Tuesday, August 25, 2009

No Me Diga

First, Cody Green who played Riff in the West Side Story Broadway revival was replaced by his understudy, and now this. "A Boy Like That" and "I Feel Pretty" are being sung in their original English lyrics, as opposed to Lin-Manuel Miranda's rewritten Spanish lyrics. The Spanish failed to make the show more realistic because it was too inconsistent, but was actually most effective in "A Boy Like That." The article does not specify whether the Spanish dialogue is also being changed back to English, but that seems like the logical next step. I'm not sure why the change is occurring now. Tickets are definitely selling. Maybe director Arthur Laurents is realizing that this is not the groundbreaking revival he promised, but if he really wants to fix this disappointing West Side Story, he has a long way to go.

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