THEATRE REVIEW

MAY 2025 | Volume 251

 

There is no shortage of great musicals. Les Miz and Hamilton come immediately to mind. But if I were asked what I think is the greatest musical of all time, I would answer without hesitation: West Side Story. Seeing the ambitious CTORA production of the show did nothing to change my opinion.

Arthur Laurents’ adaptation of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, set in Manhattan’s west side in the 1950s, still holds up beautifully. The racism aimed at the Puerto Rican characters, and to a lesser extent at the immigrant origins of the Jets, is all too familiar yet it continues to shock. Bernstein’s brilliant music is given full value in this production by musical director Kevin Woo and Claire Wyatt’s 13-piece orchestra. Sondheim’s lyrics are inimitably witty and moving.

Director Chris Adams works with a cast of 27, most of them terrific dancers. Suzanne Ouellette has recreated Jerome Robbins’ original choreography, and it’s electrifying. The opening ten or fifteen minutes of the show, a wordless ballet, stunned me: an appetizer for our introduction to the gangs, Riff (Josh Graetz) and his Jets, Bernardo (Vincente Sandoval) and his Sharks. Every dance number is superb.

Then we meet the star-crossed lovers.The dancing is one of the two highlights of this production; Cassandra Consiglio’s Maria is the other. Sayer Roberts, playing Tony, is a charming actor, lithe and sweet-voiced. But Consiglio is a powerhouse. In every production I’ve seen until this one Maria is overpowered by Tony or her charismatic, dynamic friend Anita (Nicole Laurent). Here,Consiglio outshines them both. She does the best “I Feel Pretty” that I’ve seen—credit to Adams’ staging, too—and her rich operatic soprano shines in every number of which she’s a part: “One Hand, One Heart,” “Somewhere,” “I Have a Love.”

The two major ensemble numbers are delightful, Anita and the Shark girls’ “America” and Action (Colton Fyfe) and the Jet boys’ “Gee, Officer Krupke,” the showstopper. Kudos as well to Brian Ball’s handsome tenement street scene and mobile set pieces, and ItaiErdal’s dramatic lighting.

My one problem with the show is that the music doesn’t always seem synchronized with the vocals, and sometimes simply overpowers them. This may have to do with the orchestra being remote from the stage in the Backstage Lounge where they have a video link and from where the music is piped into the theatre. Whatever the reason, it made for a few awkward moments. And it’s a shame to lose any of Sondheim’s lyrics.

But that was, for me, a very small blip in a wonderful staging of the best musical ever.

 

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