is pretty ridiculous, not to mention insulting to the audience. So on several levels I find Sondheim's issues to be silly and unfounded, and either an insult to Maria or to the audience or both. Either way I think he looks worse for his criticisms than better. And I'm glad that he never won the battle to change these lyrics. :) (ps it's hard to tell here, but I am quite an intense Sondheim worshiper, though I do find fault with his logic at times) |
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| re: my problem with Sondheim's problem with "I Feel Pretty" | |
| Posted by: Singapore/Fling 08:26 pm EST 12/24/21 | |
| In reply to: my problem with Sondheim's problem with "I Feel Pretty" - Chazwaza 07:58 pm EST 12/24/21 | |
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| I think Sondheim would counter that the vocabulary and linguistic achievements of a character - including internal rhymes - while not meant to be understood literally are meant to reflect the character's linguistic intelligence and sophistication. Over the years, Sondheim took his own criticism to heart and made a point of writing his lyrics in ways that better suit the character. On stage, I've tended to agree with your reading of Scenario 1, which is that Maria is singing and showcasing her intelligence in Spanish, and we are hearing it in English. In this most recent film, I think we are told explicitly that she is singing in English, and I think we've also been told up until this point that her English, which workable, is not nearly up to the task of the song... and while I think there's a great insight that she could be whipping off vocabulary words like "charming" and "dizzy" and "sunny", I don't buy the argument that she's at the point where she's learning "entrancing" nor mastered the sentence structure to say "a committee should be organized to honor me", which is both complicated grammatically and also a tricky verb tense, conditionals being a bit higher level... especially since she is likely learning from a book in a time when language learning was more about rote repetition... but maybe we can make an argument that these are all phrases she's had to learn from a lesson? I think where you hit the nail on the head is that Sondheim is maybe a bit embarrassed that he thought, at 27, that the song was showcasing his cleverness as a lyricist, when in fact the rhymes are all a bit obvious and beat-you-over-the-head, and he's attempting to find a sophisticated way to explain away his own self-critic. |
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| re: my problem with Sondheim's problem with "I Feel Pretty" | |
| Last Edit: Chazwaza 08:57 pm EST 12/24/21 | |
| Posted by: Chazwaza 08:54 pm EST 12/24/21 | |
| In reply to: re: my problem with Sondheim's problem with "I Feel Pretty" - Singapore/Fling 08:26 pm EST 12/24/21 | |
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| I completely buy your point. And I wish the song had been done in Spanish in the movie for this reason. I think being set in their White-run (even if closed for the night) workplace, it is even more likely they'd be speaking (and there for singing) in Spanish to each other. I also intellectually understand the reasoning for not subtitling the Spanish but I think it worked against them. To be the wiser solution to not giving primacy to one language over the other would be to subtitle BOTH English and Spanish (English into Spanish and Spanish into English). To assume also that everyone seeing the movie speaks English fluently is actually the kind of exclusive/ignorant assumption or inadvertent gate-keeping they were hoping to avoid or stand against. All the words in the movie are worth communicating to the audience, to have the non-Spanish-speaking audience miss out on so many of the words that the Spanish-speaking characters are saying does a disservice to those characters, the audience, and the play. The statement is made, sure, but there's a sacrifice that comes with it that isn't worth making. Subtitling both languages would have made the statement and lost nothing for either an English-speaking audience or a Spanish-speaking audience. And "I Feel Pretty" is SO well known as it is, that it's an easy song to have English-speakers hear in Spanish, not to mention that it was already re-written for that for the 2009 revival, with the now-even-more-famous Puerto Rican writer Lin-Manuel Miranda doing it with Sondheim's oversight/approval. I wish the new movie had committed to this, or just left it all in English with the conceit we all have understood for decades if not centuries for plays that involve characters who might not always be speaking in the language of the play, the play translates it for us because it is a play... just as we all understand the conceit that when characters in musicals sing (and rhyme), they are not actually doing that, it is a translation for the audience via the format of the play/movie. Also, for fun, a shoutout to the best I've seen this issue dealt with in a Broadway play... Stoppard's The Coast of Utopia, taking place in Russia... the Russian characters all spoke in English with non accent, and when they were in scenes speaking English (to characters who do not speak Russian) they spoke the same English as before but in a heavy Russian accent. It made perfect sense and was a graceful clever way to distinguish (since of course Russian is not spoken in a Russian accent to Russians, the accent exists in comparison to non-Russian speakers and when saying non-Russian words ... etc). West Side Story was not written for this to be utilized, and so they must do the play as written, or go all in on addressing it scene by scene and use the appropriate subtitles (which can happily include subtitles for every word regardless of language). |
