WEST SIDE STORY
Directed and Choreographed
by Jerome Robbins
Music by Leonard Bernstein
Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Book by Arthur Laurents
The finest musicals are subject to sociocultural jet lag. The biorhythms of the societal clock seem organically out of kilter. No time machine can transport the audience to the 1943 spirit of Oklahoma! or the 1957 of West Side Story. Separate components (songs, dances, acting) can be marvelously exciting, but the core of the musical, what it is rather than what it does, recedes into an odd realm of detachment. The original galvanizing impact is dissipated.
Not so much so that one cannot experience...
