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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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