Talkin’ Broadway: West Side Story (Mar. 24th, 2024) Study Guide.
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West Side Story (Mar. 24th, 2024)
Study Guide:
Talkin’ Broadway - West Side Story
February 18th, 2024 | 2-4pm
West Bloomfield Library
4600 Walnut Lake Rd,
West Bloomfield Township, MI 48323
Co-Hosts:
Liz Lombard is an acclaimed singer, actor, improv artist, and pediatric occupational therapist. Her career in musicals led her to earn her master's degrees in occupational therapy, specializing in sensory processing and pediatrics. She founded The Sensory Concierge to support neurodiverse families as they step outside their daily routines to attend concerts, shows, and other special events. Favorite roles include Miss Clavel in national tour of Madeline and the Bad Hat, May in Age of Innocence, Merry-Go-Round, Hope in the Fringe Festival’s Storytime with Mr. Butterman, and Tracy Partridge in the Fringe Festival’s The Bardy Bunch. She can be found most evenings performing a variety of show tunes for her 3-year old twins, while her husband dances along (quite well!).
SONGS:
“Prologue” Video
“America” Choreo
“I Feel Pretty” (Sharen)
“A Boy Like That” into “I Have a Love” (Sharen, )
“Somewhere” (Liz)
GENERAL NOTES:
West Side Story (1957) is a musical conceived by Jerome Robbins with music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and a book by Arthur Laurents.
Premiered and Notable Productions - The original 1957 Broadway production, directed and choreographed by Robbins, marked Sondheim's Broadway debut. It ran for 732 performances before going on tour. The show had a two-week, pre-Broadway run at Philadelphia's Erlanger Theatre before it moved on to NYC to open at the Winter Garden Theatre in 1957.
A film version was released on October 18, 1961, through United Artists. The film received praise from critics and viewers, and became the highest-grossing film of 1961. It was nominated for 11 Academy Awards and won 10, including Best Picture (in addition to a special award for Robbins), becoming the record holder for the most wins for a musical. West Side Story is regarded as one of the greatest musical films of all time.
Carol Lawrence and Larry Kert perform “Tonight” on the Ed Sullivan show November 2nd, 1958
A Broadway revival of West Side Story began previews on December 10, 2019, and officially opened on February 20, 2020, at the Broadway Theatre. It was directed by Ivo van Hove, with choreography by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and was produced by Scott Rudin, Barry Diller and David Geffen. The cast included Shereen Pimentel as Maria, Isaac Cole Powell as Tony, Amar Ramasar as Bernardo, Thomas Jay Ryan as Lt. Schrank and Yesenia Ayala as Anita. The production cut the song "I Feel Pretty" and trimmed the book to one hour and forty-five minutes (with no intermission). The setting was "loosely updated to the present", and direction was "determined to snuff out any lightness that might temper the full-blown tragedy to come".
The original balletic, finger snapping choreography was replaced by swaggering, hip-hop and latin-influenced dancing. The set consisted mostly of large screens featuring video, several cast members carried iPhones, and the Jets were not all white.
Source Material - Inspired by William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet, the story is set in the mid-1950s in the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City, then a multiracial, blue-collar neighborhood. The musical explores the rivalry between the Jets and the Sharks, two teenage street gangs of different ethnic backgrounds. The Sharks, who are recent migrants from Puerto Rico, and the Jets, who are white, vie for dominance of the neighborhood, and the police try to keep order. The young protagonist, Tony, a former member of the Jets and best friend of the gang's leader, Riff, falls in love with Maria, the sister of Bernardo, the leader of the Sharks. The dark theme, sophisticated music, extended dance scenes, tragic love story, and focus on social problems marked a turning point in musical theatre.
Creative Team & Background - It had been Jerome Robbins (director, choreographer) who came up with the original idea of a modern, urban Romeo and Juliet; Bernstein and Laurents added the idea of warring street gangs in place of Shakespeare's feuding families. In the play, a Puerto Rican girl named Maria, whose brother is in one gang, loves Tony, who's in the opposing "American" gang.
