PrintMichael Kidd. Jerome Robbins. Bob Fosse. The choreography of these legends flourished during the Broadway musical’s Golden Age in the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s. Now, 2009’s audiences are putting their work to the test.
Revivals of Guys and Dolls, West Side Story, and Chicago—each of which, respectively, displays the genius of one of those venerable choreographers—are all currently on Broadway. These landmarks of musical theater and dance history come to life once again for audiences who already know their stories, love their songs, and have seen their film versions. Generally, those audiences leave the revivals somewhat disappointed—except when it comes to the dancing. Perhaps this is because their expectations for that aspect of the show are not particularly high: Choreography just isn’t a part of the average American’s everyday life.
Or maybe the dancing really is that good. But what makes the choreography so strong that it can reach an audience in 2009, even though it was originally created for spectators of different era? As Liza Gennaro, professor of dance at Barnard and a choreographer, notes, “Musical theater is a reflection of the moment in which it is created.” Guys and Dolls, West Side Story, and Chicago were each created at a particular moment, and each also depicts a very specific period.
Guys and Dolls and West Side Story reflect the 1950’s America in which they were born. Clear ties between choreography and time period were no accident on the parts of Kidd and Robbins, respectively. The athleticism and hyper-masculinity of Kidd’s dancing gamblers reflect the nation’s post-World War II attitudes. The tension that Robbins’ Jets and Sharks generate when they dance around each other onstage mirrors the daily newspaper reports about gang warfare that were taped up in the cast’s dressing rooms. Audiences of the ’50s lived in the world that these shows stylized—a world that’s unavoidably alien to today’s audience.
The revivals of those two shows try to make due by adjusting what time period is presented: Guys and Dolls takes a dramatic step back into the Depression era. West Side Story more subtly separates itself from any specific time through modern costuming and the addition of an abstract dance number during the song “Somewhere.” However, these time shifts are more jarring than anything, especially since the revivals’ choreographers rely heavily on Kidd’s and Robbins’ original work, which is itself greatly tied to the ’50s.
Unlike those two artists, whose custom-tailored their choreography to each show, Fosse had a distinct, immediately recognizable movement technique—he prioritized dance’s style over its integration into a narrative. Fittingly, Chicago’s emphasis is on performance itself: The musical satirizes the conscious role-playing and insincerity present in our world and is very self-conscious of the fact that it is a form of entertainment. While murder is performed on stage in West Side Story, in Chicago, murder itself becomes a show.
Although Chicago certainly reflects its setting—the prohibition era—in terms of narrative as well as its Vaudeville-inspired structure, Fosse’s movement vocabulary reflects Fosse in 1975. But this is not a problem, since in this show, authenticity is thrown out the window from the start. Fosse completely disregarded the notion that dances must be integrated into the narrative, exhibiting a postmodern attitude that would meet more acceptance in years to come.
In contrast, part of the problem with the revival of West Side Story is that in the original, the choreography is seamlessly integrated into the story, which was in turn interwoven with the real world. In the 2009 version, director Arthur Laurents attempts to produce authenticity by introducing Spanish dialogue and toning down some of the dancing while heightening the musical’s violence. Nevertheless, its gang members still execute pirouettes and tour jetés. To some degree, Laurents’ ventures into realism underestimate the effect of Robbins’ choreography. In a musical, reality must necessarily be suspended to make room for a more creative telling of a story through a means that can only exist on stage.
Chicago does not have the same translation problems that West Side Story and to some extent Guys and Dolls do, since its 1975 audience had no more connection to the period represented than does today’s audience. Perhaps this accounts for Chicago’s success—the revival has been running since 1996—and the corresponding mixed-to-poor reviews that have been directed at the revivals of West Side Story and Guys and Dolls that opened this year.
So what do contemporary audiences end up receiving from these revivals, particularly in terms of dancing? “In the case of West Side Story,” Gennaro notes, “the dance is an authorship.” The choreography in this musical tells part of the story, and, in a sense, acts as the glue holding the show together. The presence of Robbins’ choreography in the revival lends support to the show as a whole, while the revival of Guys and Dolls, for instance, may suffer because the dancing there does not play as vital a role in the narrative in the first place. Chicago’s revival, interestingly, has been more successful than its original run, perhaps showing how ahead of the curve Fosse’s innovative choreography was.
Then again, maybe we shouldn’t even bother comparing a revival to the original—as Gennaro says, “The director will decide what he [or] she wants to accomplish with the revival and it should be judged within the context of those directorial decisions.” Ultimately, the value in seeing a revival lies in observing the consequences of these directorial decisions. Perhaps it will turn out that the new direction is actually a wrong turn, as appears to be the case in Guys and Dolls—but maybe, as in Chicago, that new direction will give the show a certain je ne sais quoi that was lacking the first time around.