PNB's Broadway Festival: The rich and familiar melds with the new

Among the men highlights included the contained anger, sureness and get-down dancing of Batkhurel Bold as Bernardo, the leader of the Sharks and Anita’s boyfriend. There were also some nice moments for the men in the cool, understated dancing of parts of The Prologue, but at other times they lacked the needed punch of percussive movements.

PNB was most successful in the Dance at the Gym number, much of which was originally, according to the program notes, created by choreographer Peter Gennaro, and not Robbins. Perhaps it was having the mass of both gangs onstage at the same time, young men and women together; perhaps the velocity of the mambo dancing and the music very popular in the late-50s energizing everyone; perhaps it was the sheer vivacity of the dancing emblematic of hormonally charged youth. As part of this segment, I never really liked the starry-eyed Maria and Tony gazing-across-the-room-shtick, especially the Vaseline-covered lens treatment in the movie, but here it worked nicely for me, and seemed more transparent, less false sentiment.

And I liked the final segment, the Somewhere Ballet, coming after the Rumble scene and the deaths of Bernardo and Tony. This was not the ending from the play, but it spoke to our time, even though staged by Robbins more than a decade ago. It is a cruel time now, filled with anger and anxiety. We do hope for a better somewhere. The staging was kind of corny, the sentiments a little trite, the dancing a bit unfocused, but it still gave me a chill. We can hope for better. Yes we can.

Broadway Festival completes its run at McCaw Hall, Thursday through Sunday, March 19-22