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West Side Story Play Analysis

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West Side Story is about a conflict between two rival gangs, the Jets and the Sharks, which comes to a head when Tony, a former Jets member, and Maria, the sister of the leader of the Sharks, fall in love. Although the play centers around Tony and Maria, the character of Anita (played by Karli Dinardo) caught my eye since she revealed her purple dress which was different from the reds of the Sharks and blues of the Jets and I found myself drawn to her in each scene she was present in. I also found myself drawn to members of the Sharks as I understood the racism they faced from members of the Jets, Officer Krupke, and Detective Schrank. The characters of Tony and Maria were actually the characters I didn’t really like as I saw them both as selfish. …show more content…

The acting of the cast was very believable and precise to the time period of the 1950’s such as “tea”, referring to marijuana. I didn’t hear Tony call Maria his bae or the Jets/Sharks asking each other to “put some respek on their name”. I found both the New York accent of the Jets and Spanish accents of the Sharks to be a bit exaggerated, but I think that worked with the stereotypes given to people from New York and those of Latinx culture. I found the use of Latinx cast like Julian Alvarez, Daniel Martinez Marco Santiago and Salvatore Vieira and so many more of the cast which gives an accurate representation of the Sharks which wasn’t possible in earlier versions of West Side Story. I enjoyed the friendship of Anita, Rosalia, Consuelo, Teresita, Francisca, Estella and Marguerita as it seemed authentic through their was a disagreement between the pro-America Anita and pro-Puerto Rico Rosalia to Consuelo, Rosalia, and Francisca joking around with Maria in “I Feel Pretty”. The actors managed to …show more content…

I found that many of the actors in West Side Story vocals fit well with their characters such as Carly Evans soprano-like voice that seemed so innocent to the world just like Maria. The orchestra ability to match the emotions of the song or scene was very beneficial in letting the audience know of Tony and Maria’s undying love for each other in “Tonight” through the use of light and upbeat notes or Anita’s anger in “A Boy Like That” which uses harsher notes. The effects of the characters emotions would not have been as evident if the instrumentals they sang along too didn’t match the emotions they felt. Although the play is surrounded by dark themes, there are musical numbers with a tinge of comedic value such as in “America” where Rosalia praises Puerto Rico through phrases such as “Puerto Rico, you lovely island” and Anita retorts back “Puerto Rico, you ugly island” or “Gee Officer Krupke” where the Jets are joking as to what to say to Officer Krupke ending the song with “Gee, Officer Krupke. Krup you!”. In many of the musical numbers, there seems to be a kid friendly approach as profanity is nowhere to be found with the replacement of words such as “Buggin” in the Jet Songs although slurs such as “spic” and “brown boy” fill the script. Besides the musical numbers, there were also sound effects in

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