West Side Story in the South Side

Glasgow Music Theatre perform West Side Story in Eastwood Park Theatre, Giffnock. 

            There's little doubt that West Side Story, Leonard Bernstein’s streetwise reinterpretation of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, is one of the best loved musicals ever written. The 2009 Broadway Revival lasted out nearly 750 performances into January of this year. Nothing about the show is forgiving to amateur performers. They are expected to sing, dance and act with competence while at the same time maintaining the teenage zest of the characters they play rather over the maturity of their craft. The score, replete with ever-memorable showstoppers such as the America, Tonight and Maria, has been described, at best, as “rangy” to sing, and it requires a large ensemble (with many players doubling on more than one instrument) to properly realise its cocktail of jazz on the rocks served with cool ballads and a not-light sprinkling of off-beat dissonance carried fourth from Bernstein’s experience conducting the symphonies of Gustav Mahler. It is therefore with some degree of ambition that Glasgow Music Theatre, a new group formed in 2009, take on this as their third show.

The challenge is set. Expectations are high.  No one would care to see their favourite scenes and numbers floundered by poor execution. And no one will leave disappointed. Marion Baird’s choreography merges seamlessly into Amy Glover’s direction with intricate professionalism, and who can tell where ones work ends and the other’s begins? There are some wonderful dancers and actors in this group.

The principal cast, for the main part, give extremely nuanced performances: we see Bernardo, leader of the Shark gang (played by John McGlone) hold up his head and broaden his chest with Hispanic pride. His “Jet” counterpart, Riff (played by Stewart Archibald), deftly delivers his lines with attitude and impeccable timing. Kirsty Leith, who plays Maria (the Juliet of West Side Story) has a pure, clear voice truly to die for that fills the theatre and will ultimately bring a tear to the unsuspecting eye. Unfortunately, at times she is let down by the physical rigidity of her Romeo, played by Colin Richardson, who gives a good-natured performance that suffers from a lack of openness in his body language. This was particularly painful during his solo, Maria, in which the audience expects to see him stretch his arms out in a whirlwind of passion, but finds them magnetically drawn into his chest instead. David McCurrach gives a stand-out performance as Lt. Schrank, catching us off-guard as he switches with expert calculation between the attitudes of Good Cop and Bad Cop.

A particular success of the performance was a pervading feeling that these really were youngsters who believed their lives as hoodlums transformed them into adults. This is something that is often lost in renderings of West Side Story by more mature casts, notably the movie version. Such youthful spirit comes to crescendo in the playful satirical number Gee, Officer Kruptke, which is always a highlight of the show, but a more skilfully choreographed and amusingly performed rendition is beyond my imagination.

Look out for Glasgow Music Theatre, they’ll soon attain a worthy reputation as the most professional of amateur theatre company in Glasgow.