Arthur Laurents (book) is the author of musical plays such as West Side Story, Gypsy, Anyone Can Whistle, Do I Hear A Waltz?, Hallelujah Baby! (1967 Tony Award for Best Musical) and Nick & Nora; and the screenplays The Snake Pit, Rope, Caught, Anastasia, Bonjour Tristesse, The Way We Were, and The Turning Point (Golden Globe Award, Screenwriters Guild Award, Writers Guild of America Award, National Board of Review Best Picture Award). The last two screenplays were novels as well. His plays include Claudia Lazlo, Home of the Brave, The Time of the Cuckoo, A Clearing in the Woods, Invitation to the March, The Enclave, Scream, Two Lives, The Radical Mystique, My Good Name, and Jolson Sings Again.
He has also directed plays and musicals for the theatre, among them I Can Get it for You Wholesale, Invitation to a March, Anyone Can Whistle, The Enclave, The Madwoman of Central Park West, Birds of Paradise, three revivals of Gypsy (with Angela Lansbury in 1974, with Tyne Daly in 1989, with Patti LuPone in 2007) and La Cage Aux Folles (1984 Tony Award for Best Director of a Musical, 1985 Sydney Drama Critics Award for Directing).
The comments were not unusual for Mr. Laurents. Perhaps more than anyone in the American theatre outside of George S. Kaufman, Arthur Laurents was as famous, or infamous, for what he said as what he did. He said playwright John Guare "had a talent for networking, and the knife," and that Katharine Hepburn had "no sense of humor." After Jerome Robbins named names before HUAC, and mused that it would be years before he knew whether he'd done the right thing, Laurents retorted, "I can tell you right now, you were a shit." He stated that "Most directors are frustrated writers." Mr. Laurents once joked that every barb uttered in the theatre was attributed to him, because people naturally expected him to say audacious things.
West Side Story was originally East Side Story. When they first conceived the show in 1949, Robbins, Bernstein and Laurents set their story on the east side of Manhattan, and gave it the working title East Side Story. They planned to stage the conflict between rival Catholic and Jewish groups. However, this concept never gained traction, and the project foundered until 1955, when teenage Latin gang violence in L.A. made the news. Laurents then presented the idea of changing the conflict to involve Puerto-Rican versus white gangs on the then-grungy Upper West Side of Manhattan. All at once, the project took off. In Bernstein’s words: “Suddenly it all springs to life. I can hear the rhythms and pulses, and -- most of all -- I can feel the form.”
A dancer came up with the idea. Director Jerome Robbins, who first proposed the idea for West Side Story, was at the same time choreographer of New York City Ballet. As a result, dance tells the story of this musical at the sophisticated level of ballet, not only in obvious dance numbers like "Mambo!" but in narrative scenes of escalating gang tension and warfare. We see it from the opening “Prologue,” when rival gangs, the Jets and the Sharks, stake out their territory.
“We decided to make the show about teenage gangs, to make it more timely,” Laurents told The Times in 2009. Noted “Leonard Bernstein: West Side Story” author Nigel Simeone, “If they hadn’t seen that newspaper story, I’m not even sure [the musical] would have gotten finished. It was more than a turning point. This was a mess that hadn’t been worked on in six years. It’s a seemingly insignificant moment that had a colossal impact.”
Most of us know that the show, with modifications, is a modern take on William Shakespeare’s tragedy Romeo and Juliet. But did you know that its tragic plot almost caused West Side Story not to see the light of day? The show's original producer pulled out because she thought the story was too dark and would flop. Producer after producer turned it down. When Hal Prince and his co-producer finally swept in and raised sufficient money for West Side Story's first run, it was the first of Prince's many successful collaborations with Stephen Sondheim. Sondheim, then only 25-years-old, came on board fairly late in the process as lyricist for Bernstein’s melodies. Bernstein wrote about Sondheim: “What a talent! I think he’s ideal for this project, as do we all.”
