From the moment the orchestra struck up at the New Theatre, Oxford, I knew it was going to be spectacular. I love musical theatre: I love the way you can feel the vibrations in your throat from the music, and from the pounding of feet on stage. It’s an electric experience which always leaves me buzzing.
I was there with a friend to see West Side Story. I had been looking forward to it for weeks and I wasn’t disappointed. The staging was superbly done, with industrial steel units gliding silently across the stage to form exterior balconies and interior rooms. The show was well cast, with direction which played to everyone’s strengths: singers sang; dancers danced, and a few did both, quite brilliantly. It was the dancing which really made this show shine. Fight scenes were interpreted through breathtaking ballet, with leaps and kicks, and pirouettes which became the reeling of a punch-drunk man.
West Side Story is, of course, the famous echo of Romeo and Juliet. Puerto Rican Maria meets New Yorker Tony and falls in love. Like Shakespeare’s star-crossed lovers, they are from opposing sides, and not even true love is enough to keep them together.
The themes of racism and violence in the play are uncomfortable: Police Lieutenant Schrank warns both sets of boys not to cause trouble, but it’s the Puerto Rican Sharks he runs out of the neighbourhood. ‘I got the badge, you got the skin. It’s tough all over. Beat it.’ Maria’s sister-in-law, Anita, is raped by the Jets in a scene which has nothing to do with sex, and everything to do with power, revenge, and white supremacy.
As I watched 1950s America play out before me, I was struck by how little we have moved on in the last fifty years. ‘You’re making this world lousy!’ Doc shouts at the warring Jets, and they spit back: ‘that’s the way we found it!’ Generations of angry young people, all over the world, leaving the world just the way they were handed it.
It was a strong and creative performance from a brilliant cast, at a theatre which is just big enough to be atmospheric, but still small enough to see the gleam of the greasepaints. If you’re close to Oxford this week, West Side Story finishes on Saturday 26 October, and it’s well worth a look. Tickets from the New Theatre Oxford box office.