West Side Story: ‘Why are we so hateful? This show will always be relevant’

Mid-December, Munich, Germany. The pavements around the Deutsches Theatre are laden with snow and Christmas lights twinkle prettily from bare trees. Inside, away from the winter chill, it’s late summer in New York City as the Jets and the Sharks work up a sweat in a new revival of West Side Story. The exhilarating Dance At the Gym scene plays out as the two gangs face off in a flurry of frenetic mambo dance moves. Later, the cast sing a raucous America, that witty skewering of the American dream.

Watching it from the stalls are long-time friends Alexander Bernstein and Lonny Price. Bernstein’s father Leonard composed the music, with lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Broadway veteran Price is directing this new international touring production, with original choreography by movement maestro Jerome Robbins.

West Side Story, a musical inspired by Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, first opened on Broadway in 1957 and hardly needs an introduction but just in case: the show is set in the 1950s, in a crumbling blue-collar district of Manhattan’s Upper West Side. The action involves two rival teenage street gangs, the Jets (white, second generation New Yorkers) and the Sharks (recently arrived Puerto Rican immigrants). It is a musical that has everything: love, tragedy, extraordinary songs – Maria, Somewhere, Tonight and I Feel Pretty to name just four – and the kind of biting social commentary that still resonates today. It’s a story of identity and the perils of othering. As with Romeo and Juliet, the great love story of protagonists Maria and Tony is ill-fated from the start.

Now in his 60s, Bernstein was two years old when his father wrote the music for West Side Story. “We had the original cast album and my sister and I played it constantly, it was always in our lives. We’ve lived with West Side Story as well as all my father’s other compositions. I’ve seen it almost a thousand times.”

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As vice-president and treasurer of The Leonard Bernstein Office, he is one of the gatekeepers of the show, deciding who gets to put it on. He and his family have known Price for more than 40 years. “This creative team is the best there is... it couldn’t be a better match of people. We are so delighted, the energy, the attention to detail, the acting and singing, it is all as though it was written this year. Sadly it’s still very relevant,” he says.

Price, who has directed musicals such as Sweeney Todd with Emma Thompson and Sunset Boulevard with Glenn Close, has had West Side Story on his musical theatre bucket list for years. “It had never crossed my path, sadly, though it had crossed my dreams ... I fought for this job. I wanted to do this very badly. It’s one of the crowning achievements of musical theatre. It has the most glorious score by Mr Bernstein, and Mr Robbins‘s choreography has never been equalled in the history of the form. It was a real thrill to be asked to do it.”

“I’m so happy, because he’s so brilliant but he’s also a good friend,” says Bernstein of Price, who also shared a close bond with Sondheim.

When Price is asked if he was tempted to tweak the musical he is firm: “West Side Story didn’t need my help. It’s been doing quite well without me for 65 years. It’s not like we decided to set it on the moon ... what I was asked to do was to put the classic on the stage. It’s been played with a lot over the years but I wanted to see what I thought was as close to what was originally intended by these extraordinary authors. So it is very traditional in that way.”

That’s also why this show will always be relevant. Because we seem to not be evolving in that way. And it’s a shame ... why are we so hateful?

“You can’t beat Shakespeare,” he continues. “It was about honouring it and celebrating it. They wanted the classic show and I was happy to provide that. I’m standing on the shoulders of giants.”

He was, however, interested in context. The opening scene features the Statue of Liberty while the set is peppered with aspirational post second World War advertisements, featuring happy, prosperous white people. “It’s very much about the American dream. The tease of it for the Sharks and the Jets is the dream always being, as Tony sings, ‘only just out of reach, down the block, on a beach’. It’s all there but never for them ... you see their rage about this, the fact that the American dream is more a myth than a reality, sadly, for many people.” Speaking of which, Price is disillusioned with the state of his country, post-Trump: “America lies to itself more than any other country. The rest of the world has a better idea of what and who America is. For some reason we like to believe things about ourselves that are not true. And the rest of the world is on to us.”

His introduction to theatre came as a child when a Broadway musical was part of his birthday present every year. The first one he saw was Oliver! at the age of 4. “I saw all these kids singing and dancing onstage and that looked a lot more fun than sitting watching them,” he smiles. He was inspired in his twenties by the 1961 movie version of West Side Story starring Natalie Wood and is full of praise for Steven Spielberg’s recent cinematic retelling.

As an actor himself, one of Price’s most well-known roles was as Neil Kellerman in the 1987 movie Dirty Dancing. He says the movie, which has a fanatical cult following close to 30 years later, was “a gift”. “It is so beloved and I get people coming up to me about it all the time. It’s nice to be in something that has provided so much happiness for people. I’m very grateful.”

There’s a symmetry to the opening night of this international touring production being at the Deutches Theatre where the original production had its German premiere in 1961. The show is captivating, from the first proprietorial finger click as the Jets roam their dusty urban terrain to the final moment of the inevitable tragic climax. There is astonishing talent on display in the cast chosen from the 3,000 young people who auditioned for the show in New York. The performances, especially from Jadon Webster as Tony and Melanie Sierra as Maria, are nothing short of breathtaking.

Price is delighted for the entire cast and creative team. “They’re going to sing Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim. They’re going to dance Jerome Robbins, and play to houses that adore this musical. What a great first job for a kid out of school. I mean, it’s just a dream ... they’re eating up the experience. And it’s exciting to watch them.”

We seem to want to punish people for being ‘other’ and blame them for our problems, instead of looking to clean our own house

The show is going around the world stopping off in Dubai, Bangkok, Paris and (lucky us) Dublin. Price is particularly delighted to be bringing it here having recently worked with Dubliner Gabriel Byrne on his acclaimed theatre show Walking With Ghosts. He first met the actor 15 years ago when he directed him in a concert version of Camelot with the New York Philharmonic in which Byrne played King Arthur.

“One of the joys of my life is being his friend and one of the highlights of my life was doing the play with him. I just love him.” Walking With Ghosts was an adaptation of Byrne’s memoir but Price says the actor “wasn’t precious about any of it. That’s why he was a spectacular collaborator ... we had a very easy and wonderful rapport. Just being in a room with Gabriel is a pleasure. So the more I get to do that in my life, the happier I am”.

Returning to West Side Story, he says Bernstein, Sondheim, Robbins and Arthur Laurents, who wrote the book, had something to say about society, a point of view they wanted to get across. “They had a reason for telling the story.” It may have been lifted from Shakespeare, but the genius of West Side Story is the ability of the creators to spot how easily it could be transposed into 1950s New York.

Sixty five years later the issues are still pertinent, says Price. He is passionate about how much the messages and themes in West Side Story still speak to contemporary audiences. We’re talking in Germany, which has its own dark tale, but Price’s take on the xenophobia, something that is as integral to the show as the rhapsodic music, chimes with recent events in Ireland too.

[ West Side Story: Sondheim’s lyrics still crackle in Spielberg’s movie ]

“We seem to want to punish people for being ‘other’ and blame them for our problems,” he says. “Instead of looking to clean our own house, you know. I guess that’s human nature because it’s gone on for time immemorial. But that’s also why this show will always be relevant. Because we seem to not be evolving in that way. And it’s a shame ... why are we so hateful?” Works of art such as West Side Story “remind us of these issues and get us asking important questions.”

West Side Story is at the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, Dublin, June 12th-24th