• West Side Story (360° version)

8/18/19 (Sun), Tokyo

The highlight in this specially packaged production of the ever-popular West Side Story was not the show but the theater. Inspired reportedly by a similar venue in Amsterdam, the IHI Stage Around Tokyo has a donut-like structure with a stage that wraps around the audience, who sit at center on a revolving platform. Unlike Kabuki, where the stage revolves, it is the audience seating that turns in this case, stopping in each scene at the point at which a specific set has been arranged. Since the sets do not have to be struck for each scene, this allows for incredibly lifelike scenery decked out in eye-popping detail. Nearly all the locations – New York streets, tenement housing, dress shop – were more like movie sets than stage scenery. Doc’s drugstore happened to be positioned near the exit at intermission, and I nearly walked in, thinking it was the theater bar. The image that came to mind was the NBC Live musicals, which use huge sound stages rather than normal sets. This is complemented by intricate lighting effects and curtain projections (designed respectively by Broadway veterans Ken Billington and 59 Productions) as we revolve to the next scene, such as the shadows of a dancing Maria projected against the curtains as Tony strolls and sings her praises. The actors would often walk with us along the 360° stage or out into the audience as we revolve toward the next scene, passing other actively engaged set pieces along the way to create a continuous momentum. It was an innovative approach, to be sure.

Whether that in itself will appeal to audiences is an open question. Spinning from scene to scene is a novelty that quickly becomes wearing, even with the distraction of the curtain projections and such. This might have worked better with the theater’s previous tenant, a samurai epic offering more spectacular set pieces. In musical terms, I thought immediately of The Sound of Music, where they could reproduce the gorgeous Viennese interiors of the captain’s palatial home, church, concert hall and such, not to mention the Alps at the end. That would be worth spinning for. West Side features mostly the same scenes over and over, which, for all their impressive design, doesn’t feel worth the effort. The revolving motion starts to call attention to itself without adding to the material. I began wishing that the scenes could move to us; movement behind the curtains would have been more subtle and less dizzying. They solved the problem of a spinning orchestra by eliminating it entirely and using a recording.

The staging by director David Saint sought to make the most of the unique space. He made some curious choices at times, such as having the balcony fly out bizarrely towards the audience like Aladdin’s magic carpet. Also, the motorcycles ridden to distract us during the stage revolutions became stale after the first use. My NY friend noted that the last scene was set specifically at the Bethesda Monument (trivia: evidently the model for the angel in Angels in America) in Central Park, raising the question of how the kids managed to get there so quickly from uptown. The director may have been wiser to avoid a concrete location at that point. Additionally, the final curtain projections listed murder sites worldwide in some sort of bid for universality that came off like a college lecture; the show made the same point much more elegantly. (Incidentally, those titles, along with the opening collage of newspaper columns about violence against immigrants, were all in English, not a good idea for a production created specifically for Tokyo.)

Still, Saint did his best to ensure fluid scene transitions throughout, factoring in the physical need and time to spin the audience back to the proper set. One especially good use of the space was the thrilling quintet, when he had the curtains open across an unusually wide span for a Kabuki-scale panoramic view. But in the end, the evidence here suggests that having to rely on machinery is limiting rather than liberating.

The greater realism of the sets did seem to carry over into the dances and fights, adapted from the Jerome Robbins original by “choreography restager” Julio Monge for a visceral impact that I don’t remember from the more stylized productions I’m used to. Other than the “Somewhere” ballet, a modern abstract mess completely out of synch with the dances elsewhere (it didn’t feel like Jerome Robbins), the choreography was in good hands.

The youthful cast, with the exception of a strong Maria and Anita, does not seem ready for prime time, particularly in the singing department. The dances are fine, and the actors are at least energetic, bringing real fire to the fight scenes. I wonder how the show would have been with a better cast.

Given the lack of any big names among the staff and cast, the primary draw, as mentioned, is clearly intended to be the theater itself and how the musical is molded to the physical setting. In that sense, West Side Story, for all its considerable fame among musical lovers in Japan, seems an odd choice since it doesn’t really show off the space to its greatest advantage. The venue is not well located for theatergoers – it’s right across from the new fish market and near the immersive TeamLab phenomenon, but far from other theaters and on an inconvenient train line. They’re going to need something pretty special to attract audiences, and it remains to be seen if this is it; the previous productions since the opening of the venue in 2017 have been well-known Japanese shows by popular theater companies. The high ¥15,000 ticket will not help (the recent imported production of The King & I with Broadway stars Kelli O’Hara and Ken Watanabe could be seen at a theater right in front of Shibuya Station for as little as ¥9,000). Still, while this is not the best version of West Side Story, it does offer a fresh take on the traditional production ahead of next year’s Broadway version, which promises (threatens) to be a radical reinvention. In other words, it’s interesting largely for the curiosity value. The show runs from August 19 to October 27.