My first musical: West Side Story

So I went and saw West Side Story on Saturday night, my ‘mildly ambitious’ event of the year!

Couldn’t seem to get any sound from the telecoil though – turns out our seats weren’t in the hearing loop after all. Either that, or they hadn’t switched it on.

Given that was the case, I fared better than I could have hoped.

 

The problem for me was simply that I was tired and distracted. We’d been rushing around all day and it had been a busy week with lots of dramas. So even though I’d been looking forward to West Side Story, it turns out I wasn’t really in the mood.

That’s not good for somebody who hears with their brain and not their ears. My brain was elsewhere that night. Probably more concerned with the Australian election and the fates of Tony and Julia, our prospective leaders, than it was with the fates of Tony and Maria.

So when I was actually concentrating, I could understand fine. But I got a little tired of all that concentrating. I could hear Tony and Maria pretty easily, which is great given they are the main characters. I could also hear Riff and Bernardo. I struggled a bit with Anita’s Puerto Rican accent – she took a lot of concentrating. And whenever the Jets and Sharks were on stage, and there were several voices in the one scene, I just tuned out. Too hard!

Maybe if I had’ve been in the hearing loop the other voices might have come more easily. There was a lot of reverberation so I had trouble finding the right balance between the volume and sensitivity settings. But it’s possible that I could have sat in the hearing loop and not heard that well either – because my brain wasn’t in the mood.

My brain had also decided not to forgive them for destroying my favourite scene – the one where the Puerto Rican guys and girls sing ‘America’. Ahem. Why did they remove the guys from that scene?? That’s the best part in the whole movie! But, given the dancing was a little imprecise and unpolished, maybe they didn’t have the right people to pull it off.

On the plus side, I loved hearing the music in this show! My brain knows this soundtrack backwards, lyrics and music, so all the songs were recognisable. It may not have sounded perfect – often it was a bit tinny, like there was static going through the songs – but with a volume level of ‘1’ I could comfortably enjoy it. And sing along. In my head. ;-)

Afterwards, I had a long talk with Jase about the show. We talked about the changed scenes (there were several), the beautiful singing voices of the main actors, the dancing (good and bad). And I said:

‘Do you realise I have just managed to review a show based on more than just whether or not I could hear it?’

Jase just grinned and nodded – he’d noticed, all right.

Guess my brain was partially there, right?!

So next time I’ll book a matinee session, that’s all. Or actually sit in the hearing loop, he he.

Life is good.