In all the excitement about the inaugural I forgot to mention that on Tuesday I went to see West Side Story (pictured above are Josefina Scaglione and Matt Cavenaugh, who play Maria and Tony) at the National Theater with my friend Mark. It was very good. You can read about it here.
I think Mark summed it up very well. The women were better than the men and the sharks were better than the Jets. It's not to say the men were bad; they weren't. It just that the women really have more material.
There is an interesting change in the way the musical is staged or I should say sung:
Such is the allure of the performance that even when Scaglione is singing in Spanish -- which she does repeatedly in this novel, bilingual incarnation, directed by its librettist, Arthur Laurents -- an English speaker discerns the radiant spectrum of emotion in a young girl caught between ethnic hatred and desire. No matter how you conjugate them, it seems, the giddy verbs of "I Feel Pretty" (or rather "Siento Hermosa") ring out with verve.
I thought the addition of Spanish made the show much more realistic. The draw back on some of the songs is if people in the audience are not familiar with the lyrics to the songs. But no matter what language the show is sung in the power of the songs transcends it.
It is amazing that the original author of the book to the show, Arthur Laurents, is now the director of it. Laurents is 90.
For more pictures of the production follow these two links. This one shows the company in rehearsal. This one shows scenes from the actual show.
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