The first time I saw the film West Side Story it was already almost 20 years old. The music was a little corny, the choreography was (and is) still fantastic but the violent overtones seemed so tame. A knife fight? It was now the early eighties and the Cocaine Cowboys were going crazy butchering each other down in Miami. But I remember reading a review of how crazy, fresh and ka-pow! the original West Side Story musical was when it hit London in the mid-fifties. And it was. Mambo!
But that was then and this is now. We live in a day where gays riot because they're not allowed to get married. Fatherless gang members roam our city streets in irresistible packs (they're packin' a nine not a switchblade) and our academic institutions are busily trying to throw our society down a black hole. It makes one long for the wild, wild days of West Side Story where Officer Krupke corrals the Jets and Sharks with a billy club and zip guns are exotic accessories.
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