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| re: my problem with Sondheim's problem with "I Feel Pretty" | |
| Last Edit: Chromolume 10:42 pm EST 12/24/21 | |
| Posted by: Chromolume 10:41 pm EST 12/24/21 | |
| In reply to: re: my problem with Sondheim's problem with "I Feel Pretty" - Chazwaza 08:54 pm EST 12/24/21 | |
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| One question I would have dearly loved to ask Sondheim - was he poking fun at himself (in context of his feelings about the "I Feel Pretty" lyric) when he wrote "Come Play Wiz Me" in Anyone Can Whistle only 7 years later? In that song, he has Fay disguised as a French woman (whose French is only passable) who at one point comes up with the lyric "I like your, 'ow you say, imperturbable perspicacity." Later, Hapgood responds to that with "I like your, how you say, unmistakable authenticity." I HAVE to think that in the back of his head, Sondheim was slyly looking back at "I Feel Pretty." | |
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| re: question re: WSS - have the authors ever addressed why there's SO much more Jets than Sharks in the score/play? | |
| Posted by: theatreguy40 06:45 pm EST 12/24/21 | |
| In reply to: question re: WSS - have the authors ever addressed why there's SO much more Jets than Sharks in the score/play? - Chazwaza 05:37 pm EST 12/24/21 | |
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| Your post is very interesting ... but maybe you answered some of your own questions as you thought it all out. But let me address a few of your thoughts/concerns. First of all - I, too, adore the show (and the original movie). I have directed and/or choreographed numerous professional productions so I feel I know the material extremely well. Let me throw this out to you concerning the "Tony vs. Maria" songs: Tony sings "Something's Comin'" --- maybe the fact that he "sings" is meant to be a metaphor for his "maturing" and finding new meaning in life. (although at this point, he doesn't know what that is - only that a strong "feeling" is overwhelming him. Maria's first scene (with Anita ) has NO song for her --- she is still secluded and safe in her world and hasn't experienced a "new" feeling. Tony and Maria meet. Tony sings "Maria" - advancing his new feeling of his world changing. The feeling is now complete. Maria and Tony then sing "Tonight" --- she finally is experiencing a Life changing feeling and her "singing" is the metaphor for the beginning of her transformation. Does this make sense - possibly???? As far as the Gangs and their number of songs -- I have two possible theories: 1) My first theory is that the creatives (Robbins, Laurents and Sondheim) were never concerned -- or possibly even thought about - "Balancing" the score between the two gangs. They were most likely more interested in simply telling the story and deciding that a particular moment needed to be musicalized to enhance the moment. 2) Usually in a musical, the more a character "sings" the more important they become. But maybe -- just maybe -- by having the Sharks sing less it gives them more sympathy???? They seem more put upon since we know less about them and therefore the hatred the Jets feel toward them makes us (the audience) more sympathetic to the underdog gang??? Possibly??? |
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| re: question re: WSS - have the authors ever addressed why there's SO much more Jets than Sharks in the score/play? | |
| Last Edit: Chazwaza 07:35 pm EST 12/24/21 | |
| Posted by: Chazwaza 07:20 pm EST 12/24/21 | |
| In reply to: re: question re: WSS - have the authors ever addressed why there's SO much more Jets than Sharks in the score/play? - theatreguy40 06:45 pm EST 12/24/21 | |
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| I'd be into going with you on your explanation of Tony and Maria's reasons for singing, but in that I'd think it's an even stronger argument for why Maria should have a song where Tony sings "Maria", or that they should have separate songs and come together to sing an actual duet in "Tonight". I know "Maria" pays off for Tony what he thinks he meant in "Something's Coming", but if the shift is what makes either of them sing, then why wouldn't SHE be the one singing there instead of or along with Tony? This is as much or more a major change for Maria and her life than it is for Tony. Or why isn't "Tonight" first a solo for her before Tony arrives and it turns into a duet? She could very easily be on the balcony or in her room singing "Tonight, tonight... I met my love tonight. I saw him and the world went away." I'm sure that might spoil the magic of hearing the chorus of "Tonight" come out of the intro they sing for it together. But still, another writing team, or even Bernstein/Sondheim/Laurents writing the show in the 90s very possibly would have thought this was necessary. And you have a valid take on the Sharks singing less making them the underdog, but I think the show works to make sure the Jets are a group of underdogs too. I think the revised "America" helps balance out what we get from the Jets in "Krupke", and clearly they think Anita is a better spokesperson for the Sharks than Bernardo. But I think a lot of poc audiences would think they have been underwritten in an attempt (or a passive ignorance of the need for a dramatic balance between the gangs) to make the Sharks more of a default villain group. Which I never felt they came off as, but I'm watching it through the eyes of a white kid/adult. I think the new movie thinks they've helped balance that out by not involving the Sharks in the Prologue and only having them appear at the end to defend