"There are no four-letter words in it. You couldn't use 'em in those days," Arthur Laurents says. "A scene that I wrote ended with, 'Hey, Officer Krupke, krup you!' And they said 'brass ass.' Well, that was considered shocking and daring. It must have been 20 years later before they used four-letter words so freely.
"The idea was to do something good," he adds. "I think we were all in love with musical theater. I don't think any of us thought of the commercial possibilities of the show. I thought it would last, if we were lucky, three months."
"It's four Jews," Laurents says. "There's a big difference. It's true. I think being part of a minority... I know gays were a minority, but gays didn't figure much in the '50s. Jews figured then, now and always. But I think that was more what we had in common, what drove it — drove the feeling of injustice, at any rate."
Leonard Bernstein (composer) was one of the most celebrated and acclaimed composers of the 20th century. Best known for composing the Broadway musical West Side Story, his inspired and voracious conducting style led to his big break conducting the New York Philharmonic in 1943. He was one of the first American-born conductors to lead world-class orchestras and achieve global fame. Bernstein composed many works, including musicals like On the Town and Wonderful Town, operas like Candide, and large-scale musical pieces like Mass. After battling emphysema, he died at age 72 in 1990.
Bernstein’s deeply felt Jewish heritage forms an integral part of the music of West Side Story. A basic shofar call, the Tekiah, provides the musical motif that many of the show’s most important songs are based on. The shofar, a hollow ram’s horn, is one of the world’s most ancient instruments, and is still played today in Jewish religious ceremonies during Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. The motif is known in musical terms as a “tri-tone” (the interval of the augmented 4th.) In various forms, it can be heard in the opening “Prologue,” in songs like “Something’s Coming,” “Maria,” and “Cool.”
Stephen Sondheim (lyrics) was an American composer and lyricist. Regarded as one of the most important figures in 20th-century musical theater, he is credited with reinventing the American musical. With his frequent collaborations with Harold Prince and James Lapine, Sondheim's Broadway musicals tackled unexpected themes that ranged beyond the genre's traditional subjects, while addressing darker elements of the human experience. His music and lyrics were tinged with complexity, sophistication, and ambivalence about various aspects of life.
According to Craig Zadan’s book “Sondheim & Co,” Stephen Sondheim, then a rookie lyricist, was hesitant to sign on for the project because “I’ve never been that poor and I’ve never even known a Puerto Rican!” But his agent “told him not to think in those terms. They are star-crossed lovers. They are underprivileged and the haves and have-nots have more to do with their psyches than their economics.”
Directorial Invention - Laurents says that there were strong undercurrents in rehearsal: "So many people who I spoke with described the production itself as a gang war." "Jerry [Robbins] had declared that first day that the stage was a battleground," adds Carol Lawrence, who played the original Maria on Broadway in 1957. "You were never allowed to walk on that stage except at his request; he was an absolute dictator.
"He brought this Method-acting technique into the show," Lawrence says, "where he deliberately tried to foment animosity, antagonism, between the two opposing gangs, both on stage and off stage. They weren't allowed to eat together. They were not supposed to socialize."
"I think the innovation was having death, attempted rape, murder in a musical, in musical theater," Laurents says. "The subject matter — bigotry and violence and prejudice — and [the idea] that people would pay money to see that with an orchestra."
"The opening night in Washington, D.C.," Carol Lawrence says, "when the curtain went up for our curtain calls, and they had just seen Tony's body taken over and the strain of 'Somewhere' and just a bell tolling -– still breaks me up — we ran to our spaces and faced the audience holding hands. And the curtain went up and we looked at the audience, and they looked at us, and we looked at them, and I thought, 'Oh, dear Lord, it's a bomb!' "
"We thought the thing was going down the drain," Laurents adds. "Oh, it was awful."
"And then, as if Jerry had choreographed it," Lawrence says, "they jumped to their feet. I never saw people stamping and yelling, and by that time, Lenny had worked his way backstage, and he came at the final curtain and walked to me, put his arms around me, and we wept."
