My Take On: Interlochen’s A West Side Story For Our Times

Another of our new feature “My Take On:”: Short reviews from New York shows by Nunzio Michael Lupo, veteran journalist and an insightful appraiser of the arts. These pieces were first posted on his page at https://www.show-score.com/member/mrstrategery.

The summer theater students at Interlochen Arts Camp have something important to say about immigration with their production of West Side Story. As directed by New York-based actor and director Christopher Campbell (a University of Michigan graduate), the street gangs who’ve spent the evening battling each other over race and territory yearn for the “peace and quiet and open air” that wait for them “somewhere.”

A giant American flag dropping from the ceiling underscores that “somewhere” should have been the great melting pot of the United States. The Jets, composed of earlier immigrant arrivals, shouldn’t be feuding with the more recent Puerto Rican Sharks. A talented ensemble of student actors looks on with both wonder and sadness over that promise unfulfilled. In the hands of the achingly beautiful voice of soloist Paula Casillas-Lopez, you, too, wish for that.

The point is all the more poignant because this production is performed by real high school kids, on the cusp of moving into a world that could break their hearts. Some lack the polish that four years at a big name musical theater school may eventually bring them, but this was the most affecting version of this show I’ve ever seen.

The 2020 Broadway revival by director Ivo van Hove featured huge video screens that overpowered the actors onstage. This ballyhooed “radical reimagining” chucked the glorious balletic and athletic choreography of Jerome Robbins in favor of Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s minimalist study of body movement.

This production has all the heart that production lacked, and the nascent talent, too. Robbins is back, and this may be some of the finest amateur ensemble work I have ever seen. From the moment the Jets gang converges in the first number, they tense and coil and bring West Side Story’s ballet of the streets to life. With a typical six weeks of rehearsal, it’s just astonishing to see these kids nail the aggressive “Dance at the Gym,” the saucy “America” and the clownish “Gee, Officer Krupke” not to mention all the others. They are uniformly excellent.

At the center are the Romeo and Juliet stand-ins, Tony (Colin Lee) and Maria (Scarlett Newman). Lee’s Tony is tall, gangly and awkward with a considerable tenor-in-the making. Newman’s Maria is an imp of a girl with a legit soprano that belies her years and a fire in the final scenes that doubly surprises. They don’t pretend to have the perfection that a few more years of training might get them, but that is the real charm. It’s thrilling to see talented teenagers playing teenagers.

And it makes this show’s tragedy of America’s unfulfilled promise more mournful. These kids deserve better. Somewhere.