2016

things age. stuff dies. facts of life. old electronics don’t last forever (but in nintendo’s case an eternity). people weaken. and works of fiction that once were considered timeless are now running through the eye of the contemporary critic. they will tell you that while a movie or stage play or any entertainment can age poorly it can be appreciated by anyone willing to acknowledge its place in history. i call bullshit. it boils down to one’s own opinion. at the end of the day you either like something or you don’t. it’s that simple. if you don’t like citizen kane it’s a moot point to argue that it’s aged poorly because it’s ignorant to think you will change another’s opinion based on the discourse of the establishment. that and citizen kane is a great movie and anyone who tells you otherwise probably has a queue of dtv steven seagal movies on netflix (though even some of those are watchable).

i have not seen the film adaptation of west side story. in fact before tuesday night i had never seen the play performed in any incantation, nor could i tell you what songs were associated with it. i was excited to go in fresh with only its legacy to help me along. the word ‘hack’ kept illuminating in my mind as i watched the live performance. sondheim is a god to many but to know that west side was adapted from romeo and juliet just made me play with the revisionist aspects in my head. shakespeare’s original is a simple story told through complex prose that dissected the motivation of its characters. at this point in our time every story you could possibly imagine has been done to death in every medium possible. so it is the method then that the story is told and the quality of the telling that will tell you if a work will stand up to scrutiny. the particular performance of west side story that i saw could not hold up to my scrutiny. it was poorly cast, with dream sequences cut in and out of the story like a warner brothers producer messing with the latest dc picture. the songs themselves, the pumping blood of musical theater, were quieting (though i feel pretty is a fucking classic).

so what was the problem? was it the show itself or the play? were the problems i had the choices of the director or were they intended by the writers to begin with? i am in a position now where i could watch the oscar-winning film adaptation, or seek out another live performance and make the call for myself, or hell even ask someone involved with the production i viewed. but i don’t want to. i feel like i have seen the show and it is not necessary for me to see it again. that finality tells me that it was more the script then the show. but the burden of proof is on the show i watched and not the original source material. i turned to my partner during the performance, who has seen the movie but not the play, and asked them if the balletic fight choreography and tempered delivery of the songs were deliberate. they said it was. good enough for me.