Historical Context- In the late 1930s and early 1940s entered a man with unmeasurable political ambition who’d wield his influence to forever change the Upper West Side. His name was Robert Moses. He laid his eyes on Riverside Park, first developed in 1874 along with Riverside Drive, but was nothing but a wasteland along the Hudson. Sewage, shacks, and the Hudson River Railroad tracks beleaguered the area, and Moses set off to transform this land with the West Side Improvement. The West Side Improvement was completed in 1941, giving us the Riverside Park we know today. Though the Upper West Side benefited greatly from a beautiful, amenity-filled Riverside Park, Harlem and Upper Manhattan did not get so lucky.
San Juan Hill, which was named the “worst slum district in the city” by the NYC Housing Authority (NYCHA) in the 1940s, became Robert Moses’ next target when he became head of the Mayor’s Committee on Slum Clearance. By then, San Juan Hill had evolved as a neighborhood. The African-American population decreased, as newer tenements in Harlem were more attractive to middle-class black residents and new migrants from the South. Replacing them was a large contingent of Puerto Rican immigrants. In 1948, the NYCHA evicted 1,100 families to build the Amsterdam Houses public housing project. In the process, they created a superblock, filling in the area from 61st to 64th Street between Amsterdam and West End Avenue.
By 1955, the stars were aligning for the ultimate Robert Moses slum clearance project. Three separate entities, Fordham University, the Metropolitan Opera, and New York Philharmonic asked Moses for a new home. With the support of John D. Rockefeller III, Moses packaged all of this together and more to create a state-of-the-art cultural landmark: the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. It took a fight to the Supreme Court to clear the path, but no one could challenge or undermine Robert Moses. In 1959, Dwight Eisenhower broke ground on the project. Over 4,000 new middle-class residences were built in the neighborhood, and not a single unit was inhabited by a former resident. Instead, the former residents were expelled to the housing projects of Harlem and Bronx, creating new slums and turning New York City into one of America’s most segregated. San Juan Hill was quite literally wiped off the map; but not before Leonard Bernstein’s classic, West Side Story was filmed in the empty streets of the neighborhood. Inspired by the neighborhood’s past, many movie scenes are shot right before and after demolition, immortalizing the memories of the area. 18 city blocks were bulldozed for the project. In 1962, the Lincoln Center Campus was inaugurated, and 7 years later the project was completed. At the expense of 7,000 families and 800 businesses, the Lincoln Square neighborhood was “revitalized.” The Lincoln Center became the home of 30 indoor and outdoor performance venues. Along with Fordham’s satellite campus, the Juilliard School, School of American Ballet, and LaGuardia High School (the city’s specialized school for visual and performing art) all call it home as well.
McCarthyism: In 1953, director Jerome Robbins “Named Names” and outed eight theatre and entertainment associates as being part of the Communist Party. With the Lavender Scare in full force, Robbins was in fear of losing work due to his homosexuality, so he claimed that outing his friends was the only way to protect himself. This further dampened his reputation among people he worked with, but did not deter his path to fame and fortune. After testifying, Robbins, sitting on a sofa, said to playwright Arthur Laurents, “It’ll be years before I know whether I did the right thing.” Laurents, his best friend, was much more certain: “I can tell you right now, you were a shit.” The two would go on to debut the smash hit West Side Story 5 years later.
Major Awards - The production was nominated for six Tony Awards, including Best Musical, in 1958, winning two. The show had an even longer-running West End production, a number of revivals, and international productions. A 1961 musical film adaptation, co-directed by Robert Wise and Robbins, was nominated for eleven Academy Awards and won ten, including Best Picture. A 2021 film adaptation, directed by Steven Spielberg was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, along with six additional nominations, winning one Oscar.
