From the Archives: May the Fourth Be With You - Part II

As I noted in my previous post, 17 years ago this month, I was one of hundreds of Star Wars fans who camped out in front of the Uptown Theatre in Washington, D.C., to be among the first to buy tickets and then to nab the best seats to see the long-awaited prequel to the epic trilogy, Episode 1: The Phantom Menace.

While my first report for The Metro Herald described the spontaneous community that emerged along the Connecticut Avenue sidewalks, my second report was a sort-of review of The Phantom Menace.

I just found this article in my archives and had not read it in many years.  The biggest surprise to me? Not a single mention, positive or negative, of Jar-Jar Binks.

The following article appeared originally in the Arts & Entertainment section of The Metro Herald in Alexandria, Virginia, on May 21, 1999:

Star Wars: Supernova or Firecracker?

Rick Sincere

Metro Herald Entertainment Editor

Raising more questions than it answers, The Phantom Menace, episode one of the Star Wars series, burst upon the nation this Wednesday, May 19.

Preceded by months of active anticipation and sixteen years of quiet waiting for fans and non-fans alike, the newest segment of the Star Wars phenomenon was accompanied by hype, hoopla, and hurrahs.

At the first showing at Washington’s Uptown Theatre on upper Connecticut Avenue, NW, the audience was on edge and playful. After more than 60 hours of sleeping, playing, and waiting patiently on the sidewalk outside, and taking their seats some 45 minutes before the program was scheduled to begin, members of the audience participated in mock light-saber battles in the area in front of the huge Cinerama screen. The slightest mention of Star Wars or its box-office champion nemesis, Titanic, elicited loud cheers or jeers.

And the moment the words “Lucasfilm, Ltd.” appeared on the screen, the auditorium was consumed by hoots, hollers, whistles, footstomping, and applause.

And how well-deserved this greeting was! The Phantom Menace is a tour de force of special effects. George Lucas, returning to the director’s chair for the first time since Episode 4: A New Hope of 1977, has given us a payoff for his long wait for technology to catch up to his imagination.
Drawing upon the mythological traditions of Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia, Lucas has created a story with universal appeal. Using archetypes that have been found throughout literature since before man learned to write, Lucas shows us, quite literally, the stuff that dreams are made of.

It is conventional in a review like this to resist revealing key plot developments and, in particular, the ending. So I will resist. But a few comments are in order.

Young Anikan Skywalker (played by nine-year-old Jake Lloyd) is intelligent, humble, and helpful beyond words. He is easy to love. Yet, at the same time, because we know what happens in Episodes 4-6, we also know that he will become the evil Darth Vader. Thus it is with some ambivalence that the audience applauds when things go well for young Anikan. Is Lucas trying to mess with our minds? Is he trying to personalize this Manichean struggle between good and evil? Is he helping us to demonstrate for ourselves that each of us has within us, as Jewish tradition would put it, a good yetzer and an evil yetzer?

Are we supposed to cheer and applaud, only to draw back and correct ourselves, saying, “Hey, this cute little kid is the bad guy! What am I doing?”

Some have faulted this episode of Star Wars with being big on special effects and short on characterization. This may be true, so far as it goes, but one should also keep in mind that this episode is meant as an exposition, setting up a situation for a payoff that will happen later. Half of the fun is to look for clues and links to events and characters we already know from Episodes 4-6. We can count on fuller character development in Episodes 2 and 3. Still, The Phantom Menace stands on its own as an entertaining whole. One need not have seen any of the previous (later?) Star Wars films to enjoy this movie.

The rest of the summer will no doubt be filled with Star Wars mania. Enjoy it while it lasts. The next film is not scheduled to be released until 2002.

My review of that 2002 release, Episode 2: The Attack of the Clones, is here. My look at Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith, is here, while memories of my first encounter with Star Wars in 1977 can be found in this group post on Bearing Drift.  My 2005 photo essay about "Dressing a Galaxy," an exhibit of Star Wars costumes, is here. (And just one mention of Jar-Jar Binks among them all.)

From the Archives: May the Fourth Be With You - Part I

Seventeen years ago this month, I was among the hundreds of Star Wars fans who camped out in front of the Uptown Theatre in Northwest Washington, D.C., to wait for an opportunity to be the first to buy tickets and, the next week, to see the first screening, of Episode 1: The Phantom Menace.

