It’s considered one of the most iconic and groundbreaking musicals of all time, and for good reason. West Side Story (1957)—the famous 20th-century rehashing of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, created by librettist Arthur Laurent, composer Leonard Bernstein, and lyricist Stephen Sondheim—continues to dazzle and entice audiences even 64 years after its first premiere. This musical features a central interplay between music, dance, and lyrics, as it so powerfully tells the story of tragic love, while touching on themes of immigration, racism, corrupt policing, gender roles, and gang violence. This creates a musical that transcends generations not only in its social commentary but also in its memorable characters and dramatic scenes.
The movie version of the musical, produced in 1961 and directed by Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins, won 10 academy awards including Best Picture. However, both the musical and movie were not without controversy, and in particular its portrayal of Puerto Rican culture and stereotypes. The musical seems to simultaneously condemn bigotry while also using broad generalizations to depict Puerto Rican ethnicity. The song “America” arguably (and somewhat ironically) provides the most direct and overt example of this stereotyping. The combination of lyrics that portray a diseased and violence-ridden Puerto Rico along with the musical motifs and rhythms (e.g. “Tempo di Huapango”) that are inspired by Mexican folk music and instructions from screenwriter Ernest Lehman to George Chakiris (who plays Bernardo, leader of the Puerto Rican gang of youth known as the Sharks) to sing one line “with an exaggerated Mexican accent” only further perpetrated generalizations about Latin American culture.
Nonetheless, the song “America” provides a fantastic opportunity to study the creation of drama in a musical through the intersection of music, lyrics, and choreography. In particular, the differences between the musical stage version and movie version of the song show how musical form and structure, combined with lyrics and staging, can change the perception of the underlying tone or mood of a storyline, and emphasize specific strings of character development, interrelationships, and conflict (and resolution). A quick look through each version of the song will give a better sense of how this works.
In the musical stage production of West Side Story, the song “America” showcases a debate between two members of the Sharks gang, Anita and Rosalia. Rosalia, who is nostalgic and reminiscing about the beauty of Puerto Rico, gets into a musical argument with Anita, who speaks much less fondly of her native Puerto Rico and prefers her new American life. While the lyrics are aggressive and even offensive at times (“Puerto Rico, you ugly island, island of tropic diseases. Always the hurricanes blowing… and the bullets flying.”), it’s the music and staging that really bring to life the two contrasting views and ultimately further amplify the tension between the two sides.
To start, the scene was conceived such that Anita is supported by a group of singers and dancers throughout the song, while Rosalia presents her arguments in support of Puerto Rico by herself without backup. This immediately creates an impression of imbalance, with the side arguing in favour of America appearing much stronger. This is also clearly evident in the musical structure and form. Initially, Anita makes a number of detrimental statements about Puerto Rico (“Always the hurricanes blowing, always the population growing, and the babies crying, and the bullets flying.”). These are presented such that there is always a downward inflection towards the tonic C major after each statement, such that it feels repetitive, disappointing, and lacking in direction and excitement. Anita and the other women then proclaim their preference for being in America through three repeating two-bar phrases (“I like to be in A-mer-i-ca, O.K. by me in A-mer-i-ca, Ev’rything free in A-mer-i-ca”) that start in C major and move to Eb major (bIII) in a brief instance of modal mixture, giving an exciting and different direction to the music. However, the final two bars of the eight-bar phrase belong to Rosalia, who makes a comment about how this fantastic dream is not all as it seems (“For a small fee in A-mer-i-ca!”), mocking Anita and the other women using the same rhythmic pattern. Rosalia also uses this two-bar phrase to return to the home key of C major, in essence trying to bring Anita and the other women back to reality but also giving Rosalia the “final say” in this short argument.
The key, however, is how this power dynamic shifts from Rosalia to Anita and the other women over the course of the song. For example, in the next segment, Rosalia regularly introduces statements supporting her love of Puerto Rico (“I like the city of San Juan”), but each statement is immediately responded to by Anita and the other women in a mocking way (“I know a boat you can get on, bye bye!”), which is quickly followed by a short bar of instrumental interlude that further emphasizes this mockery (muted brass with short descending lines, woodwinds with short punchy “ha-ha” motifs). This ultimately gives Anita and the other women an upper hand in the argument, constantly giving them the last word in each phrase and then moving into a choreographed dance number as if to celebrate their win. This musically and visually creates the sense that America’s new and exciting lifestyle outweighs Puerto Rico’s nostalgic qualities.
The choreographed dance interludes also have an interesting but perhaps more subtle impact on the listener. The music that plays in the background as Anita and the other women dance together is reminiscent of a traditional “American” orchestral sound, akin to George Gershwin’s An American in Paris or Charles Ives’s Three Places in New England. The fast-paced rhythm, high brass and winds, and punchy percussion instruments strongly hint at a bustling metropolis, further supporting the women in favouring the “American dream” and creating a beautiful musical fusion with the complex rhythm (alternating 6/8 and 3/4 bars) and traditionally “Latin American” sounds and instrumentation that define the rest of the piece. In short, this gives a sense that Puerto Rican women can indeed find happiness and a home in America, where the two cultures can live harmoniously together (perhaps foreshadowing later events in the musical).
As discussed below, however, the movie version of the musical presents a very different format and staging of the song, which ultimately changes the underlying tone, character, drama, and perceived conflict.
In the movie adaptation of West Side Story, a number of changes were made to the song “America” that completely shift how it supports the storyline and character development within the musical. The first and most obvious difference is that the debate between the pros and cons of America and Puerto Rico is no longer between Anita and Rosalia but is now between Anita and her boyfriend, Bernardo. Prior to the song’s beginning, the scene shows Anita and Bernardo arguing about the pros and cons of life in America, creating the backdrop for the tone of the song. As Anita begins singing, the women begin rallying behind her, and as it continues the men rally behind Bernardo. Because of the relative sizes of the groups, this gives the sense of a much more even match-up between the two sides of the argument, compared to the original version of the debate between Rosalia and Anita.
While the lyrics have changed and are less offensive in some respects, the musical form and structure remain the same. What’s different, however, is how the dynamic in musical structure is shared between the two opposing sides. Anita and the other women begin the song by making statements about the benefits of living in America, and in a similar fashion to the musical stage version they are rebuked by Bernardo and the other men, who ultimately have the final say in each short musical phrase or “argument”. As the song progresses, though, this eventually flips the other way, and the men begin the musical phrases with Anita and the other women having the “final say” musically at the end of each short call and response. Ultimately this shifts the balance of power, although only in a very subtle way. Because of the constant back and forth and the more even number of characters on screen supporting each side as well as the more even distribution of call and response interplay, the movie version of the song gives a less concrete impression as to who has won the argument. At the end of the song, the music modulates upwards and increases in tempo, at which point both groups (men and women) dance together in a unified choreographed segment, signifying a peaceful truce between the two sides that creates a very different feeling of resolution than the musical stage production. (It should also be noted that shortly after the song concludes, Bernardo and Anita kiss and appear to make up, but in fact as they descend the stairs from the rooftop where the song took place, they continue arguing with Anita using a mocking repetition of Bernardo’s statements to indicate the argument really hasn’t concluded yet.)
Of course, there are many other aspects of this song that warrant discussion (e.g., the implied stereotypes about Puerto Rican culture, the performance by the Puerto Rican men as one of the only times in the musical where they sing, etc.), which have been examined in more in-depth analyses elsewhere. Still, comparing the two versions of the song “America” provides an excellent example of how musical form, structure and staging can influence the sense of drama and conflict (and resolution) within a song.