Listen to the sung titles of The Simpsons and you’ll immediately hear the key melody of Bernstein’s ‘Maria’ from West Side Story. You might even pick something similar in The Pink Panther theme, ‘The Girl from Ipanema’ and even Jimmy Hendrix’s ‘Purple Haze’.  If there’s a musical instrument close, check out the opening notes of West Side Story – C, G and F# – make it into a chord, then you’ll know the tri-tone, the distorted chord that links all the above-mentioned, diverse twentieth century anthems.

Common in jazz, the sweet-and-sour, often syncopated tri-tones in this musical form and fall to frame the fights and fates of hoodlum gangs, the Jets and the Sharks, during 31 hours of their lives on New York’s West Side.

Jamie Bernstein writes of his father’s own personal tri-tones of faith, hope and despair. Leonard Bernstein uses the vehicle of West Side Story to drive the familiar Romeo-and-Juliet conflicts to a final scene where, unlike Shakespeare’s Juliet, hope is allowed to survive, in the character of Maria (even though Stephen Sondheim actually wrote a lyric for her death).

To Leonard Bernstein’s music and Arthur Laurents’ plot add the third tone of West Side Story, the lyrics of Sondheim. The steps and leaps that stitch, thread and punctuate the all-singing, all-dancing show, were choreographed by George Balanchine’s contemporary, Jerome Robbins, who actually conceived the whole work. It would be impossible to improve on this galactic quartet that brought West Side Story to the stage in 1957. At the time, they were an alignment of upcoming stars. Only Sondheim remains alive today so, in a way, the touring show is a something of a tribute.

To say this is not an easy show is massive understatement. Bernstein was at a time of life when he was determined to be taken seriously, scoring musical time as obscure as 25/6. Stephen Sondheim, at 27 years of age, was also finding his way, with idiosyncratic lyrical brilliance. Robbins had already choreographed The King and I, and brought a reputation as a very hard dance taskmaster to West Side Story. The ambition, innovation and genius that together they infused into the show makes extreme demands in its execution.

It is fair to say that this extraordinarily versatile and practised troupe never falters in energy, precision and fidelity to its creators.

The show opens with a half-spoken, half-danced ‘prologue’ that introduces the two gangs, The Sharks and the Jets. A fairly conventional set, with tall fire-escape silhouettes and ladders, pivots out from the sides of the stage to form a Les Mis-like barricade for some scenes, and the shells and shapes of buildings move easily and work well to suggest the divided and Spartan world of the West Side’s alleys. Monochrome projected cityscapes add to the atmosphere, replaced at times by a brilliantly coloured, simple cyclorama against which high-hue costumes resonate with dazzling clarity. Designer Renate Schmitzer’s flirtatiously fifties short skirts, tight tee-shirts, pastel suits, silk jackets and frilled frocks rock the show along in a fabulous fashion fest, whether it be rumbles or rhumbas.

When it comes to pedigree, this touring production is a purebred. Director and choreographer Joey McKneely worked as a dancer for Jerome Robbins, and honours his original staging. Maestro and Bernstein scholar Donald Chan has conducted over 3000 performances of the work and he brings to the surface the deep classical river upon which Bernstein’s jazz boat floated.

Waldemar Quinones-Villanueva, who plays Puerto Rican gang leader Bernardo, has another authentication to offer: he was born on the northern coast of Puerto Rico and danced in the 2008 Broadway revival of the show under the direction of Arthur Laurents. He is one of the stars who are quick to shine, strutting out to secure the stage right from his entry, proud and fluid, with a chip on his sardonic shoulder, exuding a defiant sexuality you can almost smell, and maintaining it visually through a succession of bold magenta-spectrum outfits. Keely Beirne as his fiery yet feline girlfriend Anita is irresistible – that’s feline as in tigress, not tabby.

After an uncertain start, boy-next-door Kevin Hack as romantic hero Tony creates some truly magic and melting moments with Maria, played by Jenna Burns who progresses her character from ingénue to maturity with convincing focus. Echoing the balcony scene of Romeo and Juliet, they tenderly sing the first appearance of the song ‘Tonight’, breathing softly as they part, “Te adoro, Anton”; “Te adoro, Maria”. It is perfect and just beautiful; so pure, so subtly and sensitively shaded, so fresh and engaging.

There is no sign of complacency even after seven months on the road (the touring production continues until January 2018). Indeed, the grin on Maestro Chan’s face on opening night says it all.