the Puerto Rican flag mural that the Jets throw paint on... the new movie doubles down on the Sharks only acting out of reaction, rather than as two rival gangs going at each other. But I still think taking away the power of introducing them equally in the story-telling danced-prologue, and taking away the introduction of dance as the musical language of both groups just hurts the presence and weight of the Sharks (not to mention how odd it is to me that the new movie establishes that when Puerto Ricans do songs, it is actually happening in observable reality and when the Jets do songs it is the construct of a musical... which seems to twist how this musical works in a fetishization of Puerto Rican culture being one where people break into song and dance in reality -- I think these are two reasons why "opening" up America as they did in the new movie was a mistake... A) it changes the power and emphasis of it being a private dialogue/conflict between two viewpoints as immigrants, expressed by Anita and the girls vs Bernardo and the Sharks, which also had the effect of strengthening our understanding of that relationship, and B) it brings in the idea that the song and dance is being done actually, by showing other community members watching and cheering and joining... a very odd choice for a musical where all the singing and dancing was used traditionally, rather than diegetic, separating the musical langue of the Puerto Rican characters in a way that is more confusing than helpful., at least from where I sit. I don't want to downplay that it did bring in the community and make it an expression of the wider Puerto Rican immigrant community and gave that a voice, but I think in gaining that you lose something else that achieved more for the actual musical and actual story being told). |
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| re: question re: WSS - have the authors ever addressed why there's SO much more Jets than Sharks in the score/play? | |
| Posted by: theatreguy40 02:08 pm EST 12/25/21 | |
| In reply to: re: question re: WSS - have the authors ever addressed why there's SO much more Jets than Sharks in the score/play? - Chazwaza 07:20 pm EST 12/24/21 | |
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| I absolutely agree with everything you say about "America". I felt the exact same way when I saw the new movie a few days ago. It really was "opened up" to such an extent that it lost a lot of the dramatic tension and meaning of the sequence! As far as our discussion about "Tonight" -- just to pinpoint it a bit more: it IS Maria who starts singing first ("Only you, you're the only one I"ll see forever...") Maria is also the one who sings the "chorus" first as a solo ("Tonight, tonight, it all began tonight, I saw you and the world went away!"). In the stage show -- Tony does get to sing it solo when Maria goes inside to answer her mama's call for a minute -- however that moment is in neither the original nor the new movie , only the stage production. But Maria (in all versions) does sing first... WSS is a magnificent creation (for so many many reasons!). I never tire of doing (directing or choreographing) the piece. And I'll watch the original movie whenever it is shown - be it in a special showing in a movie theatre or some late night TV showing. A few years ago I had the pleasure of seeing it at Lincoln Center OUTDOORS. That was really special because even as the movie played - the sounds of Manhattan traffic were always in the background and it made it seem even more "immediate". I also saw it at Lincoln Center INDOORS when they showed the movie accompanied by a LIVE orchestra playing the score -- also magnificent! |
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| re: question re: WSS - have the authors ever addressed why there's SO much more Jets than Sharks in the score/play? | |
| Posted by: Singapore/Fling 03:29 pm EST 12/25/21 | |
| In reply to: re: question re: WSS - have the authors ever addressed why there's SO much more Jets than Sharks in the score/play? - theatreguy40 02:08 pm EST 12/25/21 | |
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| OMG, I would love to see them screen the new one at Lincoln Center outdoors. I'd see it a second time for that. | |
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| re: question re: WSS - have the authors ever addressed why there's SO much more Jets than Sharks in the score/play? | |
| Posted by: Singapore/Fling 06:09 pm EST 12/24/21 | |
| In reply to: question re: WSS - have the authors ever addressed why there's SO much more Jets than Sharks in the score/play? - Chazwaza 05:37 pm EST 12/24/21 | |
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| I think your explanation answers the question to a large extent: this is the story of Tony falling in love with Maria, so he is centered and her agency exists mainly in response to him, and then it's the story of the Jets and their feud with the Sharks, so the Jets are centered and the Sharks' agency exists mainly in response to the Jets and America. And that balance feels right to most audiences because most audiences have typically found themselves centered in the story or haven't questioned/noticed/minded the status quo of popular entertainment in this country. Call that unconscious bias, overt racism, or the natural approach to doing a standard adaptation of "Romeo and Juliet" (hence the contemporary responses to Shakespeare that frame his plays around the female characters like Juliet or Desdemona); wherever our modern-day arguments take us in how we interpret the choices of the creatives, I think it's clear that they brought a specific point of view to the story. |
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