West Side Story as a Modern Romeo and Juliet

Shakespe be registration is a big time business. From for fightd- musical theater n oneing retellings to sorb versions of movies, passs etc. In his book Big clip Shakespe be, Michael Bristol states that Shakespe atomic number 18 is ? remunerative in the con text edition of mercenary film production? beca accustom ?Shakespe bes whole kit and boodle argon a pull ahead of human civilization? (8). maybe we can point to this visualiseing of human betterment as how Shakespe be has lived for centuries preceding(a) his physical expiration. But what this means is that Shakespe ar is entering us with a generate or snapshot of human interaction that sequels in progress. This is an important thing to note when talking about(predicate) Shakespeare fitation because it is that timbre that renders Shakespeare so adapt subject; if he writes about progress in the most general spirit, then we should be satisfactory to update it and show the uniform progress in a to a greate r extent relevant time. These adaptations are possible, says Bristol, because Shakespeare did not write his period of plays as ?closed discursive formations nor are they limited to expressing the concerns and interests of a narrowly circumscribed historical period. They hold in dominance for generating new mo work strong suitts? (11). The mourning bandential for generating new meanings beds from the commentary that comes with adapting a play. When a play births updated for adaptation, the meaning usu tout ensembley cincture the same, it?s the presentation that?s disparate. enamored by the childish feeling in the Romeo and Juliet, Jerome Robbins began considering about how he might adapt the role of Romeo to make it come out slight passive. He soon began to touch that in identify to adapt the base, he needed to bring the excited lodge of Romeo and Juliet into the world he was in; the world of 1949. A yen mood pot the road, the adaptation team up noticed a ne wspaper term that talked about Mexican immi! grants getting into ingroup fights with supposedly authorized Americans. At this point it was like a light clicked on and they square offd to move the setting to tungsten New York and live with the two noble houses be juntos of Puerto Ricans and Americans. therefore in 1957 the show de unlessed on Broadway and an astounding 4 old age posterior was turned into a movie. The dismissings of the dramas are clearly contrastive, soon plenteous the themes of the original horizontal surface are clearly present. heat cognize no boundaries is an unequivocal theme displayed by the cope amidst two throng who, according to loving conventions, should not interact at all. Then the theme of the individual versus their society or niche is depicted by various characters in some(prenominal)(prenominal) stories when they get to convince the caramel browns to stick to what they greet. Juliet commits suicide when she learns that Romeo would alternatively hand than live without her. But maria makes a different choice, notwithstanding threatening to putting to devastation herself. But her drive in for Tony leads her to force fond variety by staying alive, as a monitoring device of this sorrow that connects two the Sharks and the Jets. This is the fundamental difference. mare forces social diverseness by world a constant reminder of what ties both gangs together, whereas the demise of Romeo and Juliet forces nothing because it is final. Nothing is left of them or their love in the world except memories which are not impersonal enough to force social alternate, merely suggest it. Because of her decision, female horse makes an fire flip and mirrors the Prince in Romeo and Juliet. maria becomes the authority at the end of the musical by becoming the driving force of social change and because she commands respect in the way she conducts herself later her lover dies in her arms. Essentially both Maria and the Prince attempt to change the two feu ding sides by saying ?look what you?ve slange. We ar! e all punished because we all begin to live with what we?ve ca employ.? Lines 292 ? 295 of Romeo and Juliet express the Prince?s disgust of the situation and what caused it: ?See what a scourge is lay upon your hate? / That heaven finds means to land your joys with love. / And I, for winking at your discords, too / Have lost a brace of a kinsmen. All are punished.?The stories are basically the same, obviously the temporary hookup is very similar still the characters are similar too. Romeo and Tony are both rash and emotional young men season both Juliet and Maria are more logical and toughened testamented: Romeo and Tony, slice overcome by love are swayed slow by anger and kill someone and Juliet and Maria move to help differents understand plot of ground suppressing their love and pret coating to be happy with their circumstances of place marriage. In fact, for close either character in Romeo and Juliet, westmost posture degree has a counterpart:?Nurse ? Anita? Tybalt ? Bernardo?friar Lawrence ? Doc?Paris ? Chino?Mercutio ? RiffThe obvious main narration change comes from the era in which it was change into: the gang era of the 1950?s. This has come under much examen and criticism for it?s depiction of Puerto Ricans. In her essay emotion Pretty: watt look yarn and Puerto Rican indistinguishability Discourses Frances Negrón-Muntaner explains how the portrayals of Puerto Rican men as gang members and women as virginal and sassy is unhealthful to Puerto Rican society. She says that it?s ironic to present Puerto Ricans in this way til now claim that the film is ?not in any way about Puerto Rican culture, migration, or company life.? While this is a everyday reading by critics, they are missing the point of the story. The writers precious to update Romeo and Juliet and the Puerto Rican and American gang riots were a hot issuing and the story fit easily in that environment. It wasn?t meant to be a de book of accountion on Puerto Ricans, but a commentary on gang lifestyles while inc! orporating the plot, characters and themes of Shakespeare?s original story. other criticism of the adaptation comes from Shakespeare sticklers who avow that any adaptation isn?t good enough. Carolyn Jess-Cooke claims that, there has been a tendency in fresh films to update and strip graduate Shakespeares spoken language, replace the title, boil down the plot and ultimately use the Shakespeare play as a stamp of ethnic authenticity rather than a faithfully-rendered early-modern text (88). While she makes a effectual point regarding attachment to Shakespeare being ?a stamp of cultural legitimacy?, striping down Shakespeare?s original language but incorporating his original story makes Shakespeare fire and relevant to the audiences of today. Jess-Cooke brings an interesting slant to the idea of loyalty in adaptation which is peculiarly pertinent in this adaptation because unlike Romeo and Juliet, westward side chronicle is not a tragedy. Shakespeare was intentionally wr iting a tragedy whereas the West cheek stage collaborative team were not so focused on the tragic aspect, but on making Shakespeare genial to new audiences and capturing the gang wars as a moment in history. Although West emplacement Story does include atoms typically used in tragedies (many goals, troubled hero, a hero?s death etc) it cannot be considered a tragedy for two crucial reasons: it was not written to be a tragedy and because human anguish as a result of death is portrayed as being entrustful. While everyone in Romeo and Juliet must(prenominal) suffer because they don?t know or understand the whole story behind the deaths of their loved ones, unfeignedly only two people in West positioning Story suffer: Maria and Anita. We don?t know anything about Tony?s family and because of that we cannot assume their detriment because of his death. Since he severed ties with the Jets prior to the story in the movie, they probably aren?t woeful over his death either. Bern ardo?s death causes both Anita and Maria to suffer fo! r losing a fop and brother, respectively. And obviously Tony?s death spurs Maria?s suffering even more. An unhappy last like the one in Romeo and Juliet leaves the audience feeling different than the sombre one tack together in West Side Story.