Original co-producer Hal Prince said in 1957 that the unique attraction of WSS is “a young cast doing everything” and that remains true, although the actor/singers and dancers tend to excel in their own domains. Middle America is notably represented in the New York cast, with members from Minnesota, Texas, Missouri, Georgia and North Carolina. There’s a good few college degrees among the troupe, from education to art history, and of course stage and music performance. They also cover a plethora of ballet residencies and dance forms from classical to hip-hop.  Oh, and did I mention they are FIT! 

While it is an ensemble show, there are standouts in both the dance teams.

In the Jet boys, Joe Bigelow as the ball of fury called Action is coiled with tension, intensity and concentration that springs over the footlights. As Baby John, Daniel Russell has some very cool moves, especially a nimble backwards run on tiptoe in ‘Cool’. Dance captain Kyle Weiler brings a strong and structural physicality to Diesel. Riff’s girl Velma (Jill Gittleman) has a sensual dance presence, and Kelsey Elisabeth Holley’s bleach-blond Consuelo not only dances evocatively but acts convincingly as one of the Shark girls. 

Act One introduces ‘Maria’, ‘Tonight’ and ‘America’, as well as the less-known, but pretty ‘One Hand One Heart’, set in the bridal shop with Tony and Maria. However, even here lurks the tri-tone dissonance as a harbinger of tragedy. The act feels like it should end as the cast forms over three levels for the reprise of ‘Tonight’, however we are propelled to the intermission with just two bodies lying on stage. 

Act Two, which is written with surprisingly little music, begins with ‘I Feel Pretty’, which could easily be from Lerner and Lowe, and it introduces the enduring theme of ‘Somewhere’, also giving us two pure dance scenes, one of which salutes classical ballet. Tony has come though the fire escape window and Maria introduces the dream of a place they can be free with, “It’s not us, it’s everything around us.” The city disappears and the delightfully optimistic dance sequence plays out in pastel colours. Then the dream becomes a nightmare. The young lovers’ dawn bed scene is disturbed not by a Shakespearean lark, but a distant police siren which prompts Tony’s Romeo-like window escape as the show heads inexorably towards the tragic finale. 

Some 17 members strong, the mostly Eastern European orchestra plays capably with an easy musicianship that is a little short on attack, from where I sit. Music and sound are generally well served, with state-of-the-art stage mics and an adequate sound system.  

It is unfair to compare the show too much with the 1961 Best Picture, almost unrivalled in its trove of ten Oscars, as this had given Robbins the chance to revise and develop his work, in a way that the touring 2008 stage revival has not fully embraced. The film’s carpark setting and stunning choreography of the number ‘Cool’ is more compelling, and the male ensemble that was added in ‘America’ did give the number another layer of colour. It’s a bit squeaky in the all-female staging. In the film Robbins succeeded in his long-held wish to move the obligatory comic number ‘Gee, Officer Krupke’ ahead of the death scene, which makes more sense than fitting the clowning around into the shadow of grief and anger where it sits in the original order.

The ‘Krupke’ lyrics, however, are far from comic in their undertone, revealing social injustice and authority’s stereotypical failure to deal with it. In summing up the show, however, Sondheim says, “It’s not about prejudice, it’s about theatre.”  If that’s the case, the production scores well in theatrical terms. If Arthur Laurent’s comment that “content determines form” prevails, then the stage show cleverly and deftly delivers elegance from adversity, in more than two hours of polished, kinetic energy and assured stagecraft. If, however, it is about Bernstein’s social justice drivers, then the more gritty film delivers more directly. 

An evening in the presence of a century’s most talented musical collaborators will entertain completely, plumb your sensibilities of sadness and hope, and sharpen your humanity. You don’t need to look or listen too hard to see the message. As Tony is shot he tells Maria, “I didn’t believe hard enough.” She talks of the power of hate, and includes the audience as she cries, “We all killed him.”  Her last sung lines, in an unaccompanied whisper, are “someday, somehow.” 

So, as the curtain falls, we are left questioning whether, sixty years on, we are even halfway there in our search for a new way of living, in a place where there is time to forgive and time to care.

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The classic American musical West Side Story has well and truly stood the test of time. The touring version now on stage at The Civic is closely modeled on the Broadway original by dream team Robbins, Bernstein, Sondheim and Laurents, and is a superbly presented production to delight in.

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Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer

Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer