West Side Story

I love the musical West Side Story. It started in 5th grade, after moving back to Austin from Houston for one year (which we did after my mother passed but that is another blog story) when I went to Wooten and I was involved with Music Memory. Not sure if anyone remembers this because I'm pretty sure they don't do it anymore (which is a damn shame) but it's where the take classical pieces of music and play them for you until you learn to recognize them and then you go to competition to hear them in different forms and try to win as the team who recognized the most. Well the year I partipipated, "Mambo" was one of our pieces and I loved it. Then the music teacher showed us the movie and I was hooked. I love the movie yes I always cry but it's amazing.

Last night I went to see the live musical version here and while it was still amazing it threw me for a loop. Not only are some of the phrases different in the stage play (due to the censorship rules of when the movie was made) but some of the songs are different. For instance, "Cool" and "Gee Officer Krupke" are switched in the play and "I Feel Pretty" starts the second act after the Rumble where Riff and Bernardo die. I was sitting there going....ummm WTH?

I did know somewhere that "Cool" was earlier in the stage play but I really thought "Gee Officer Krupke" was still in the first act before the deaths. Because it seems out of place considering what happened at the Rumble. Now I am factoring in that I was raised on the movie whereas most people are probably the opposite but it's a little unsettling to have two lighthearted numbers after two people die. I looked it up and I get the mentatlity to try to lighten up the mood because aren't suppose to die in Broadway plays. But it was a huge adjustment especially considering the other musicals I've seen that were made into movies (Rent, Mamma Mia!) didn't have that drastic of a change.

However I still loved it. I still love the story, still love the music and the dance scenes (especially "Mambo"). It's just a note to myself that when I go see the play that I will need to put myself in a state of mind that it is going to be much different from the movie version I grew up on.