SOMEWHERE there's a place for this lacklustre revival of one of the greatest Broadway musicals, but the West End is not it. There is a saying in the theatre about the great star, once a tour de force, being forced to tour, and this production, which started off at the Theatre Royal, Plymouth, has been doing that for the past year.
The problem is that director Alan Johnston has reproduced the original production of this variation on Romeo and Juliet set in New York. Forty years ago it was mould-breaking with blistering performances from Chita Rivera as Anita, the Puerto Rican girl whose rape by the Jets and subsequent lie sparks the final tragedy, and George Chakiris as Bernardo, leader of the Sharks. But the young, enthusiastic cast, almost all British, led by a tuneful Maria, Katie Knight-Adams, and a lissom Tony, David Habbin, have a hard time pretending they are New York slum kids, and, while they do their best with Robbins's choreography, Broadway gipsies they are not. Bernstein's score remains magnificent, as does the choreography, but the drama plods. The sets and costumes, pallid copies of the Oliver Smith and Irene Sharaff originals, once innovative, look hackneyed.
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