| 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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