02 December 2008

Broadway Musical West Side Story Staged at IPC

A Presentation by IPC Diploma Students

By Emu Izaki. Translated by Shirley Ghozalli. Edited by Moira Blake.

On Tuesday, 25th November, a group of IPC Diploma students staged excerpts from the famous Broadway musical "West Side Story" in the IPC Senior Common Room. Nine students from the elective class "English Through Performance" were involved in this end of semester production.

Based on Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet", but with 1950s Manhattan as the background, West Side Story is about an ill-fated pair of young lovers from 2 gangs of youngsters of different ethnic and cultural backgrounds: the Puerto Rican 'Sharks' and the American 'Jets'. Playing as the star-crossed lovers in this performance were Tomomi Nishihama, as Maria of the 'Sharks', and Ryotaro Natsume, as Tony of the 'Jets'. (Both are 2007 students).

Ryotaro Natsume as Tony and Tomomi Nishihama as Maria	All the actors and actresses with their lecturer, Derek McGovern	The dance for the 'America' song
The bridal shop scene		The last scene where Tony was shot by Chino and died

The play started in darkness with a fighting scene between the Jets and the Sharks gangs. As the fight proceeded the lighting was intensified, giving a dramatic feeling to the scene. As the performance continued, the students again succeeded in capturing the audience's attention with their impressive performances of dances and songs such as 'Tonight', 'Maria', 'I Feel Pretty', 'America' and 'Somewhere'. In 'America', the students who played the Puerto Rican girls sang as if they were talking in turn and danced in unison during the refrain part. Laughter and applause could be heard from the audience during that song and after it finished. Furthermore, when Tony was killed by Chino, a member of the Sharks gang, some of the audience were so engrossed that they shed tears. A long round of applause filled the room after the 35-minute play ended.

The lecturer, Derek McGovern, commented that at first he wasn't sure whether the students would like to do "West Side Story" . However, after they studied the historical background of America in the 1950s, the students fell in love with the play and spent about 6 weeks practising.

When asked what was the most difficult thing during practice, Ryotaro smiled and replied, "Remembering the lyrics of the songs. There are hundreds of words and you have to sing them fast." According to Kanami Muramatsu, a 2007 student who played Anita, "The students created the choreography for all the dances and the most difficult one was for the dance during the song 'America'".

Eun Sun ("Tyler") Kim, a 2005 student from South Korea who played Chino and also one of the 'Sharks' girls, commented that, "Our lecturer (Derek) gave us so much freedom to create our own characters. At first, we felt very shy but we encouraged each other and exchanged opinions and ideas while we were practising. We learnt how to communicate with each other and built strong relationships. It was a very good experience for us."

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