Star-Crossed Lovers Then and Now

Paper Summary:

In this article, the writer notes that both William Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" and Leonard Bernstein's "West Side Story" take up an old tale, once told by a different author in a different genre, and reconfigure that tale to create a new, artistic vision. The writer maintains that what makes both versions of the 'star crossed lovers' unique is not Shakespeare or Bernstein's storyline, plot or even their characters, but the way these stories are applied or not applied to contemporary situations. The writer discusses that Shakespeare creates a story for all time, while Bernstein creates a story about young people in America who are ostracized from society, have little hope of growing old and find momentary happiness in love rather than a real future. The writer compares the two works and looks at the aspect of music. The writer concludes that it is not the musical aspect of "West Side Story" that makes it stand apart from its original source, but the musical's unapologetic American qualities of theme and characters that makes it of its time, seemingly ripped from the headlines of the past, rather than transcendent of time and place.

From the Paper:

"Likewise, Bernstein adopted a previous tale to suit his own purposes, taking what had become Shakespeare's now-classic story of violent, warring lovers who are able to use love as a vehicle of compassion in a cruel and uncaring world. Bernstein did not select a far-off land, as Shakespeare selected Italy to add to the romance of the narrative. Shakespeare's hot-blooded, feuding Italians would have seemed foreign to his original English audience, but Bernstein selects a setting close at hand, that of New York City. Bernstein attempts to show that the sort of compassion evoked by Shakespeare for the young lovers in a never-never land of Italy is relevant to his own viewer's contemporary era and the racial strife of his day. The types of seemingly meaningless violent discord between Italian clans in Shakespeare are parallel to the struggles of Puerto Ricans and Anglos in New York, and ultimately just as empty and brutal in its consequences. Bernstein's evocation of "America," both in the song "America" suggests that the tragedy of Tony and Maria is not simply a sad event of circumstance and mishaps, but also a fundamental betrayal of the American dream of integration and that "everyone free in America.""

Sample of Sources Used:

• Greenblatt, Stephen. "Romeo and Juliet." Introduction to The Norton Shakespeare. New York: W.W. Norton, 1997.
• "West Side Story." Directed by Jerome Robbins and Roger Wise. 1961.
• "Romeo + Juliet." Directed by Baz Luhrmann. 1996.
• Shakespeare, William. "A Midsummer's Night's Dream." Shakespeare Homepage. 12 Jun 2008. http://shakespeare.mit.edu/midsummer/full.html
• Shakespeare, William. "Romeo and Juliet." Shakespeare Homepage. 12 Jun 2008. http://shakespeare.mit.edu/romeo_juliet/

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