The Real West Side Story

I’ve never been that poor and I’ve never even known a Puerto Rican

It’s a phrase that would not seem out of place if Riff or any of the Jet gang had said it, but in 1955 this was the concern of a young, unknown musician and lyricist, voiced to his friend and composer Oscar Hammerstein. He had been asked by none other than Leonard Bernstein to co-write a musical based on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. After some persuasion from Hammerstein the young man agreed to do it. His name was Stephen Sondheim and the musical was, of course, West Side Story.

Sondheim’s initial concern could well have been added to a list of problems that dogged the original production. It began life in 1949 as an idea by New York’s most infamous director and choreographer Jerome Robbins. It would be a modern adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, with the ill-fated romance now between a Jewish boy and an Irish Catholic girl in the Lower East Side. Robbins had asked the renowned composer Leonard Bernstein and writer Arthur Laurents to join him, but as other commitments prevailed ‘East Side Story’ was put on hold. That is, until 1954 when, after reading about the urban gang warfare between Puerto Ricans and Americans in New York’s Upper West Side, Robbins decided he had found his story. From then on and until West Side Story’s opening night on Broadway on September 26, 1957, its four creators Robbins, Bernstein, Laurents, and eventually Sondheim embarked on what proved to be as revolutionary in the world of musical theatre as it was artistically strenuous for all concerned.

Rehearsals for the new show were without doubt tense. Robbins, known for his indecisiveness and perfectionism would openly insult Sondheim for his lyrics in front of cast and crew. Sondheim, in turn, became increasingly annoyed with Bernstein’s attempts at imposing too many of his own lyrics into the songs. Outside the rehearsal rooms, financial promotions for the show were failing and Cheryl Crawford, the show’s producer, quit. It’s a show that might never have happened, were it not for the unbending determination of the four men.

Despite the tension, they had created a masterpiece. With Robbin’s expressive and wildly gripping choreography, Bernstein’s furious Latin-American rhythms and sweeping ballads, Laurents’ script that captured the language of the streets, and the raw emotion and spirit of Sondheim’s lyrics they had brought to life the story of the feuding gangs, the Jets and the Sharks, of the star crossed lovers Tony and Maria, of love conquering prejudice, and of what it means just to belong.

With financial backing and a new producer, the show’s premièred on Broadway in 1957. It enjoyed a two year run in New York, a national tour and then a critically triumphant return to Broadway; West Side Story was an enormous hit. So much so that the film version, starring Natalie Wood and Richard Beymer, and directed by Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins, swept the 1961 Academy Awards for, amongst others, Best Picture and Best Director… but that… well, that’s another story.