Life at Macaulay

A Review of West Side Story

August 28th was the last day of the 3 day Macaulay Orientation. The Macaulay Orientations weren’t too exciting. The first day was fine, and the second was exciting only because we got our laptops. Well, as for the third day, some of us didn’t even show up, and some left before the events. And as I mentioned in class before, the workshops we did were silly. Okay, walking around and saying ridiculous stuffs made sense to me, we could get a sense of acting; however, making up gangs and setting up rules and rituals were such an elementary school activities, I still find that to be unnecessary today. As I was getting tired by the activities, the astonishing West Side Story changed my perspective on the orientations. I considered that play to be the most awesome Macaulay event of all.

The first scene started with a “stealthy” feeling, the actors crawled out like thieves and robbers. Their acting was good enough to put certain drama actors in shame. Their customs, jeans and shirts, and their stealthy postures gave me the gangster feel, and the music was well-timed to enhance the sense of the mood. I was already amazed by their dance in the beginning. The performers danced freely on the stage in unison. They had to corporate with others physically and also divert their attention to singing. Their ability to do multiple tasks magnificently at the same time reflected the amount of time and training they devoted.

In addition to multi-tasking, the performers further amazed me with their singings. At first I thought they were doing lip-sync for the songs, because their voices were loud and clear even to the back. “It is unlikely to do physical performance and breath-taking singings at the same time,” I thought. But to my surprise, my neighbor had told me that they were really singing out loud on the stage when I asked him. I really got my eyes opened wide at that moment; the world of theaters felt very perplexing to me.

I have to comment on the scene of the ball, when there were about 20 actors on stage. At that moment, I understood why my instructor told us, about 15 students, to walk around freely in the work-shop room. It was amazing that they were able to dance and perform different tasks at the same time without collision. They were doing all sorts of dance moves in seemingly inconvenient clothes fluently without disturbance. Every single one of them stayed on their assigned path without hitting others. This sense of corporation was another astonishing aspect of the play.

Perhaps the most unique part of West Side Story is its use of Spanish. To depict the conflict between the Jets and the Sharks, the play implemented the usage of Spanish to balance view point, to make the play unbiased. The usage of Spanish by the characters have made the show more realistic and less of a local show on a story. They have some really good Spanish songs. I really liked the Spanish in the play; it was the only moment in my life that I felt grateful for knowing Spanish.

The show really introduced me to the world of theaters. I’ve only understood the significance and influence of theaters in Shakespearian Age after the show. Although the actors made several mistakes and the show was quite tiresome in the middle, it was nevertheless the greatest show I’ve seen.