Great theater roles are timeless, and Army Community Theatre's revival of "West Side Story" proves the point. There's nothing generic or formulaic to be found as director Stephanie Conching and a fine cast retell this powerful tale of love, social disintegration, ethnic prejudice and turf wars between two street gangs, the Sharks and the Jets, in compelling style.
Arthur Laurents' "book" for this classic musical contains timeless observations on the tragic consequences of prejudice, and the plight of inner-city youth, that connect with the heart and mind far more effectively than any morality play cobbled together to teach "at-risk" teens the error of their ways. Leonard Bernstein's music and Stephen Sondheim's lyrics are some of the best written for the 20th-century American stage.
That much, of course, we know. What matters here and now is that Jimi V. Wheeler and Katherine Mills are well-matched as the star-crossed lovers Tony and Maria. Wheeler, a proven talent, quickly reaffirms his credentials with his first big vocal number, "Something's Coming," early in Act 1. He stumbled a bit with "Maria" on opening night Thursday, but recovered to make "Balcony Scene" and "One Hand, One Heart" the musical and dramatic high points they must be if the show is to touch the heart. Mills steps into the role of romantic heroine with equal success. She not only sings her big numbers with power and emotion, but succeeds in depicting Maria's transition from virginal romantic to battle-scarred peacemaker.
Tricia Marciel (Anita) surpasses her recent Po'okela Award-winning performance in ACT's spring staging of "Kiss Me, Kate!" with a beautiful portrayal of Maria's sexually aware adviser and confidant. Marciel delivers her comic lines perfectly, sings "A Boy Like That" with richness and passion and caps several impressive dance numbers with her performance in the terrifying drug-store scene, which rivals the rape of Aldonza in ACT's "Man of La Mancha" last fall for its roughness and sexual charge.
Gene DeFrancis (Action) is the most memorable of the other characters with his edgy work as the most aggressive and unstable member of the Jets, but acrobatic prowess makes Arthur "AJ" Johansen (Big Deal) a standout in several dance numbers. Christy Joy K. Matsushige (Anybodys) stops the show with her showcase number, "Somewhere," in Act 2.
David C. Farmer (Doc) adds a career-best performance as the weary owner of the drug store that serves as Jet headquarters.
Conching employs interesting visual cues. Wheeler is physically bigger than any of the other gang members, and his size makes him the natural focal point whenever he's on stage. However, Patrick Albergo (Lt. Schrank) and Bill Carr (Officer Krupke) are larger still, and their greater size serves to remind the viewer that the Sharks and Jets are still teenagers.
Choreographer Marcelo Pacleb make effective use of the space available in reconstituting the expansive dance numbers, and gets a valuable assist from fight choreographer Tony Pisculli in staging the "rumble" than ends Act 1.
Musical director Lina Jeong Doo and her musicians give the cast solid support throughout. The only sound problems on opening night came during three ensemble numbers -- "Jet Song," "America" and "Gee, Officer Krupke" -- when the ensemble needed more volume to be heard over the orchestra.
The other problem is that the Jets and the Sharks are dressed so similarly that they are almost indistinguishable. In most productions, the two gangs' colors make them instantly recognizable.
Although the theater season has gotten off to an uneven start elsewhere, ACT's "West Side Story" connects on all levels.
Monday, September 20, 2004
Ready, set, design
and build
CINDY ELLEN RUSSELL
Tom Giza is celebrating a personal milestone: His set design for the Army Community Theatre's latest production, "West Side Story," above, is the 100th of his career.
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Question: What does your job entail?
Answer: I work with Vanita Rae Smith -- she's the chief of entertainment in Army's entertainment division -- and it's just her and I running an 808-seat theater. She handles the business side and chooses the shows, while I'm technical director and designer for the shows.
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Who: Tom Giza
Title: Technical director and scenic designer for the Army Community Theatre
Job: Designs and builds scenery for plays staged at Fort Shafter's Richardson Theatre.
Tom Giza is one of only a handful of people in Hawaii paid to work full time designing and building theater sets. His latest effort -- for "West Side Story," playing through Saturday -- is the 100th of his career. Giza, 53, moved to Hawaii in 1970 with the U.S. Navy, which he quit in 1972. He then sold shoes briefly for JC Penney Co. Inc., then coffee for eight years for Coffee Systems Hawaii. He earned a master's degree in fine arts from the University of Hawaii in 1985, and has been working for the Army Community Theatre since 1988. He has won many awards for his designs.
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Q: Do you actually build the sets?
A: We build all day. As the designer, I do the dreaming with the director, then as the technical director I figure out, "How can this become a reality?" Then we get volunteers to help with the labor, and then we build.
Q: Do you use volunteers a lot?
A: All the actors, musicians and stage crews, the ushers -- everybody's a volunteer. It's community theater. We've had a great group of people for the 68 shows I've been here.
Q: How did you get into scenic design?
A: I never wanted to be a designer. I wanted to be a performer. So at night, while I was still in the military, I joined the Honolulu Chorale. Then I was in Hawaii Opera Theatre for eight years, then Diamond Head Theatre.
But then Richard G. Mason, a scenic design professor at UH, saw something in me. He had seen my art portfolio and goaded me for eight years to get into designing. He became my mentor. When I finally started taking classes at UH, he said, "It's about time."
