Some shows are so monumentally famous, so seared in the cultural memory, they become very hard to budge. Productions of West Side Story can look like perfectly-tended museum dioramas; impeccable on the surface, they often seem a little mechanical where it counts. It will always deliver the goods for those unfamiliar with the piece, but it might leave wearied theatre goers asking just what was the point. Opera Australia’s second production of the show this year – there’s currently a completely different outdoor production playing on Sydney Harbour – is unlikely to change this dynamic, let alone anyone’s mind.
One thing becomes clear very quickly: this production will be a great shrine to the god Robbins, or maybe several smaller ones set up in every corner of the Temple of Robbins. By which we mean original director and choreographer Jerome Robbins, who clashed violently with his collaborators on the show, composer Leonard Bernstein, librettist Stephen Sondheim and author of the book, Arthur Laurents. Robbins was an egomaniac among the already very self-assured, and fiendishly stamped his will on the production – and left an indelible impression on the subsequent film.
As a result, the dancing is extraordinary. It has a tendency to pull on every American dance tradition going, from the quickstep to the bunny hop; it leans heavily on classical ballet but its final effect is miles away – coiled and dangerous, mirroring the patois of those New York streets. Director Joey McKneely expertly navigates those moves, and galvanises the energy of his very young cast in key scenes. It’s just a pity he isn’t a director for actors or singers; every time the dancing stops, the production sinks a little, as if McKneely had slinked off for a ciggie and left the performers to do their own blocking.
This means that some scenes – the school dance where Tony and Maria meet, for instance; or ‘America’, where the girls show off their considerable talents for high kicks and low shimmies – are electrifying. But Robbins, despite his best efforts, wasn’t the central creative talent that rendered West Side such an instant and enduring sensation. That honour goes to Bernstein, who wrote one of the most perfect scores for a Broadway musical the theatre has ever known. This production treats that score almost as an afterthought, as something pretty to fill out the lulls between the dancing.
As the doomed lovers, Todd Jacobsson and Sophie Salvesani underline another problem with this production: the girls are constantly outshining the boys. He is twee and anodyne, his voice never hitting the high plaintive romanticism the part demands, whereas she is forthright and expansive, with a rich and powerful soprano that dominates whenever they sing together. Tony must convince as a tough who has mellowed, but while it’s easy to imagine Jacobsson as a former Mormon – he made an utterly convincing Elder White in Book of Mormon – it is nigh impossible to imagine him as a former Jet. This is true of Noah Mullins’ Riff too; he’d make a better Jack from Lord of the Flies, leader of a bunch of private school kids gone rotten rather than this ragtag bunch of born hoodlums.
In fact, the Jets are a little disappointing, a little low on that eponymous fuel; they seem utterly harmless, especially in the opening number, which makes the escalating sense of violence hard to believe. The Sharks are stronger, led by a more convincingly muscular Bernardo (Lyndon Watts). Chloe Zuel, in what has become a tradition since Chita Rivera did it in the original production, steals the show as his girlfriend Anita. But the decision to fill the cast with performers making their professional debut means that the result, while high on energy, lacks gravitas. Vocally and dramatically, it comes across as an exceptionally polished, lavishly designed high school production.
That design is effortlessly effective. Paul Gallis’s set consists of two enormous multi-tiered wooden balconies that join and pull apart, revealing a backdrop of evocative stills of ’50s New York, all augmented by Peter Halbsgut’s stunning lighting in bold primary colours. Orchestra Victoria are on fire under the baton of Donald Chan, racing through the score at maximum speed but still managing to hit those heights of lyricism. In what has become commonplace in the modern musical, everything is over-miked – the famous offstage rendition of ‘Somewhere’ is completely robbed of its delicacy and plangency – but the upshot is a beefed up fullness of sound.
West Side Story is pretty hard to fuck up, in many ways. A solid cast and a decent rehearsal period will always produce an entertaining night out. But this production, so slavishly recreating Robbins’ choreography it often feels like it’s licking the soles of his dance shoes, only gets us so far; and it’s nowhere we haven’t been before. Iconoclastic director Ivo van Hove is opening what promises to be a radical rethink of the show on Broadway at the end of this year; tellingly, it ditches Robbin’s choreography altogether. I know which production I’d rather see.
