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West Side Story
Paul Nolan as Tony and Chilina Kennedy as Maria
Photo: David Hou West Side Story
Jennifer Rias as Anita (foreground) and Mary Antonini as Rosalia.
Photo: David Hou

West Side Story
Members of the company.
Photo: David Hou

A couple of weeks ago when we made our first trip to Stratford Festival for this year, we stayed at a charming B & B called "Breaking Bread", and our hosts told us something very interesting over breakfast......they said one of the national theatre critics had called Stratford's "West Side Story" the best piece of thestre he'd ever seen. When I'd ordered my tickets for the giant of a musical, I wasn't sure why because I've seen it several times....I hadn't been enthused, but now my appetite was whetted.

And there's no doubt after seeing the production over the weekend that the Stratford Shakespeare Festival production of West Side Story....the gang-centred, late fifties musiical conceived by Jerome Robbins, with book by Arthur Laurents, music by Leonard Berstein and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim (how's that for a line-up?)......that this is an extremely good telling of the ages old love story. There is enormous energy and tremendous intensity on stage from beginning to end.

The story is, of course, the Romeo and Juliet tale of star-crossed lovers, only this time set in New York at a time when the inward flow of "spics" and other immigrants is challenging a status quo that had settled into the tenements and ghettos after the Second World War. There is intolerance and an openly aggressive racism that permeates the neighbourhood occupied by the Jets and the Sharks.......the ending of the play is never in doubt....you know there will be tragedy.

What a cast graces the stage for Stratford's West Side Story. Paul Nolan where have you been hiding? Wow and double wow!!! This guy really blew my socks off....he can sing, dance, act and is apparently in really good shape.....at least that's what I was thinking as he was climbing around on the stark, steely stage setting and looking very good doing it. Chilina Kennedy was also dazzling as Maria, lover to Nolan's Tony, and sister of Shark's leader Bernardo (Andrew Cao). There was desparate intensity between Nolan and Kennedy when the two appeared together on stage.

Certainly Jennifer Rias was wonderfully good as the spirited Anita, girlfriend of Bernardo, and confidante of Maria. She is vivacious and so vibrant as she moves about the stage, creating one of the internal spraks for the production.....great stuff from a great actress and perhaps in either Rias or Kennedy the Festival has found the heir apparent to Cynthia Dale...

Really, the whole cast in this production is extremely good.....we've come to expect this at Stratford......We just know that the company at Stratford has some wonderfully gifted members.....In this one, though, the energy level, the enthusiasm, the emotional intensity, everything just seems to be ratcheted up a notch or two. It is really great stuff.

Kudos to Gary Griffin for great direction that creates the dramatic tension, musical director Rick Fox and choreographer Sergio Trujillo, whose work fits seamlessly together to create a great piece of musical theatre....truly really good stuff....lots of great things happening....

And, of course, the real beauty of West Side Story is that it is virtually timeless. The way audiences still love the Bard's Romeo and Juliet several hundred years after it was penned, so will it be for West Side Story. A great love story but also great because it is set against the backdrop of human foolishness and gross intolerance, both ongoing features of the human condition. So, the play is as socially relevant today as it was when it was written..

This was the best of the new season for us......we really enjoyed it and left the Festival Theatre feeling emotionally drained but very much at peace with the world – sure signs that you've had a good encounter with some great art. See if you can get tickets for this one.....Teens would really enjoy it....it would challenge their thinking....