Old story of division gets blinding new expression
The stage of the Nelson Mandela Theatre at the Joburg Theatre Complex is one of the biggest in SA, and over the years, I have seen it put to extravagant use: Andrew Lloyd Webber, from his weird Starlight Express phase to his football musical phase; rock concerts; opera and ballet.
It seems fair to say, however, that the depth and height of this stage has never been as adroitly exploited, or achieved such a visually startling effect, as in the production of West Side Story.
It is all the more spectacular because the set design first envisioned by the late Johan Engles and executed by Conor Murphy departs from the brickand-high-rise New York backdrop so readily associated with the show, particularly since the 1961 film version.
Instead, we are in a grim, grey, nondescript urban environment that could be the setting for any gang turf war. It is out of this hopeless environment – “our mothers all are junkies, our fathers all are drunks” – that the colour, light and sound of West Side Story emerge: youthful exuberance, passion, naivety, anger, optimism and despair.
It may seem odd to start an assessment of a musical by emphasising what it looks like. But West Side Story is not a typical musical; it is not an easy-on-the-ear escapist romp. When we think of famous numbers such as “Something’s Coming”, “Maria”, “America”, “Tonight” and “Somewhere”, we might forget that Leonard Bernstein’s score is frequently and deliberately jarring as it seeks to convey the antagonism, bigotry and resentment that threatens to spill into fatal violence.
This was a musical that broke all the rules. Jerome Robbins’s choreography sought to express macho strutting and posturing through balletic movement. Stephen Sondheim’s lyrics captured the wit, prejudice, crassness and slang of those toughing it out in New York’s underbelly. With the passing of time, however, it became sanitised. Even Arthur Laurents, who wrote the original book for the show, felt it needed updating.
Enter director Matthew Wild and a stellar young team assembled by Cape Town’s Fugard Theatre for this production, which has as its credo the modernist injunction “Make it new”. The result is a West Side Story that feels simultaneously of our time and very much of its own time. The characters speak a street jargon that is almost comical and the basic conflict between white gangsters the Jets and the Puerto Rican Sharks is couched in the dated language of “Spiks”, “Wops” and “Polacks”.
But the US has been turned upside down since the show premiered at the Artscape Opera House in 2015 and its Joburg run cannot but be framed by the racism and xenophobia let loose by Donald Trump. The anti-immigrant rhetoric of the Jets, the ghettoisation of the Puerto Rican community, the vexed role of the police in preserving racial hierarchies – all these resonate in an ugly and potent way with the US of 2017.
Behind the squabble of the Jets and the Sharks and the doomed love of Tony and Maria lies a much older narrative. The common wisdom is that it is Romeo and Juliet, and indeed West Side Story is patterned on Shakespeare’s play. Yet the story did not originate with Shakespeare – he borrowed an existing tale, one that in turn was based on ancient myth and legend, and that is indeed the stuff of archetype. We are reminded each time Romeo and Juliet die and each time Tony is shot that human beings just don’t seem to learn.
Still, there is encouragement to be gained from the lovers’ hope that they can overcome deep-seated, irrational hatred. In this production, they strike us with their playfulness and their earnestness, their idealism and their evident desire.
Jonathan Roxmouth was battling a cold on opening night but audiences know they are in safe hands with this consummate performer. One gets the feeling Roxmouth could act and sing even with a real frog in his throat. It was Lynelle Kenned as Maria – sweet and then sassy, fearless and then furious – who shone brightest, however, and Joburg audiences who have not yet encountered this phenomenal talent are in for a treat.