West Side Story

West Side Story is a musical based off the famous love story and tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. But instead the star crossed lovers are Tony and Maria. Tony is from an american gang called the Jets and Maria is the younger sister of the leader of the Puerto Rican gang the Sharks. The Jets and the Sharks have been having an ongoing rival for who knows how long. Both the Jets and the Sharks commonly like to hang out a spot called the turf but, they don’t think that it’s big enough for both gang’s to hang out at. They come up with a plan to fight for control of the turf. The fight unfortunately escalates and there happens to be some deaths in the process. I think this film was very revolutionary because it talked about things like gang violence and racial prejudice as well as had an interracial couple even though the actress who played Maria, Natalie Wood was not actually Puerto Rican. The choreography in this film was amazing as well as the music which was my favorite part. I think the music being composed so well is why this musical was also very popular. Some of my personal favorites are Maria, Tonight, and Somewhere. I especially love the scene for Somewhere which was written by Stephen Sondheim and Leonard Bernstein. Stephen Sondheim is very popular in the composing world I know him personally from the Broadway production then film Into the Woods. For the piece Somewhere as saddening as it is it is still a beautiful scene. Both Tony and Maria are singing on the couch and behind Tony is blue light most likely symbolizing the Jets and behind Maria is red light which most likely symbolizes the Sharks. The song just showed how much hope that Tony and Maria had for their future together. Some of the lyrics are “There’s a place for us somewhere a place for us peace and quiet and open  air wait for us somewhere” (Sondheim and Bernstein 1961). Tony and Maria are yearning for a time when they are finally away from home where they won’t have to deal with the constant arguing from the Jets and the Sharks where they are around each other all the time in peace and quiet. Throughout this song Tony and Maria truly believe that they are going to spend the rest of their lives together but, they unfortunately don’t know that that isn’t going to be the case. Another in the song that stands out to me is “We’ll find a way of forgiving somewhere” (Sondheim and Bernstein 1961). I remember after Tony dies Maria was so angry with everyone she took Chino’s gun and pointed it at both the Jets and the Sharks and what Maria said to them was so powerful. She told them you all killed Tony and my brother and Riff but not with weapons like guns and bullets, but with your hate and kill too because now I’m full of hate. It kind of makes me think that the lyric in the song about forgiving is ironic because Maria is so filled with hate I think the last thing that she is thinking about is forgiving people at the moment. Back when Tony and Maria were singing Somewhere in the house. I noticed at one point Maria had red light but also a lot blue light beside her and Tony had blue light but also a lot of red light beside him. I think that could symbolize a lot of things like how Maria and Tony are both the same and the Sharks and the Jets are the same. I think they used the red lighting for the Sharks because Sharks are usually known for being out for blood. Bernardo, the leader of the Sharks was the first person to kill anyone and then Tony killed. They both wanted to protect their loved ones but they chose to do that by shedding blood and it was to their demise. The Jets and the Sharks didn’t want to put aside their differences and see that they are the same that they’re both people they let things like their race being different get in the way of that. I think that speaks to a lot of people there are still so many arguments about race to this day. And I think that is why West Side Story was so successful because it tackled real issues and issues that were hard.