Casting Notes - In the Library of Congress there are twenty pages of lists and notes on cast auditions for West Side Story in the Bernstein Collection record not only the broad range of actors who tried out for the play, but also provide insight into what Bernstein was seeking in a cast. Surprises among those auditioning are Suzanne Plechette (“hoarse”), Warren Beatty (“Good voice—can’t open his jaw—charming as hell—cleancut”), Jerry Orbach (“Good read. Good loud bar[itone]”), and Artie Johnson (“Good singer”). Among those actually cast, Larry Kert, who landed the role of Tony, initially auditioned for the roles of Bernardo and Rigg. As Bernstein comments: “Great singer + performer. But looks? Read Riff Better.” The original Maria, Carol Lawrence, is here described as “Lovely soprano. Not quite Maria. Much realer with accent.”
Stereotypes: The creators said they did some research on the Nuyorican community: Robbins visited youth dances in Harlem to incorporate moves into choreography, and Bernstein added pan-Latin rhythms to the score. But ultimately, “West Side Story” borrowed the aesthetics from what these four Jewish men perceived to be a Puerto Rican identity — thick accents, dark skin, motivations for violent interactions — to tell a highly theatrical Shakespeare tale, not the other way around.
The cultural inauthenticity of the popular title continues to have real-life ramifications for the Puerto Rican community. “The movie was the first major — and still the most widely seen and exported — U.S. cultural product to recognize Puerto Ricans as a distinct Latino group in the United States with specific physical characteristics (brown, dark-haired, svelte) and personality traits (loud, sexy, colorful),” Frances Negrón-Muntaner, founding director of the Media and Idea Lab at Columbia University, wrote on the Women’s Media Center website. “Drawing on centuries-old stereotypes about Latinos, the women are virginal and childlike or sexual and fiery; the men are violent and clannish. [It] widely popularized racist and sexist stereotypes that continue to shape how the world sees Puerto Ricans and how they see themselves.”
Synopsis - PROLOGUE: The opening is a carefully choreographed, half-danced/half-mimed ballet of sorts. It shows the growing tensions between the Sharks, a Puerto Rican gang, and the Jets, a gang made up of "American" boys. An incident between the Jets and Shark leader, Bernardo, escalates into an all out fight between the two gangs. Officers Schrank and Krupke arrive to break up the fight.
ACT ONE: Detective Schrank, the senior cop on the beat, tries to get the Jets to tell him which Puerto Ricans are starting trouble in the neighborhood, as he claims he is on their side. The Jets, however, are not stool pigeons and won't tell him anything. Frustrated, Schrank threatens to beat the crap out of the Jets unless they make nice. When the police leave, the Jets bemoan the Sharks coming onto their turf. They decide that they need to have one big rumble to settle the matter once and for all – even if winning requires fighting with knives and guns. Riff plans to have a war council with Bernardo to decide on weapons. Action wants to be his second, but Riff says that Tony is always his second. The other boys complain that Tony hasn't been around for a month, but Riff doesn't care; once you're a Jet, you're a Jet for life ("Jet Song").
Riff goes to see Tony, who is now working at Doc's drugstore. Riff presses him to come to the school dance for the war council, but Tony resists; he's lost the thrill of being a Jet. He explains that, every night for a month, he's had a strange feeling that something important is just around the corner. Nevertheless, Riff convinces Tony to come to the dance. Riff leaves Tony to wonder about this strange feeling that he's been having ("Something's Coming").
In a bridal shop, Anita remakes Maria's communion dress into a party dress. They are both Puerto Rican. Anita is knowing, sexual and sharp. Maria is excited, enthusiastic and childlike, but also growing into an adult. Maria complains that the dress is too young-looking, but Anita explains that Bernardo, her boyfriend and Maria's brother, made her promise not to make the dress too short. It turns out that the dress is for the dance, which Maria is attending with Chino, whom she is expected to marry, despite the fact that she does not have any feelings for him.
