Restoring (and Rescoring) “West Side Story”

What does it take to remake the beloved 1961 musical, West Side Story? I’d say it requires two things: chutzpah and cojones. And Steven Spielberg has plenty of both. As a lover of the original film, which won ten Oscars in 1962, Spielberg sought to preserve the greatness of the original. But he clearly saw a need to re-contextualize a story (of feuding street gangs and a forbidden love affair) that has come to seem hackneyed over time.

 When the stage musical that melded the talents of Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim, Arthur Laurents, and Jerome Robbins first burst onto the Broadway scene in 1957, the contemporary take on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet seemed bold and fresh. Years later, though, we can’t ignore the creakiness of the material. And today’s sensibilities aren’t comfortable with the casting of Anglos in dark makeup as Latinos. (In the 1961 film version, the supposedly Puerto Rican Sharks gang was comprised of dancers from as far afield as Japan. Though Rita Moreno was genuinely born—like her character—in Puerto Rico, fellow Oscar winner George Chakiris is of Greek descent. Nor was Natalie Wood a PC choice to play the film’s romantic heroine,)

 Along with correcting the casting faux-pas of the original film, Spielberg gave his version a sense of the historical forces at play. New York City, circa 1960, was a place where slums were being noisily demolished to make room for Lincoln Center. In the opening, we spot at a construction site an idyllic sketch of the theatres and concert halls that will soon be springing up. A cop-character tasked with keeping order among the slum-dwellers drives the point home: one day the area will be filled with glitzy apartments owned by wealthy whites. Any Puerto Ricans still in the vicinity will be doormen and maids. And the feckless white kids who make up the Jets will continue to descend the social ladder, crowded out of their own turf first by immigrants, then by gentrification.

 I give playwright Tony Kushner full credit for fleshing out many characters, hinting at backstories for Jets like Tony and Riff, while also showing the aspirations of the immigrant Sharks. (Bernardo in this version is an up-and-coming boxer.) Fresh attention is paid to the women, who are given far more heft and dignity than in the previous film. Anita (at least sometimes) campaigns against the violence of the street gangs, Maria is less of a delicate flower than previously, and there’s an important moment late in the film when the women on opposite sides of the conflict are seen trying to look out for one another. The major addition to the familiar plot is a brand-new character, Valentina. Played by Rita Moreno, now an astonishing 90, she fills the function of Doc, the sympathetic Jewish drugstore owner of the first film. We learn she is Doc’s widow, a living example of how an interracial couple could thrive even in these fraught surroundings. As Tony’s confidante, she is in an ideal position to project the fundamental optimism behind the whole belief that SOMEWHERE there’s a place where love can survive.

 This new film is hardly perfect. There are a few serious gaps in plot logic, and the distinctive personalities of the Jets (so memorable in the earlier film) get lost here. I appreciate, though, the bleaker, tougher visuals, as well as the smart new use of the song ‘Cool” to lead into the climactic rumble. I suspect, though, that the new film will never have the same power for its audiences as the one I thrilled to back in 1961.

 

Angels in America on Independence Day

I spent part of the July 4 holiday watching the 2003 HBO production of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, directed by Mike Nichols. I’d seen the play (which is really two full-length plays) in Los Angeles prior to its triumphant Broadway debut in 1993. Then the 2018 revival starring Andrew Garfield and Nathan Lane, one which earned more Tony nominations than any other in Broadway history, piqued my interest. So I turned to the Emmy-winning HBO miniseries to relive Kushner’s vision.

Angels in America is subtitled A Gay Fantasia on National Themes. It begins in October 1985, as the AIDS crisis is ramping up in New York City. The plot weaves together several realistic stories: that of a newly diagnosed gay man (Prior Walter) and his fearful partner (Louis); that of a closeted Mormon lawyer (Joe) and his neurotic young wife (Harper). There’s also a male nurse nicknamed Belize -- a flamboyant “queen” who’s seen his share of young gay men dying -- as well as the Mormon lawyer’s down-to-earth Salt Lake City mother, Hannah, who’s far more complex than she at first seems. The story is enhanced by the presence of a genuine historical figure, attorney and right-wing power-broker Roy Cohn. As the play begins, Cohn is trying to maneuver the clean-cut Joe into a position in the U.S. Department of Justice, so that his own name can be cleared of wrong-doing. Once the action gets underway, it’s revealed Cohn’s dying of AIDS. An angry, vindictive little man, he admits to sleeping regularly with males, but hotly denies being gay. And so it goes.

What lifts Angels in America beyond the realm of kitchen-sink drama or soap opera is Kushner’s inventive language and mythical bent. He’s got a gift, first of all, for witty remarks, like “You know you’ve hit rock bottom when even drag is a drag.” And he moves far beyond the concerns of the gay community by seeing his characters in historical context, somewhat paralleling the immigrants and other outcasts who have not been entirely welcomed into the fabric of American life. Through the character of Ethel Rosenberg, whose visitations to Roy Cohn in his hospital bed are a spooky reminder of his personal role in the execution of the Rosenbergs on espionage charges, we’re reminded of the more questionable moments in the history of American jurisprudence.

Ethel is a realistic sort of ghost, but what to make of the avenging angel who descends through the ceiling to violently confront Prior Walter? In these sections of the drama, Kushner’s language goes a bit bonkers, and the audience has to hold on for dear life. I have a feeling that such phantasmagoria may work better on the stage, an environment in which we expect to see the unreal without having to make literal sense of it. That being said, I can’t praise highly enough the cast Mike Nichols assembled for the HBO version. He followed the stage play in having several of the featured actors taking on more than one role  I won’t soon forget Meryl Streep as both a coyly vindictive Ethel Rosenberg and a plain-jane Mormon mom. Given how often she’s cast as grand figures—like Margaret Thatcher, Miranda Priestly, and even Florence Foster Jenkins—it’s wonderful to see what Streep can do in a humbler role. I was also much taken with Jeffrey Wright, as both Belize and a hallucinatory travel agent. An unrecognizable Al Pacino is both hideous and poignant as Roy Cohn, and the younger actors are memorable too. All left me with a lot to think about on July 5.