But I was wrong! Their current show, West Side Story, has surpassed even last year's excellent performance with its superb singing, great acting and absolutely fabulous choreography.
West Side Story is, I suppose, the first of what one would class as the modern musicals. It opened on Broadway in 1957 at the Winter Gardens Theatre and ran for a total of 732 performances. It came just after the Rogers and Hammerstein musicals had been performed but before the Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals of the late 60s and early 70s. Indeed, these latter two writers have said that West Side Story was one of the early influences on their writing. West Side Story is set in 1950s New York and is based on Shakespeare's tragic love story, Romeo and Juliet. It is the story of a feud between deprived youngsters of New York's West Side (The Jets) and a number of young Puerto Rican immigrants (The Sharks). One of the founder members of the Jets, Tony, meets Maria, the sister of the Sharks' leader Bernardo at a dance, and they fall in love. Meanwhile, Riff, the leader of the Jets, and Bernardo arrange a gang fight or 'rumble' for control of the streets. Tony tries to persuade them instead to have a fair fight between one from each gang. However, Bernardo taunts Tony about his love for Maria, Riff intervenes and is killed by Bernardo who in turn is stabbed by Tony. Later Tony goes in search of Maria who Anita, one of the Sharks, has untruthfully told the Jets has been killed by Chino (Bernardo's successor). As Tony and Maria approach each other, Tony is shot by Chino. Maria is left grieving as the Jets, Sharks and police are drawn together by tragedy. In this particular production there were several outstanding performances from the principals that are worthy of mention The best of these, without doubt, was that of Laura Emmitt, playing the role of Maria. Laura, a 16-year-old student from Dewsbury, turned in a performance well beyond her tender years. She has a beautiful soprano voice, which was heard to its best in the duets Tonight and One Hand, One Heart. These were with Alex Hogg from Bardsey who put in an excellent performance as Tony. Alex has a great tenor voice, and as well as the aforementioned duets with Laura, he also produced on of the best renditions of Maria that I have heard in a long time. Riff, the leader of the Jets, was played by seventeen-year-old Kenny Davies from Rothwell, who is well known to Leeds audiences having starred with the Youth Theatre at the City Varieties. Kenny was also one of the finalists in the Junior Stars in their eyes competition on TV. As well as his excellent singing in Jet Song and Cool, he was also superb as far as the choreography was concerned and never seemed to stop moving. Bernardo, the leader of the Sharks, is played by Richard Billings of Morley, who does not have any solo numbers but who nevertheless turned in a great acting and choreography performance in this role. The final principal I must mention is Jennie Burrows from Halifax in the role of Anita, one of the Sharks girls. A great voice, particularly well heard in the numbers A Boy Like That and I Have a Love where she dueted with Laura. As I said earlier, the choreography throughout the show was absolutely brilliant and tribute must be paid to Louise Denison who not only produced the show but was choreographer as well. The young dancers regularly filled the vast Quarry Theatre stage in a blur of coordinated movement that can only be described as spectacular! It was a joy to behold. Likewise, tribute must be paid to Jim Lunt, the musical director, for the vocal side of the performance. He brought out the best from both principals and chorus and again this was faultless throughout the show. The Quarry theatre was full on the opening night when I attended and I am sure that everybody will have left truly mesmerised by this outstanding performance. I certainly was! Leeds Amateur Operatic Society's West Side Story is at the West Yorkshire Playhouse from Saturday 29 April to Saturday 6 May 2006. |
