With wisps of fall breezes, September may banish the summer warmth, but for that it also makes its amends. And what could more gaily provide solace for those waning days of fests and frolic than a Broadway musical or two? Conveniently, both the Milwaukee Repertory Theater and the Skylight Music Theatre offer precisely that as overtures for their upcoming seasons.
Opening Tuesday, Sept. 17, at The Rep is the epochal West Side Story, a not-so-subliminally gay work if ever there was one. First performed in 1957, the musical’s message of forbidden love in an LGBTQ context cannot be dismissed, especially considering its creation by four gay men, librettist Stephen Sondheim, musical composer Leonard Bernstein, choreographer Jerome Robbins and writer Arthur Laurents—or five, if you include William Shakespeare upon whose Romeo and Juliet the musical is based.
If nothing else, West Side Story reminds us of the LGBTQ struggle, especially in the 1950s. Think of those ethnic Sharks and Jets gangs as gays and straights, and the musical turns into a coming-out love story. In its way, as a subversive response to the pervading fear of the times, West Side Story presaged the Stonewall Uprising.
One could argue the musical represents a direct response to McCarthyism and the Lavender Scare that began in 1950. In the years that followed, Laurents was blacklisted, Bernstein forced to sign a “loyalty oath,” Robbins “named names” to the House Un-American Activities Committee to avoid being outed and Sondheim simply fell into the era’s suspect “gay commie Jew” category. The terror ebbed in the mid-1950s when the U.S. Supreme Court’s Cole v. Young ruling limited the government’s ability to discriminate against LGBTQs. But the Lavender Scare had already destroyed thousands lives and careers. Meanwhile, President Eisenhower’s 1953 Executive Order 10450 barring gays from serving in the military would not be rescinded until 1995.
Today, the nation faces similar struggles with hate crimes on the rise, a president questioning the loyalty of Jews and the assault on LGBTQ rights. All of this makes The Rep’s upcoming staging especially timely and compelling. West Side Story’s broader lesson in bigotry and hate certainly applies to almost every aspect of our nation’s current social imbalance.
How the production confronts the demands of the moment remains to be seen. I’d love a same-sex version (here’s an earworm for you: “Guillermo… I just met a boy named Guillermo”). But otherwise, I hope it explores our nation’s perfect storm with all its divisive dynamics.
By the way, The Rep’s LGBTQ Pride Night takes place Friday, Sept. 27, prior to the performance. It features a complimentary beer and wine bar as well as a buffet of Wisconsin-inspired amuse-bouches.
Then, the Skylight follows with Rodgers and Hammerstein’s classic Oklahoma! opening on Sept. 27. Last season, The Oregon Shakespeare Festival staged a same-sex version that included a transgender woman playing Aunt Eller. Alas, such a staging is unlikely in our wholesome burg. Still, one never knows. I once attended a Broadway sing-along at Chicago’s Sidetrack Video Bar where, inevitably, when the musical’s title song came on, a couple of hundred guys belted it out with the obligatorily altered final vowel. Perhaps Skylight is planning a sing-along performance. I certainly hope so...