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West Side Story is so old


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18 hours ago, Jeff Ream said:

well after 2017 i'd be back flipping mad too

The Cadets truly do ruin everything

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2 hours ago, jpaul said:

The broadway revival was meant to be updated. The Spielberg film appears to be set in the 50s. As much as I am a huge fan of the Jerome Robbins choreography, I also love Justin Peck's work and am excited to see his interpretation.

The Broadway revival over a decade ago was directed by Arthur Laurents who wrote the original book. My daughter-in-law was a Production Assistant on that show, so we got to attend the dress rehearsal. Laurents came out to speak to the audience. His viewpoint was that there was no reason to replicate exactly what was done before, so he made a bunch of changes. One was to have some of the songs sung in Spanish. "I Feel Pretty" had an amazing sound in Spanish, just listening to the flow of the lyrics.

He did recreate a bunch of Robbins' choreography. It was actually contractual; any revival on Broadway had to do that. I guess they got that changed for the current revival.

The Maria in that show was from Argentina, a wonderful young actress named Josefina Scaglione (Argentina????)

 

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4 hours ago, Lance said:

You find it hard to believe that a movie studio in the 50s that cast a Polish guy in brown face and lily white woman as "Puerto Ricans" would relegate an actual Puerto Rican to a supporting role rather than a starring one? Even if it didn't go down exactly like that, it certainly wouldn't be unheard of at that time. 

The phrase "too ethnic" as grounds for routine discrimination was actually pretty PC in the 50s, disgustingly enough. 

 

I don’t find it hard to believe at all!  What I doubted was Rita Moreno auditioning for the role of Maria. (The person who made that claim graciously cleared that up.) I know what Hollywood did (does) to actors who don’t fit their mold. Dorothy Dandridge comes to mind. 

Anyway...

I read Spielberg is relying on the stage version rather than the film version. “Cool” and “Officer Krupke” occur before the rumble in the film rather than after and “America” went coed. 

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3 hours ago, skevinp said:

FWIW ethnicity is not the same thing as race.

Also FWIW, Natalie Wood’s real name was Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko.

Exactly. There are white latino's. 

Maybe they should fill the Maria role with a African American? Less problems. 

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