I also covered the gathering for The Metro Herald, which in succeeding weeks published my report on the sidewalk queue and my review of the movie.

Brought up from deep in the archives, this article ran on the Arts & Entertainment page of The Metro Herald in Alexandria, Virginia, on May 14, 1999:

ADVENTURES IN JEDI-LAND, DC

Rick Sincere

Metro Herald Entertainment Editor

Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace is, without a doubt, the most anticipated movie in a generation, perhaps since Gone With the Wind. Some would argue that it is more hype than substance, though that remains to be seen, since the vast majority of us have seen only tantalizing snippets in the form of trailers, commercials, music videos, and computer files that end in *.AVI or *.MOV.

For diehard Star Wars fans, however, this is a religious experience. They, like the rest of us, have been waiting for 16 years for the newest film in the series to be released. Yet their wait has not been casual. It has been intense, with the intensity growing in recent weeks as the magic date of May 19 approached.

Starting last Sunday evening with a handful of dedicated fans, growing as a trickle through Monday night, until by Wednesday morning some 325 or more devotees had gathered on the sidewalks outside the Uptown Theatre on upper Connecticut Avenue in Northwest Washington. The line snaked along from the south edge of the theatre, past Starbucks and Ireland’s Four Provinces, past the Cleveland Park Public Library, all the way to the end of the bridge that carries the avenue over Rock Creek Park.

There is no sense of crowdedness, certainly no rowdiness, but definitely a sense of hominess. The sidewalk is littered with sleeping bags, lawn chairs, coolers, pizza boxes, empty soda cans, knapsacks, and more. Some sit on inflatable furniture. (Inflatable Darth Maul chairs are available at Toys-R-Us for $21.95.) Some people have brought along radios and CD players. (The musical score from earlier Star Wars episodes floats through the air along with the chatter of fans.) For the overnight campers, there is the portable entertainment in the form of card games, Star Wars Trivial Pursuit sets, action figures, and plenty to read, from collections of “Bloom County” cartoon strips to J.R.R. Tolkien books to Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

The crowd is mostly young, primarily college students but some people in their thirties and some in their teens. Some come dressed in Star Wars-inspired costumes, but most are dressed simply in shorts and t-shirts, jeans and sweatshirts. As the sun rises across Connecticut Avenue, they rub sleep out of their eyes, wrapped so tightly in their sleeping bags that an unwary observer might think this gathering is for a re-release of Cocoon or The Revenge of the Pod People. But soon they emerge from their protective covers and begin socializing amiably with their neighbors.

One 12-year-old boy is there alone and, in the middle of the night, his mother comes looking for him. Afraid to give away his location because she might be there to drag him home, nearby fans express their sense of hesitancy. “Oh, that’s not why I’m here,” Mom exclaims. “I just brought him some blankets and Three Musketeers bars.” She explains that when she was her son’s age, 22 years ago, she camped out to await the first Star Wars movie (Episode 4: A New Hope) and she felt it would be hypocritical of her not to let him do the same. From one generation to another…

Despite the discomfort of sleeping on concrete overnight, the queue of fans is remarkably chipper so early in the morning. A palpable friendliness permeates the atmosphere. For so many people, the situation is quite calm, peaceful, and orderly. It provides an excellent example of economist Friedrich von Hayek’s “spontaneous order” – particularly appropriate since Hayek’s 100th birthday was celebrated on Saturday, May 8. An ad hoc community has been formed here, where once and future strangers watch out for one another as friends. Need a drink? Does nature call? Leave your things behind; no one will allow them to be pilfered. Everyone seems to get along. Oh, there might be an occasional light-saber fight, but only on the friendliest terms. And in the middle of the night, the whole gang played an elaborate game of “telephone,” with whispering that starts at one end and finishes up three blocks and three hundred people later.

As people pull out their breakfasts – consisting of Mountain Dew, Doritos, potato chips, and chocolate bars – there is no hesitancy about sharing. Local businesses and radio stations have chipped in, too. They are passing out free doughnuts, and Ben & Jerry have brought a load of ice cream treats.

