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Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Sound of Musicals. 欢迎回来【曲外之音】.

Hi Oliver.

Hello.

So what are we gonna talk about today? In the very first interview I had with you, you talked about your theater groups have put on quite a few musicals, and you mentioned Les Misérables, but what else?

One of my earliest musicals that I had a speaking part in, not a lead role, but I was on stage a lot, I was talking. It was West Side Story.

Okay, based on our conversations before, you don't really strike me as someone who would be in West Side Story, like essentially a gangster story, right？

It is basically, yes, it's a story about two gangs in New York fighting for control of their neighborhood who is the top gang.

West Side Story is one of those things I'm not sure if it's very popular among Chinese audience, but if people in English speaking countries, if they know anything about musical theater, they have at least heard of it.

Yes, I'm not sure how many people would say it's their favorite, but most people have heard of it, yes, either the musical or the two movies that were made of it.

The latest movie version of West Side Story was released only last year 2021 by Spielberg.

Yes, it came out last year. I haven't seen it but the reviews are quite positive. Online reviews seem to like the movie.

I checked on Rotten Tomatoes, they’re getting as high as 93% which is amazing.

That is quite good.

I have to admit I only watched some of it, but the whole cinematography how they shot it looked amazing, definitely have to find a time to watch the entire thing, little bit about the background. So it debuted in the 1950s, right？

Yes, in 1957 is when it opened, and it did quite well, lots of people did enjoy it. They went to see it and they had about 1,000 shows within 3 years, so it did very well for itself.

And I think one of the things that made Wide Side Story really popular or special is not just the gang stories, but it's also that is based on a Shakespeare play Romeo and Juliet.

Yes, so the background and sort of the under story, the story itself really is based on Romeo and Juliet this idea of two gangs fighting in a city; and then a boy from one gang, a girl from the other fall in love, and everything that happens between them.

It's basically modern-day Romeo and Juliet set in New York.

Yes, that is exactly it is, it's modern setting for Romeo and Juliet. And there are different take in some areas, some things are a little different, but overall the story is quite similar I think to Romeo and Juliet.

It's just instead of rival families, these are rival gangs, but I suppose it's the equivalent of rival families.

It is yes, when Romeo and Juliet was set, it was family gangs but not everybody in the family was actually related. You could be in somebody's family but not their brother, their cousin, anything like that. They could be your friend.

The Clan, like the clan culture, like a family clan.

Yes, exactly. So you could be friends of the family fighting with them, but not actually in the family.

All right. So, let me give you that impossible task again of giving us a very, very brief summary of the plot. What is the story, you mentioned there are two rival gangs, what are they called？

So the first gang is the American gang, and they are called the Jets. These are the guys from New York. They've been in New York for a long time. Their families have been there for a long time;

And their enemies, their rivals are called the Sharks. And these guys, these are immigrants from Puerto Rico, so they are newcomers to America; and that's where some of the gang rivalry and tension comes from, the established American gang versus the new immigrants from Puerto Rico.

And there's lots and lots of names in this show, I'm going to try and make it easy to understand and remember. There's lots of people.

Exactly. Let's just start with who are the modern-day Romeo and Juliet.

Yeah, that's a good place to start.

So in the Jets, this American gang, is Tony. He used to be a Jet, but then he left them, but he still has friends within the gang. So he still talks to them, hangs out with them a little, and he is involved in little ways.

In the Sharks, with Juliet’s role is Maria. She is the sister of the leader of the Sharks, a boy, teenager called Bernardo.

Bernardo.

Yeah, and Maria has been in America for 1 month, so she's very new to the US, but her brother has been there for longer.

And if I remember correctly, Maria, is this very innocent, almost naive girl who, I guess she’s from Puerto Rico, fresh in a new country, in the land of hope back then, and then she felt everything was new, everything was exciting. This is such a great country, that sort of idea.

Yes, so because of the major immigration to the US, lots of people who went there believed in that's called the American Dream where you can go to the US, have a job, have a nice house, make lots of money, live a perfect life. It was a big thing in the 1950s, and later than that, it was a big idea.

And Maria is, as you say, very innocent. She doesn't quite understand the reality, so she still sees America as this land of plenty and that this perfect place to live. So the whole story is a little bit sad with regards to that aspect of Maria.

And let me guess, they meet, they fall in love, and then obviously the two gangs start to fight.

