Authors unearth layers of meaning in ‘West Side Story’


LAWRENCE — For Paul Laird, University of Kansas professor emeritus of music, “West Side Story” is not just the quintessential Broadway musical. It’s like the Bible or Shakespeare — an inexhaustible source of inspiration, interpretation, analysis and commentary.

“The Cambridge Companion to ‘West Side Story,’” just out from Cambridge University Press, is Laird's third scholarly book about the musical. Laird and Elizabeth Wells of Mount Allison University in Canada co-edited the new work, and Laird wrote or co-wrote two of its 16 essays. The contributors analyze everything from the show’s adaptation of “Romeo and Juliet” right up to the 2021 Steven Spielberg film version.

“There were some perspectives that came out of this book that surprised me,” said Laird, who has written an additional five books on composer Leonard Bernstein alone. “I certainly learned things. We were asking people from various backgrounds and generations to write about it, and they did so in very different ways. That was instructive for me. I don't agree with everything in the book, but as an editor, that's not my job. My job is to bring together an interesting volume, and I love the different perspectives we have.”

Jane Barnette, KU professor of theatre, and Martin Nedbal, KU professor of musicology, also contribute chapters that look at "West Side Story" from the perspective of their specialties — adaptation dramaturgy and Viennese musical history, respectively.

Laird’s solo chapter deals partly with the compositional methods Bernstein used to unify the show.

“Bernstein is a composer in the classical tradition,” Laird said, “and most Broadway composers are not. There are very few who have also written symphonies and ballets and operas. This is how Bernstein wanted to work, and in his previous musicals he'd already done this.”

Laird said Bernstein foreshadows certain actions with musical snippets, then recalls them later.

“There are intervals and themes that he uses to tie the thing together,” Laird said. “It’s a musical way of enhancing the drama.”

The Broadway musical premiered in 1957, but Laird says it was the 1961 movie version, which won 10 Academy Awards, that made "West Side Story" a global hit.

The 2021 film version was a box office failure, which the editors acknowledge in their foreword, but Laird said "West Side Story" remains relevant.

“Clearly, we still have issues of race and prejudice and bias in our culture,” he said. “That's what brings about the hatred that makes this show work and makes it so visceral. It's about human beings who just can't get outside themselves and think with empathy about other people.

“Because of that, and because we're human beings, I think it's always potentially relevant. I thought the new movie was very good, but clearly it wasn't what America wanted to watch in 2021. But as we said in the preface, at least it shows the work is still current. But you don't even need to show that, because, as the world turns, ‘West Side Story’ has been put on somewhere virtually every week. This show is not going away, like ‘Romeo and Juliet’ doesn't go away.

“We love to watch people fall in love. We love to hear them sing about it. That's why musicals and operas exist. I think that's a basic human desire, and it's going to stick around with us.”

Wed, 01/15/2025

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Rick Hellman

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Rick Hellman

KU News Service

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