Faded Classic

摘要

It has become a venerated broadwayrntradition: beloved musical from the golden age is dusted off after years of neglect, given a spiffy new revival and hailed by critics and audiences all over again. It happened last year with South Pacific and Hair. Seems to happen every other season with Gypsy. This year's anointed rediscovery is West Side Story, the groundbreaking musical from 1957 that grafted Romeo and Juliet (plus elements of classical ballet and grand opera) onto a social-realist portrayal of New York City gang warfare in the 1950s.rnFor me, however, this was no usual revival. Through an odd quirk of my musical-theater history, West Side Story was the one widely acclaimed masterpiece of the genre that I had never seen onstage.