The local media are here, of course. Fox News has a crew on hand all morning long, doing periodic live broadcasts throughout the network’s morning news show. The perky Fox correspondent, Holly Morris, gets the fans to play Trivial Pursuit with her, share their yummy breakfasts, and sing along to the Star Wars theme song (using lyrics invented by Bill Murray on Saturday Night Live more than 20 years ago, in his character of a smarmy Vegas lounge singer). Local radio stations are here en masse: WPGC; WASH 97.1 FM; WHFS; 104.7; Mix 107.3. They’re all passing out promotional materials – free CDs, flyers, T-shirts, various Star Wars souvenirs. They recognize a captive audience when they see one – and they get the fans to play along, too, putting them on the radio, live via cell phone.

Cell phones are ubiquitous, too – a lifeline to home or work for those who have been absent for almost three days. Some troglodytes are still using the pay phones that dot the landscape, but these old-fashioned devices are far from necessary these days.

As the sun rises higher in the sky, shirts come off and the aroma of suntan lotion wafts through the air. The anticipation grows stronger as zero hour – 2:30 PM is when tickets go on sale – approaches. Each person in line will be limited to buying 12 tickets, and all of them must be for a single performance. The most eagerly sought tickets are those for the first showing at 10:00 AM on Wednesday, May 19. Those who are purchasing them are already planning to camp out for the three nights preceding the show, simply so they can have first choice of the choicest seats. It becomes a never-ending story.

Could such a gathering of people occur in the suburbs? It is hard to imagine hundreds of people camping out on the macadam outside a suburban multiplex for days at a time, with traffic zooming by on the surrounding four-lane highways. A barren parking lot lacks the vitality of a central city’s sidewalks. Star Wars fans, with their souls in another galaxy, far, far away, have their feet firmly on the ground in the most traditional of settings, the urban village.

Next week: Reactions to the movie.

Does Georgetown University Have the World's Smallest Athletic Facility?

As an alumnus of Georgetown University, today I received an email alert that tomorrow there will be a live webcast of the groundbreaking ceremony for a new athletic structure on campus.

According to the email,

This exciting milestone marks a historic moment in Georgetown’s tradition of athletic excellence.

The new four-story, 144-square-foot facility is named for legendary Hoyas men’s basketball coach John R. Thompson Jr., and is supported through the generous philanthropy of Georgetown’s alumni, friends and donors.

Imagine that! A four-story building that has only 144 square feet of space. Twelve feet by twelve feet, spread out over four floors. A handful of study carrels for grad students are bigger than that.

Is this a dollhouse or a miniature gymnasium?

Just in case a corrected email goes out that says the John R. Thompson, Jr., Intercollegiate Athletic Center is not intended for dwarf bowling tournaments, I have attached a screenshot below:

Hoya Saxa!

Water Taxis and Eliminating Government's Transit Monopolies

Yesterday's Washington Post includes a front-page a Metro section story with the headline, "Water taxis in Washington could be viable, study finds."

The article begins:

A water taxi that would ferry commuters across the region’s rivers is economically viable given the area’s burgeoning population and the proliferation of jobs along the water, according to a consultant’s study.

The year-long study found that at least four of two dozen possible routes across the Potomac, Anacostia and Occoquan rivers have enough demand to support a daily water taxi service that would be operated by a public entity or as part of a public-private partnership.

Well, well, well -- it's about time.

On April 21, 1995, the Arlington Journal published an article I wrote about meeting mass-transit needs through creative, free-market solutions that included this paragraph:

■ Restore the Potomac's status as a highway. The cities of Washington and Alexandria lie where they are because the Potomac River was once a major transporter of goods and people. A water-taxi service between Old Town Alexandria and Georgetown, with stops at the Washington Marina and in Arlington, could make the Potomac once again a significant people mover.

Why did it take so long for local governments to pay a high-priced consulting firm to come to the same conclusion that I did -- for no charge -- 18 years ago?

The piece also included suggestions for permitting private jitney services and for instituting sliding-scale highway tolls based on passenger occupancy.  (Something like that latter idea has been adopted on the interstates in Northern Virginia and the Maryland suburbs.)

From the archives, here is the full text of "End the government monopoly on mass transit service":

- - -

Some local government officials are moving in the right direction as they discuss the future of Metrobus service (“N.Va. systems threaten transit giant,” April 11), but most see too wary to step toward creativity and market-based decision making.

These local government officials deserve credit for their willingness to consider privatization of Metrobus routes as a means to make the system more cost-effective. Unfortunately, it seems that to them “privatization” is still limited to a county- or city-owned bus system to replace Metro or – at best – a government-granted monopoly to a private company within a single jurisdiction.