At the dance in the local gym, the group is divided: Jets and their girls on one side and Sharks and their girls on the othe. Riff and his lieutenants move to challenge Bernardo and his lieutenants, but they are interrupted by Glad Hand, the chaperone who is overseeing the dance, and Officer Krupke. The two initiate some dances to get the kids to dance together, across the gang lines. In the promenade leading up to the dance, though, the girls and boys end up facing each other at random, Jet girls across from Shark boys and vice versa. Bernardo reaches across the Jet girl in front of him to take Anita's hand, and Riff does the same with his girlfriend, Velma. Everyone dances with their own group as Tony enters ("Mambo"). During the dance, Maria and Tony spot each other. There is an instant connection. Bernardo interrupts them, telling Tony to stay away from his sister and asking Chino to take her home. Riff and Bernardo agree to meet at Doc's in half an hour for the war council. As everyone else disappears, Tony is overcome with the feeling of having met the most beautiful girl ever ("Maria").
Later, Tony finds the fire escape outside of Maria's apartment and calls up to her. She appears in the window, but is nervous that they will get caught. Her parents call her inside, but she stays. She and Tony profess their love to each other ("Tonight"). He agrees to meet her at the bridal shop the next day. Bernardo calls Maria inside. Anita admonishes him, saying that Maria already has a mother and father to take care of her. Bernardo insists that they, like Maria, don't understand this country. Bernardo, Anita, Chino and their friends discuss the unfairness of America – they are treated like foreigners, while "Polacks" like Tony are treated like real Americans, paid twice as much for their jobs. Anita tries to lure Bernardo inside and away from the war council, but he refuses. As the boys leave for the council, one of Anita's friends, Rosalia, claims to be homesick for Puerto Rico. Anita scoffs at this. While Rosalia expounds on the beauties of the country, Anita responds with why she prefers her new home ("America").
At the drugstore, the Jets wait for the Sharks. discussing what weapons they might have to use. Doc is upset that the boys are planning to fight at all. Anybodys, a tomboy who is trying to join the Jets, asks Riff if she can participate in the rumble, but he says no. Doc doesn't understand why the boys are making trouble for the Puerto Ricans, and the boys respond that the Sharks make trouble for them. Doc calls them hoodlums and Action and A-rab get very upset. Riff tells them that they have to save their steam for the rumble and keep cool, rather than freaking out ("Cool").
Bernardo arrives at the drugstore and he and Riff begin laying out the terms of the rumble. Tony arrives and convinces them all to agree to a fair fight – just skin, no weapons. The Sharks' best man fights the Jets' best man; Bernardo agrees, thinking that means he will get to fight Tony, but the Jets say they get to pick their fighter. Schrank arrives and breaks up the council. He tells the Puerto Ricans to get out. Bernardo and his gang exit. Schrank tries to get the Jets to reveal the location of the rumble and becomes increasingly frustrated when they refuse. He insults them and leaves. As Tony and Doc close up the shop, Tony reveals that he's in love with a Puerto Rican. Doc is worried.
The next day at the bridal shop, Maria tells Anita that she can leave, that Maria will clean up. Anita is about to go when Tony arrives. She suddenly understands and promises not to tell on them. When she leaves, Tony tells Maria that the rumble will be a fair fight, but even that's no acceptable for her, so she asks him to go to the rumble and stop it. He agrees. He'll do anything for her. They fantasize about being together and getting married ("One Hand, One Heart"). Later, the members of the ensemble wait expectantly for the fight, all for different reasons ("Tonight Quintet").
At the rumble, Diesel and Bernardo prepare to fight, with Chino and Riff as their seconds. Tony enters and tries to break up the fight, but provokes Bernardo against him instead. Bernardo calls Tony a chicken for not fighting him. Riff punches Bernardo and the fight escalates quickly until Riff and Bernardo pull out knives. Bernardo kills Riff and, in response, Tony kills Bernardo, instantly horrified by what he's done. The police arrive as everyone scatters; Anybodys pulls Tony away just in time.
ACT TWO: In Maria's apartment, she gushes to her friends about how it is her wedding night and she is so excited ("I Feel Pretty"). Chino interrupts her reverie to tell her that Tony has killed Bernardo. She refuses to believe him, but when Tony arrives on her fire escape, he confesses. He offers to turn himself in, but she begs him to stay with her. She says that, although they are together, everyone is against them. Tony says they'll find a place where they can be together ("Somewhere").
