The West Side Story

It is not a secret that West Side Story is what can be called the American version of the Romeo and Juliet. I will like to note the contribution of West Side Story to the history of musical theater. The creators did their research and although the creation time was long, they came up with a game changing idea in the music theater arena. At that time not many plays on Broadway attempted to introduce or present musical theater productions which explored, in depth, issues of racism, geographical, social, cultural and economic through modern dance and music. From the previous topics, immigration which is closely related to racial discrimination, racial prejudice and cultural differences and similarities and how it applies to the love story in …show more content…
In the film I could notice that from the first scene on the Jets did not fight with any other racial group than with the Puertoricans nor they fought amongst themselves. Although the musical and movie were based on the fights that this two specific races had, there is not even one character representing any other racial background. As stated by Sandoval-Sanchez the other races like blacks were not taken into consideration in this “anthology of Americans.” This seems to be a pattern that new immigrants had to fight for them to be able to maintain their cultural practices and traditions. The newcomers have to either assimilate or disassociate and the “Americans” had to maintain their normality without allowing the outsiders to disrupt what they have already …show more content…
At the moment of the creation of West Side Story there were many incidents about gangs’ rivalry and high incidents in which gangs of opposite races where either injured or loss their lives. As expressed by one of the creators of the musical, Jerome Robbins, he reported that he would go and speak with the gang leaders to see which ideas he can gather for the musical, he reports that he refused to believe that he was documenting on gangs and their behavior and practices. (Herrera). Based on the previous statement, it is safe to infer that certain, if not most, rules and incidents portrayed in the musical can be drawn from real life situations. Then it is of certain importance that two of the main characters that fell in love at first sight were not members of the gangs, but were relevant and influential people related to the opposite gangs’ leaders. Maria a young, beautiful Puerto Rican, the sister of the leader of the sharks and Tony a Polish-American and ex-member and the co-founder of the Jets and best friend of Riff, leader of the