Why not consider more and varied alternatives that, when used together, will have the ultimate effect of reducing costs, improving efficiency, increasing mass-transit usage, and alleviating pollution.

Here are some examples:

■ Legalize jitney service. Jitneys are vehicles smaller than buses, such as vans, that operate independently (like taxis) but on a predetermined route (like buses). The operators set their own fares, which they can base on distance traveled or on other factors. Different jitneys can compete for the same passengers along the same routes, or a fleet of jitneys can divide up territory. Jitneys could operate within and across jurisdictions, feeding into Metrorail or connecting Tysons Corner to Silver Spring.

Island Queen ferry docked in Bayfield, Wisconsin

■ Restore the Potomac's status as a highway. The cities of Washington and Alexandria lie where they are because the Potomac River was once a major transporter of goods and people. A water-taxi service between Old Town Alexandria and Georgetown, with stops at the Washington Marina and in Arlington, could make the Potomac once again a significant people mover.

■ Turn Interstates 66 and 395 into toll roads, with tolls based on the number of passengers. For instance, instead of the dreaded high-occupancy vehicle lanes, we could charge vehicles a toll based on a sliding scale, such as $2 for lone drivers, $1.50 for two-passenger cars, $1 for three passengers, 75 cents for four passengers, and no charge for more than four. Such a scheme would persuade some people to take Metrorail, some to take the bus, some to car pool, and some to bear the economic price of the toll, depending on their preferences.

■ End the government mass-transit monopoly. These three examples only touch the surface of creative, market-based solutions that are there for us to consider and to use. The best way to encourage more use of mass transit, however, is to make more types of mass transit available, and to give commuters and travelers more choices than they have today. Allowing private services to compete with Metro on the same routes will be a good first step.

After all, we would never think it proper to grant Giant a monopoly in Fairfax County and Safeway a monopoly in Arlington County, and not let them compete against each other – or against 7-Eleven. If consumers can pick a grocery story, why not let them pick a type of mass transit? And why not let entrepreneurs give them what they want?

Richard E. Sincere Jr. of Arlington chairs the Libertarian Party of Virginia.

Frank Kameny: A Life of Consequence

Dr. Franklin Kameny

Most people live their lives while history happens around them. A few people live their lives to make history happen.

Frank Kameny was one of those amazing few who make history happen.

Kameny died yesterday at age 86. He was a pioneering advocate and activist for equal rights for gay citizens and he passed away -- ironically or poetically -- on National Coming Out Day, observed each year on October 11.

I first met Frank Kameny about 20 years ago, when he was one of the speakers on a large panel assembled by Gays and Lesbians for Individual Liberty in the District of Columbia city council chambers to discuss the platform of the upcoming national march for gay and lesbian rights, which eventually was held in April 1993. Kameny, though a diehard liberal whose views were forged in the fires of the New Deal and World War II, railed against the proposed platform's venturing into issues barely peripheral to the core questions of gay equality - things like "universal health care" and "sexism in medical research," as well as a laundry list of New Left demands that were, in large part, eventually discarded from the final platform statement.  Some of the people at that meeting rolled their eyes and openly wondered why this crotchety old man (he was just 66 years old at the time) was bothering them with his retrograde actions.  Someone actually asked me why he had been invited.  I said he was invited because, were it not for him, the rest of us would not be here.

Later in the 1990s, Frank and I ended up on the same email discussion list. He weighed in on the issues of the past fifteen years in the same way he had lived his life: with ferocity and passion and a refusal to accept any situation simply because "that's the way it's always been done." He scoffed at "tradition" as a reason for anything, pointing out that if we had continued to maintain the traditions of our ancient ancestors, we'd be living in caves and roasting our enemies over firepits.

It was his fundamental perseverance that brought him -- and all gay and lesbian people in his wake -- to the point we are today.

Imagine this: When Frank Kameny was fired from his job as a government astronomer simply because he was gay, he was the first person to have the audacity to stand up and demand to get his job back, suing the government and writing his own brief requesting certiorare from the U.S. Supreme Court. (That petition is available on Amazon.com in a Kindle edition.)

He and colleagues organized the Mattachine Society in Washington a few years after that group first emerged in Los Angeles. Because meetings of homosexuals were illegal in those days, he personally (and audaciously) invited the local police and FBI to attend.