That's exactly, yes, they go to a dance. Both gangs are at the dance. They are planning to fight each other. These two gangs are ready to fight. Tony goes to help his friends, Maria goes because her brother goes; and Tony and Maria see each other, they fall in love straightaway. Romeo and Juliet love at first sight thing.

The same as Romeo and Juliet. This was doomed from the very beginning.

Yes, it is a tragic romance story because at the fight that the Jets and the Sharks have arranged for themselves, the two leaders Riff, who is Tony’s friend in the Jets, and Bernardo, Maria’s brother begin to fight.

Suddenly there are knives, Tony tries to stop this, but his friend Riff ends up being killed by Bernardo. Tony, upset and very angry, then kills Bernardo. So now both gang leaders are dead and Tony has killed the brother of the girl he loves. It's very complicated.

It's actually, if you think about Romeo and Juliet, you think about this whole tragic love story template, I don't think it's that hard to understand, because this is how probably I will write it as well.

Yes, that is true. It's not difficult. It's more just the names coming at you. It feels complicated, but the ideas behind it is a simple idea behind the story, which is why it's a good story because it is overall tragic romance, but it's simple.

But how did it end for Tony?

Maria and Tony, she forgives him for what he did to Bernardo, and they agree to get out of New York, run away and be happy together. Tony leaves to arrange things.

Yeah, but the gangs are not gonna...

Yeah, the gangs are not gonna let that happen.

Tony learns later that Maria has been killed by one of the Sharks gang members. That's not true. She's fine. But tony, upset, angry, goes looking for this killer.

Instead, he finds Maria, as she's looking for him. They're both looking for each other, and just as they meet, Tony is shot by the member of the Sharks gang, and he dies in Maria's arms. So it's a very sad ending there.

And what happened to Maria?

Yeah, different from Romeo and Juliet, Maria doesn't kill herself. Romeo and Juliet both die, but in this, Maria doesn't.

I think it's this moment when she realizes that the land of plenty and this American Dream is not quite what she thinks it is. This is where her innocence kind of leaves her, and it's a very sad thing.

She gets angry, she gets the gun. She points it at everybody who is there. The Jets and the Sharks are both there. Then the police arrive basically just trying to defuse the situation; and the Jets and the Sharks form a kind of peace between themselves really after all of this and Maria’s anger. It's a very sad ending.

Yeah, you said unlike Juliet, Maria didn't die or didn't kill herself, but part of her really died. That part of naive, innocent young girl who believed in future, who believed in a better life, that part of her died.

It certainly did. Yeah, through the show her songs are optimistic there, talking about beautiful things and happiness, and they are innocent, naive songs, but at the end, that's all gone from her. So she does die in some way.

Yeah, I just feel like people have this fascination. A lot of people have this fascination with tragic romance stories. The idea of star-crossed lover, like a bad ending, tragic ending is much more gripping than happy ending than princess live happily ever after. What do you think?

It does feel like that, you've got the romantic comedy aspect where people expect it to be funny and live happily ever after. But in lots of love stories are in some way quite tragic. It feels like that does need to be sadness in there to make a typical a normal, should I say a normal love story work.

To stand out.

The stage or in books or in movies, yes, there needs to be tragedy for it to stand out. I think that's why Romeo and Juliet has done so well. I can't really think of many old books or plays or anything which has had that story done for so long since it was written, so four five hundred years.

I mean Romeo and Juliet, the whole story template, has been repeated so many times over and over again in different setting, different country, different culture, even different species.

Yeah, everywhere, different species, everything, you say species, I think of the Avatar movies straight away, the James Cameron Avatar movies (Exactly) which is kind of Romeo and Juliet in space.

But the story is there throughout most tragic love stories they are influenced by Romeo and Juliet. This one is very openly influenced in that, it takes most of the story from it.

And it also, you have the scene like the balcony scene, but this is New York, so fire exit scene.

The fire escape scene whether singing to each other from the fire escape, rather than the balcony, that's nice, I like that change. It's very good.

It’s an interesting modern twist.

Yeah.

Okay, so I think we're gonna wrap up the first episode of West Side Story here. In the next episode, we're going to focus again on the conflicts and the music.

Thank you, Oliver, for coming to the show.

Thank you.

We'll see you next time. Bye.

Bye bye.