A 'West Side Story' That Finally Speaks to Latinos

"I think 'West Side Story' for the Latino community has been our greatest blessing and our greatest curse," said Lin-Manuel Miranda, the Tony Award-winning creator and star of "In the Heights," the Spanish-inflected current Broadway hit set in the Dominican and Puerto Rican neighborhood of Washington Heights in Manhattan.

"As a piece of art, I think it's just about as good as it gets," said Miranda, who grew up near Washington Heights, the son of Puerto Ricans. "It also represented our foot in the door as an artistic community on Broadway. . . . At the same time, because it's just about the only representation of Latinos on Broadway and it's about gangs, that's where it gets tricky."

Laurents, now 90 and directing the bilingual "West Side Story," invited Miranda to translate much of the Sharks' speaking and singing into street-smart, lyrical Spanish.

The play officially opens Wednesday and runs through Jan. 17, but it has been in previews since Dec. 15. After Washington, the show is supposed to go to Broadway, as did the original 1957 production, which also had its premiere at the National Theatre.

The bilingual version is still being tweaked during the preview period. One of the most noticeable changes: The English subtitles for Spanish dialogue and lyrics are being scrapped; Laurents deemed them unnecessary and possibly distracting, according to producer Kevin McCollum. Without that crutch, non-Spanish-speaking audience members may better appreciate the identity and integrity of the Sharks and comprehend the Jets' insecurity, he said.

Many Latino theatergoers have not had a chance to see the new show yet -- but they like the idea of it being bilingual. The concept has provoked reflections on their own relationships with "West Side Story."

"When I first saw it, this was my first exposure to what Puerto Ricans were going through when they moved to New York," said Marisa Ramírez de Arellano, chief operating officer of the Hispanic Heritage Foundation in Washington, who saw the movie while growing up in Puerto Rico.

"Anita in the movie was so powerful, a spitfire, you know. . . . People loved Rita Moreno's portrayal. They were very proud of that."

Sara Nieves-Grafals, a clinical psychologist in Washington, also saw the movie as a girl in Puerto Rico. "I see it as exciting in many ways and worrisome in some ways, because it gives a monochromatic view of what Puerto Ricans are in the United States," she said.

Cesar Perales, a Puerto Rican civil rights lawyer, was attending the City University of New York around the time the movie came out. "While I understand that subsequent generations of Puerto Ricans took umbrage at what they thought was a stereotyping of Puerto Ricans, I don't think Bernstein and the others behind that show were disparaging of Latinos but wanted to talk about the complexity involved in a migration," he said.

Miranda, the creator of "In the Heights," has his own "West Side Story" story. As a sixth-grader in the early 1990s, he watched the movie at home with his mom because he had just been cast as Bernardo in a school play. "I had heard of 'West Side Story' by osmosis, but the first time I saw it I was, like, 'Oh, there's a number about whether to live in Puerto Rico or not?' As a Puerto Rican who grew up here, that blew my mind."

That number is "America," still performed in English in the revival and featuring Anita.