He and friends were the first to march in front of the White House to demand equal rights for gay Americans.  They also took their placards to march in front of Independence Hall in Philadelphia during tourist season, a move steeped in symbolism.  ("We hold these truths to be self-evident:  that all men are created equal...")

When sexual relations were still illegal between persons of the same gender -- that is, when sodomy laws were still on the books and the Supreme Court had not yet ruled, in Lawrence v. Texas, that they were unconstitutional -- Frank went on the radio and solicited everyone in the listening audience, including, he specified, any law enforcement officials, prosecutors, and elected officials, to engage with him in an act of sodomy of their choice. No one ever took him up on his invitation (at least not that he revealed), and he was never arrested for that brazen act of solicitation to commit a felony.

In his lifetime, Frank Kameny moved from a world in which the government and all private employers could fire you for being gay; in which marriage of gay people was illegal everywhere; and where it was illegal for patriotic gay Americans to serve in the military.

Half a century after he took up the cause, sodomy laws have been wiped off the books; six states and the District of Columbia, plus numerous foreign countries (including Spain, Portugal, and South Africa) allow gay people to marry; and the notorious Don't Ask Don't Tell policy that banned gay servicemembers has been repealed.  Eventually, the government formally apologized for treating him so cruelly.

All this happened, in large part, because of Frank Kameny's dogged determination and insistence that "no" is not the right answer to demands for equality and freedom. He did not do it alone -- that credit belongs to hundreds and thousands of ordinary folks who themselves realized that "no" is unacceptable -- and he would have been the first to admit that his own efforts, by themselves, were insufficient.

But, boy, were they necessary.

Last year I had dinner with Frank and some friends. While we were waiting to be seated, I pulled out my voice recorder and asked him a few questions about his life. That interview resulted in three articles for Examiner.com, one of which was cited this morning in the Washington Post's obituary of Frank. (In fact, I learned of his death last night shortly after 10:00 o'clock, when a Post reporter called me up to ask for my reaction to the news. That is not the gentlest way to find out a friend is dead.)

One question I asked him was one that had troubled me for a long time. After he lost his job with the government and became a full-time activist, I wondered, how did he make a living? How did he earn enough to make ends meet? Here's his reply, from the raw transcript, most of which has not been previously published:

That’s a good question.

Incidentally, you know, a few months ago, last June, after mulling it over for 52 years, what was the Civil Service Commission, now the OPM [Office of Personnel Management], gave me a beautiful, full-page letter apologizing for their shameful (their word) act in firing me. I was tempted to ask, apropos of your question, for 52 years’ back pay.

... The firing occurred at the very end of ’57, maybe the very first months of ’58, and the next two years or so were very difficult. There was a period of eight months in ’59 when I was living on 20 cents of food a day, which even at ’59 prices was not much.

I had a degree in physics, optics, my bachelor’s degree is in physics, my master’s and Ph.D., as you probably know is in astronomy. I got a series of jobs over the next decade, three or four of them, in that. However, because of the Eisenhower 1953 executive order 10450, which we finally persuaded Clinton to reverse – and that’s a whole [other] story – over the next 40 years, but because of that I was unable to get a security clearance, which meant that I had a number of edgy jobs, companies that went out from under me.

Meanwhile, however, I began to get increasingly involved, starting in ’61, with the gay movement of the time, and got moving, and through most of the Sixties, it amounted [to] -- speaking figuratively -- I was a physicist from nine in the morning until five in the afternoon on weekdays, and I was a gay activist in the evenings and on weekends. But the activism gradually took over things.

The Seventies were very, very difficult financially. At the very end – ’78, ’79, ’80 – my mother gave me some stocks and they gave me an income. I wasn’t rolling in wealth, but the Eighties and through the Nineties, I was comfortable.

My mother died in ’97 and then left me some additional funds. But then I just -- I was going to invest those bonds or something, and I would have been very comfortable, again not rolling in wealth but OK. Just about that time ... what has been called the dot-com bubble burst and all at once in early 2000, I ended up with very little. Most of a million dollars just disappeared and the ten years since then -- it’s almost exactly ten years-- financially speaking, has been a nightmare.

People have helped out. They’ve been generous. It’s very edgy. It’s been very, very, very difficult and awkward.

A lot of money came in from getting my papers over to the Library of Congress. That brought in some other money, but still, I don’t sleep soundly at night.