One important thing he told me was that actors here don't get paid much or at all, but they always need designers.
Q: What's the first show you worked on?
A: The very first show ever was "The Wiz," in 1981 at Kaimuki High School. I was still a student (at UH). My 50th show was "The Wiz," too. I thought that was kind of funny.
Q: What's the most unusual set you designed?
A: Most unusual? Well, my very favorite set design was for "Kismet" (a rags-to-riches story set in Arabia about a beggar who becomes an emir in a day). The stage is higher and it's bigger, and you have to make it look lush, because those people were rich.
Q: What was your least favorite set?
A: Probably the first "South Pacific" I did here at this job. It was very hard. It's a huge show and the theater wasn't set up right at the time.
The second time around, my boss, Ms. Smith, allowed me to have real waterfalls on stage. It won an award.
I gotta say, I'm very lucky to have this job, because while at UH I was worried that I had educated myself out of this state. But Ms. Smith saw my work at the shows and realized that I like this bigness that I like to do -- and have to do for this tunnel kind of a stage at Richardson Theatre -- so I have to thank her for seeing that in me.
Q: It seems like you do the same shows a lot.
A: Because we have a subscription audience, we go back to the same shows about every nine years. As a result, I have the largest musical production file in the state. I have pictures, like of Thailand where "King and I" takes place. I have DVDs, videos, CDs, books, all these resources. That's what I spend all my money on. (Laughter)
I've been trying to get it archived it electronically so I can research it more easily -- 35 years worth.
"Hawaii at Work" features people telling us what they do for a living. This interview was conducted by Star-Bulletin reporter Mark Coleman.
Saturday, September 11, 2004
STAGE REVIEW
It's a time to love a musical again
By Joseph T. Rozmiarek
Advertiser Theater Critic
Now nearly 50 years old and filled with wonderful melodies, 'West Side Story' is a musical that has people
humming the tunes as they walk into the theatre.
Audiences for this American treasure aren't too hard to please; they simply want everything they are about
to see and hear to measure up to their memories of the movie or to the best of the stage productions they
have already seen. Anything new or different might be tolerated but only if most of the production meets
expectations.
So the task of the production staff is to deliver the dances, the songs and the stage pictures. Exact replication
isn't always necessary, but the show has to hit the right tone.
Now at Army Community Theatre, 'West Side Story' is directed by Stephanie Conching, with musical direction
by Lina Jeong Doo and chooreography by Marcelo Pacleb. It does justice to the show by doing many, many
things well--although not everything perfectly.
Its best feature is its acting singers.
Katherine Mills is nearly perfect as Maria. She's a high schooler whose age is just right for the innocent
young heroine, with a wonderful rich, full voice that opens up the show with her first solo. Although she doesn't
quite reach the high notes on 'One Hand, One Heart' and 'I Have a Love,' her solos with Tony are the best
musical moments in the production.
Jimi Wheeler is a good match as Tony and, while the vocals are not quite as demanding for his character, he
supports those solo high notes that give Tony the right plaintive, searching edge to make the character succeed.
It also helps that he's a bit older and a bit larger than the rest of the cast, establishing a character that has
outgrown much of his teenage angst and is ready for life's next stage.
Tricia Marciel is excellent in acting and singing the role of Anita and the men's chorus is especially effective
on 'Gee, Officer Krupke,' which gives the necessary comic relief to the dramatic tension of the second act.
The key to the choreography is in Anita's remark to Maris, 'They dance like they have to get rid of something
quick.'
Choreographer Pacleb fills the stage with remarkably skilled and athletic bodies that execute moves with
studied precision. The best dance number is 'America,' where the chorus gets fully into the comic parody of
an imagined return to Puerto Rico. The big dance at the gym with its challenging mambo is technically well
done but without the sharp edge of violence and danger that Anita recognizes.
Other dances are less successful. 'Cool' lacks the barely controlled high emotion that should have us sitting
on a potential powder keg, the choreographed rumble of the prologue doesn't have the full range of ballet moves
we'd like to see, and Anita's roughing-up in the drug store isn't choreographed at all--turning it into a fairly
literal and somewhat embarrassing attempted rape.
'West Side Story' may be the last of the big Broadway musicals with the obligatory dream ballet early in Act 2.
The dancers aren't fully exploited here, and their ballet simply doesn't rise above a relatively mundane circle
of handholding children.
One also gets a sense that Conching's staging sometimes holds back, creating a polite tone when it should be
rough, raw, and challenging. Timing in the final scene also needs work, a more frightening gunshot, and
greater clarity and use of empty space in its dramatic denouement.
While we're wishing, it would also be nice to have a real balcony instead of back steps, and an overpass and
chainlink fencint to punch up the rumble under the highway. Costumer Grace Bell Hummerickhouse doesn't
differentiate the Sharks from the Jets in the first scene, but recoups by separating them into color families
for the dance at the gym.
Musical director Doo gets excellent energy from the quintet version of 'Tonight' as Maria, Tony, Anita and the
rival gangs voice their expectations for sex and violence, and the show's final scenes move with dramatic
quickness to the story's climax.
The large orchestra is a definite plus to the production, with excellent strings and only a few errant horns.
'West Side Story' is a big show that continues to please, and the ACT production realizes most of its best
moments.