In a back alley, the Jets regroup in shock. No one has seen Tony. Officer Krupke comes by, threatening to take them to the station house. The boys chase him away for the moment and then release some tension by play-acting the scenario of what would happen if Krupke actually did take them to the station house ("Gee, Officer Krupke"). Anybodys shows up with information about Tony and the fact that Chino is looking for him. She uses this information to get the boys to treat her like one of the gang. The Jets agree that they need to find Tony and warn him about Chino.
Meanwhile, Anita comes into Maria's room and finds her with Tony. Tony and Maria are planning to run away. Tony knows that Doc will give him money, so he goes to the drugstore and tells Maria to meet him there. She agrees. When he leaves, Anita explodes at her for loving the boy who killed her brother. Maria acknowledges that it's not smart, but she can't help it ("A Boy Like That / I Have a Love"). Anita tells Maria that Chino has a gun and is looking for Tony. Schrank arrives and detains Maria for questioning. Maria covertly asks Anita to go to Doc's and tell Tony that she has been delayed. Reluctantly, Anita agrees.
The Jets arrive at Doc's, learning that Tony and Doc are in the basement. Anita arrives and asks to speak to Doc. The Jets, recognizing her as Bernardo's girl and thinking that she is there to betray Tony to Chino, won't let her go down to the basement to talk to Doc. Instead, they harass and attack her. Doc arrives to find them ganging up on her; he breaks it up, but Anita, disgusted and hurt, lies to Doc and tells him to relay a message to Tony: Chino has shot Maria, and he will never see her again.
When Doc returns to Tony in the basement, he delivers Anita's message. Tony is distraught and heartbroken. He runs out into the streets and calls Chino to come for him. Anybodys tries to stop him, but Tony doesn't care. He yells to Chino that he should come out and shoot him, too. Maria appears in the street – much to Tony's surprise – and they run towards each other. In that moment, Chino steps out of the shadows and shoots Tony, who falls into Maria's arms, gravely wounded.
The Jets, Sharks and Doc appear on the street. Maria picks up the gun and points it all of them, asking Chino if there are enough bullets to kill all of them and herself, as well. The depths of her sadness and anger move everyone as she breaks down over Tony's body. Officers Krupke and Schrank arrive. They stand with Doc, watching as two boys from each gang pick up Tony's body and form a processional. The rest follow the processional, with Baby John picking up Maria's shawl, giving it to her and helping her up. As Maria follows the others, the adults continue to bear silent witness ("Finale").
Themes - "That kind of bigotry and prejudice was very much in the air," writer and co-creator Arthur Laurents says. "It's really, 'How can love survive in a violent world of prejudice?' That's what it's about."
As Tony’s lifeless body was carried off the stage in joint forces by the Jets and the Sharks, a seemingly “friendly future” gesture, the light dims and leaves Maria and Anita standing on the stage, facing each other with their backs.
To love and to believe. That is Maria.
To hate and to protect. That is Anita.
And there are yet millions of Marias and Anitas, and billions in between.
The genius of “West Side Story” is not that it turned Romeo and Juliet into a modern love story with less childish drama (as Juliet fakes her death) The genius, and if I may be so bold — the unintentional genius of West Side Story is how casually it revealed the coexisting polarities faced by the immigrant population, most specifically, immigrant girls. It is the most unreasonable yet justified fear. It is the strongest love and desire for a better life where girls can have fun, blended with the darkest fear and hatred of being hurt and treated like disposable outsiders.
Yet whether it is in the name of love or hate, whether it is to prove a point or to pursue our dreams, we continue our life regardless, even if in the same fashion Anita and Maria ended up with: sharing the same blood and heritage, but facing the opposite.
Fun Facts - The same day Bernstein saw his first run-through of West Side Story, he signed his contract to become the first American-born music director (and conductor) of the New York Philharmonic.