'West Side Story' at Sadler's Wells

Chris introduced me to the joy of 'West Side Story' tonight, live on stage at Sadler's Wells with the short run of the '50th Anniversary Production'. I've seen the film but never seen it live. As ever, Sadler's Wells delivered a high quality visual and aural feast.

I suspect that everyone looking at this blog will know some of the songs, even if you don't automatically associate them with the show. It's a classic and it's easy to see how ground-breaking it was at the time, what with bringing 'the street' to the stage for the first time, the balletic fight sequences, knives, racism and teenagers, at a time when 'teenagers' were still inventing themselves. Considering it was Sondheim's first outing as lyricist I can only assume a lot was going on in his life at the time he wrote it.

The staging is quite simple, with a moveable backdrop of upper West Side tenements, some props for the bridal shop Maria and Anita work in and a bed for Maria's bedroom and that's about it. The lighting was spectacular and, for the street scenes, there were some great views of New York projected on the back wall. Other than that it was singing and dancing with the dancing designed to make me feel tired!

The cast were excellent but I have to single out the marvellous Oneika Phillips as Anita, lead Shark-girl, Maria's friend, Bernardo's girlfriend and 'America' is her song. She flirts, she sasses, she's fiery and haughty, she leads the Shark-girls through force of personality with great dance moves and a great voice. I know she had a sparkly frock, but my eyes followed her whenever she was on stage. It's always difficult playing the 'nice' girl like Maria, but give me Oneika's Anita any day! The joy of 'America' in the first half descends to the harrowing pain of the rape scene towards the end and you can almost feel her spite and hatred of the Jets. Powerful stuff.

I thoroughly enjoyed it and got caught up in the drama of it all. I think the run is sold out but if you can, go and see it - it's a classic.