Unit 4 - Historical Context of Performance

                                            Historical Context of West side story  

In 1949, dancer and choreographer Jerome Robbins suggested to composer Leonard Bernstein that they join forces on a modern musical version of Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet.The writer Arthur Laurents was called into work on the libretto.  The stage version of West Side Story opened in previews/tryouts on August 20, 1957, in Washington D.C. Following this and another preview engagement in Philadelphia, the musical opened on Broadway at the Winter Garden Theater, September 26, 1957.The original 1957 Broadway production, directed and choreographed by Jerome Robbins and produced by Robert E. Griffith and Harold Prince, marked Sondheim's Broadway debut. It ran for 732 performances before going on tour.

The play was influenced by Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Juliet) is this huge divide between the Americans and Puerto-Ricans.  that back in post-World War Two New York, most of the city consisted of immigrants especially Italian-Americans who obviously began to move in as a result of finding more work; plus after the war, all kinds of people especially from Europe had emigrated to the state in efforts to escape their home countries where the war was at it's most dangerous. South Americans constantly tried to gain access like the Italians, Irish, and so on because the continent has always been less economically developed than the U.S and in order to try to have more money for their families, moving into the country was their way of gaining access to more employment. Many young men and fathers would leave their families and get into the country, most of the times illegally in order to try and get low-wage jobs that the inhabitants of the U.S do not want to do and send whatever scraps they have to their homes. Sometimes, like Bernardo and Anita both move in order to try and have a chance of a more glamorous and 'perfect' life. But with the glamour came consequences such as the huge segregation that continued to reign the inhabitants of the U.S until the late 20th century. 

 Detective Schrank shows large amounts of vocal discrimination towards the Sharks even during fights caused by both parties. The Jets are constantly trying the keep the Sharks out of their territory which for them means almost everywhere where the Puerto-Ricans do not have beds in, but the Sharks want to be accepted as inhabitants of America and it's 'new age'. I believe that this musical was written using 'Romeo and Juliet' in order to show audiences that the divide between people especially as a result of race must end, especially due to the fact that the war was all because of countries thinking that their race was 'superior'. 

  Westside story is such a dramatic material, realistic, grim and alive with social problems. In West Side Story, Dance has been elevated to new importance by being required to carry on much of the dramatic action in a way that had never before attempted on Broadway.The muscles of trained dancers are tensed and untensed and tensed again, stimulated by emotional tensions stimulating them still further in return. These tensions are transferred automatically across the footlights and into the musculature of every spectator in the house, willy-nilly. The cast acts and reacts in terms of movement, and that is the most direct medium that exists for the conveying of inner shades of meaning."

Westside story is still related in today's society for example gang and war is still going on in today society and I believe that racism will forever be there because innocent people are getting killed for no reason and also the president in the America is planning to ban couple of countries because he believes that they're bringing trouble to the country.