Obviously, as you know, I’m good at some things, but a financial wizard I’m not. I don’t know how it’s all going to work out. Hopefully, something will come along.

Thus it is that Frank Kameny, once an outcast from polite society -- or so the government would have had you think -- had his home in Northwest Washington designated as a historical landmark; his papers have been enshrined in the Library of Congress; his gay-rights memorabilia are in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Institution; and a street near Dupont Circle bears his name.

I've noted elsewhere that, even on some issues of concern to gay people, Frank and I seldom saw eye-to-eye.  He was, after all, a New Deal liberal and I'm a libertarian.  But where we could agree was that all Americans deserve to be treated with equal dignity and respect regardless of their sexual orientation.  Gay is good, Frank said, paralleling the 1960s slogan "Black is beautiful."

Gay is good -- a fitting epitaph for a man who did what is right in spite of the odds, even at the cost of substantial personal sacrifice.  He will be missed by those who knew him.  Those who did not know him, but who benefited from his efforts, should wish they had.

Here are the links to my Examiner.com interview with Frank Kameny:

Gay-rights pioneer Franklin Kameny remembers his civil disobedience – Part I
Gay-rights pioneer Franklin Kameny remembers his civil disobedience – Part II
World War II veteran Franklin Kameny remembers his experience with 'don't ask, don't tell'

Among the many tributes to Frank appearing in print and on line today, I noticed two reminiscences by our mutual friends, Jon Rowe and John Corvino. The Huffington Post also has a piece that intriguingly links Frank Kameny with the Talmud, written by James Peron, president of the Moorfield Storey Institute.

Plans for a memorial service have not yet been released, but it has been suggested that the (non-religious -- Frank insisted) service coincide with the previously planned 50th anniversary party for the Mattachine Society of Washington on November 15.

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Ford’s ‘Liberty Smith’ Evokes Laughter, Delight from Audience

On Wednesday evening, Nigel Ashford, Tim Hulsey, Richard Morrison, and I were able to see the world premiere of Liberty Smith at Ford's Theatre. Before the show and during the intermission, I was able to chat with the show's composer, Michael Weiner, who spoke to me by telephone a few weeks ago.

Here is my review of Liberty Smith, intended for next week's edition of The Metro Herald.

Romance! Danger! Comedy!

Ford’s ‘Liberty Smith’ Evokes Laughter, Delight from Audience

Rick Sincere

Metro Herald Entertainment Editor

If your weekend plans include seeing the new musical Liberty Smith at Ford’s Theatre, you don’t need Rebecca Black to tell you to expect “fun, fun, fun, fun” on Friday, Saturday, or the Sunday that comes afterwards. If you don’t yet have tickets for Liberty Smith, why not? You should.

Ford’s latest production is a wholesome family musical, appropriate for theatregoers of all ages. That said, it is neither sedate nor anodyne. Instead, the rollicking show offers all the romance, danger, and comedy that another new musical across the river fails to supply.

Liberty Smith is historical fiction set in the time of the American Revolution. Far from a docudrama, however, it takes liberties (no pun intended) with the facts so that sticklers for chronology might be puzzled or offended. No matter, since it’s all in good fun and serves the purpose of entertaining the audience.

The story opens, Cyrano-like, when an old (132 years old!) Liberty interrupts a clumsy stage production of Parson Weems’ story of George Washington and the cherry tree, saying “that’s not how it happened. I know, because I was there.” The year is 1859 – not incidental, since that was the eve of the Civil War, an event that would change the prism through which American history is observed. The story proceeds as a series of flashbacks, with Old Liberty (Drew Eshelman) narrating here and there but not obtrusively so.

As the narrative begins, the young George Washington (Gregory Maheu) has befriended the eponymous Liberty Smith (Geoff Packard), an orphan farmhand living near Mount Vernon in Virginia. (These types of heroes are nearly always orphans, perhaps because family ties would anchor them to a specific place and prevent their free spirits from wandering where the story needs to take them.)

Enamored with neighborhood belle Martha Dandridge – played by Lauren Williams with all the tact and charm of a middle-school Queen Bee -- who mockingly bids him to free the colonies from British rule, Liberty sets out on a knight errant’s quest (like the role model in his favorite book, Don Quixote) that takes him to Philadelphia, Boston, Paris, and more.

