West Side Story

An impressive set greeted the theatre goers at Stourbridge Town Hall for Stourbridge Amateur Operatic Society’s production of “West Side Story” the infamous retelling of Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” alongside the amazing music of Leonard Bernstein.

The scene was further enhanced as Musical Director, George Stuart’s highly accomplished orchestra struck up with the familiar overture, filling the auditorium with an amazing sound of familiar tunes. There is a feeling with many performances of “West Side Story” that due to its infamy, it is not just a show, it is an occasion and an occasion to be relished.

In David Shaw’s production, we were not disappointed. The extremely well drawn characters give the actors the opportunity to shine.  This was demonstrated from the outset.  Ben Simpson’s ill-fated ‘Riff’ showed the cock-sure gang leadership covering the combined vulnerability of youth and the blind subservience of his Jet sidekicks: Joe Neale’s Action’, Harry Nicholas’ ‘Diesel’, Jay Kendall’s ‘Big Deal’, Sam-James Gordon’s ‘Snowboy, Reuben Southall’s ‘A-rab’ and Ethan Davies’ ‘Baby John’ - each had developed a convincing character maintained throughout the piece.

We look to ‘Tony’ played by Jonathan Hunt personifying everyone’s hopes that sense will prevail in this futile gang war especially when he falls in love with ‘Maria’, the sister of the leader of the Sharks, the rival gang. ‘Maria’ played by Katie Bickle, knew that her impending relationship was doomed to failure but was powerless for it to end. Both Jonathan and Katie had the amazing ability that when acting together, they created a little oasis of sensibility within this weird combative setting, and they executed their scenes together with great feeling although on a couple of occasions their dialogue over music was a little indistinct. Their beautiful singing voices blended so well together, and their solos and duets were highlights to behold.

The Jets enemies, the Sharks are led by ‘Bernardo’, Ricky Hammond played this part to the full, the bile and venom for his opponents was palpable and the pointlessness of the street warfare made all the more ironic with the depth of his loathing. It was not helped by the unconditional love and prompting of his girlfriend, ‘Anita’ played with full-bloodied Puerto Rican sassiness by Emma-Louise Clifton, whose “America”, all but stopped the show.

Having had numerous associations with productions of “West Side Story” over many years there is one thing that I find slightly unfair with the construction of the show and is no fault of any society that performs it – that is there are some great scenes for the Jet Boys and the Shark Girls and the Jet Girls and Shark Boys seem to be a bit on the sidelines.  That said, both Denzy Davies as ‘Chino’ and Ruth Pugh’s ‘Anybody’s’ really shone in their roles and defied my misgivings.

That aside, there are also some truly memorable numbers and they were well served in this production.  Amy Roberts’ choreography shone though in “The Rumble” and the “Ballet Sequence”, amazing choral work for the  “Tonight” Ensemble and beautiful versions of “Maria” and “Somewhere” and the only real nod to anything slightly amusing “Gee, Officer Krupke” was a welcome relief amongst all the angst.

Whilst the majority of the action concentrates on the interactions between the young protagonists in the story, there is also an element of the inability of the grown-ups in the piece to be able to prevent the unnecessary goings on. Julia Tromans as ‘Doc’, Emily Jeavons as ‘Gladhand’, Nick Westley-Smith as ‘Schrank’ and Carl Cook as ‘Krupke’ showed that although you may have maturity on your side, you have to try much harder to get through sometimes to your younger counterparts, each played their part in achieving this superbly.

It should always be remembered that “West Side Story” is very much an ensemble piece and the success and enjoyment of this production is very much down to everyone’s incredible contribution and all those involved, in whatever capacity, should be justifiably proud.

I should add particularly, huge congratulations to the Stage and Technical Teams for some amazing effects and extremely efficient and almost unnoticeable scene changes, congratulations to all.

With very grateful thanks to everyone at SAOS for their kind invitation and very warm welcome.

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