West Side Story

West Side Story is playing in Wellington for a limited season. We’d be fools not to go.

This outing was organised by Nicola’s chorus, the current world champions Wellington City Chorus. We met up with a few of them beforehand in one of Wellington’s ever-increasing number of brew bars, Whistling Sisters. We’ve been there before and found it to produce good food, which I washed down with one of their brews. Nicola had wine (which they didn’t make). We both had scotch eggs for dinner, accompanied by salad and chips.

We walked up to the Opera House and found our way to the gallery, where we are seated. The gallery hasn’t usually been open for other shows we’ve seen at the Opera House – it’s certainly the first time we’ve had seats up there in the nosebleed section.

The show got under way, with an elaborate set representing the back streets of New Yoik – all railings and drop-down fire escape ladders. It switched in and out to allow street scenes, and also the interior of the dress shop where Maria works. With all this design in the set, it was remarkably underused, I thought, with nearly all the action taking place between the two swingout sections. All the singing and dancing is done very competently, and the story progresses with gusto.

They did seem to leave the break between acts very late, but this seems to be in accordance with the original production. Uncomfortable Opera House seats can leave you a bit saddlesore after an hour and a half, so it was a relief when the interval came. The second act, in which the consequences of all the violence at the end of Act One have to be faced, is mercifully shorter. The ending is sudden, and given its emotional impact, there’s no grand finale song’n’dance number, nor an encore. The cast came out and took their curtain calls, then that was it, show’s over.