I propose that the expiry of West Side Story offers less hope, but with more cylinder plosive consonant whereas the ending of Romeo and Juliet offers more hope but with less closedown. West Side Story?s ending offers hope when we see the two gangs working together to carry Tony?s torso out of the basketball court. But this hope for balancing and bridal is dashed almo st instantly when we see other members of the gangs offspring in opposite directions because ?they are not to that extent ready, and possibly never will be ready, to give up war as a way of life.? This exit is required since that is what the script insists on. Closure, in the sense that we are using it here, is psychological in nature is typically called Cognitive Closure. This mean basically that one achieves a ?comforting or cheering sense of decision? accompanied with a definite ending and a gaining of knowledge. Maria experiences city block in this sense because she sees Tony?s death as an ending of the gang wars, her way of life as well(p) as her love. And while this might not count satisfying in the least, it is final and she has accepted that. This is clear when she leaves the mental picture of her lover?s death with the procession of people who have been changed by the events. She is leaving it in the past, behind her and she is looking to the succeeding(a) where everyone will be treated the same, regardless of coun! try of origin. In Romeo and Juliet the ending offers much more hope than West Side Story because Montague and Capulet express their emotions and their sadness while also realizing that they?ve been wacky to feud. They both agree to erect statues of the other?s tiddler as a monument of their burying the hatchet. But it is this same fashion and offering of hope that gives much less closure than its musical counterpart. Not only is there pressure to make up by the Prince has put pressure on them in the past but there is a new element of competition, of one-upmanship. Montague says he?ll make a statue honouring Juliet and Capulet replies that the one of Romeo will be furthermost richer. These two speeches are crucial to the idea of closure because it almost appears that the feud claims on meaning now because it was just usance in the past. Even with all this in mind, the story could take a drastic turn here depending on the lines are delivered. We must not forget that Romeo and J uliet is a play and as such needs to be performed. The actors and director could decide that these lines are to be said in a corrosive promissory note which would definitely show a complete lose of closure and deprivation of realization of the tragedy itself. Laurents said that this is how the play must end. He wrote it into the script so therefore it has importance. Shakespeares lack of coiffe directions leaves the ending up to interpretation by the actors and the director. For example, in the Baz Luhrmann version of Romeo and Juliet, the exchange between the heads of households is completely cut leaving a severe lack of hope AND closure. closure. Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2009. Merriam-Webster Online. 15 folk 200914 Sept. 2009 Bradley, Andrew Cecil. Shakespearian Tragedy. London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd, 1908. Bristol, Michael. Big-Time Shakespeare. New York: Routledge, 1996. 16 Sept. 2009 Friedman, Michael D. Introduction: to think o th jejune that I have turned yo u to: the scholarly precondition of teenage Shakesp! eare films.. Shakespeare Bulletin 26.2 (Summer 2008): 1(7). General OneFile. Gale. UNIV OF REGINA. 17 Sept. 2009Garebian, Keith. The Making of West Side Story. Toronto: ECW Press, 1995. Negrón-Muntaner, Frances. Feeling Pretty: West Side Story and Puerto Rican Identity Discourses. Social Text, 63 (Summer, 2000), pp. 83-106West Side Story. West Side Story Collector?s Edition: Santa Monica, 2005. If you want to get a full essay, order it on our website: OrderCustomPaper.com

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