Along the way, Liberty encounters Betsy Ross, Ben Franklin, Paul Revere, Samuel Adams, James Otis, Thomas Jefferson, King Louis XVI of France and his consort, Marie Antoinette, and dozens of other patriots and knaves (including a villainous Benedict Arnold).

Like Zelig or Forrest Gump, Liberty Smith finds himself in places where history is being made and, in fact, inadvertently makes it himself – though others invariably end up with the credit. And throughout, his story is told through song and dance.

The songs are all Broadway-style, many pastiches of familiar forms. Composer Michael Weiner draws not only on colonial-era tunes (“Yankee Doodle,” for instance) for atmospherics but also on 20th century standards and showtunes for his inspiration. In combination with lyricist Adam Abraham, the team becomes a latter-day Stan Freberg.

There’s a comic list song (“The Art of Wit”) that catalogs proverbs, quips, and clichés. “One Shocking Moment” not only shows the protagonist’s state of mind but makes wicked fun of over-the-top Ziegfeld Follies-style dream sequences. “Declarations” uncovers a less-than-ideal process of writing the Declaration of Independence.

A feminist anthem (“A Better Tomorrow,” sung by Kelly Karbacz as Emily) echoes Ragtime’s “Back to Before” while the first-act finale (“The World Turned Upside Down”) is a de rigueur spoof of Les Miserables, the sort of send-up we can trace at least to 1999’s South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut. It is to the creative team’s credit that they can poke fun at meta-musicals like Urinetown and Avenue Q with subtlety and wit while avoiding the snarkiness of the “originals.”

Liberty Smith’s conventional musical style is no disadvantage – when you see two young people disdain each other in Act I, you know wedding bells will ring by the end of Act II – and instead extends and reinforces the overall entertainment experience. Predictability, in this case, enhances the comic twists that pop up like Whack-a-Moles every five minutes or so.

While the subject matter may be the stuff of the 18th century, Liberty Smith is peppered with contemporary pop-culture allusions. Although the writing team responsible for it has been working on the script and songs off-and-on since the mid-1990s (and in earnest since 2006), which might have resulted in stale creakiness, Liberty Smith is as current and fresh as a headline from The Onion or a “Funny-or-Die” viral video.

Some dialogue echoes the scene, oft-repeated late at night in dorm rooms, from Monty Python’s Life of Brian about the “Judean People’s Front, People’s Front of Judea,” etc. One song’s lyric mentions “George W” and the “coalition of the willing.” There is even a reference to Johnny Tremain, the main character of the Newbery Award-winning book of the same name, whose similarity to Liberty Smith is winked at by Mrs. Paul Revere, who says “that’s another story.”

The 20-member cast is made up mostly of Washington-area actors, including at least six Helen Hayes Award nominees and winners. (Music director Jay Crowder, who leads an 8-person ensemble with a richer sound than its size would indicate, is also a Helen Hayes recipient while fight director Brad Waller and director Matt August have both been previously nominated.)

While funnier than most in a genre characterized by self-important sobriety, Liberty Smith would not be out of place as an outdoor drama (for example, the Outer Banks’ venerable pageant, The Lost Colony) and, with a trim to about 80 minutes from its current two and a half hour running time, could easily become a successful fixture at Colonial Williamsburg or Busch Gardens. As it is, many tourists visiting Washington as well as school groups will be able to take advantage of the show’s presence at Ford’s through May 21. (The “Child Actor,” played on opening night by grammar-school-age Noah Chiet, is on stage in almost every scene, a compelling presence to keep the attention of kids in the audience.)

Liberty Smith could also be easily adapted for performances by high school or college theatre groups, even without the elaborate, eye-popping costumes designed by Wade Laboissonniere and the multi-leveled set (which fits nicely into Ford’s narrow performance space) of scenic designer Court Watson.

It is hard to think up enough complimentary terms to praise Liberty Smith. Totally unpretentious, the creative team – book writers Marc Madnick and Eric R. Cohen in addition to librettist-lyricist Abraham and composer Weiner – achieve precisely what they set out to do: to deliver an enjoyable, entertaining romp into America’s revolutionary past.

While it does not “advance the form,” Liberty Smith is a delightful throwback to the sort of Broadway revue one might have seen in the 1950s. This is not an Adam Guettel-style cerebral challenge. As a matter of fact, too much thinking might detract from the overall enjoyable experience: just sit back and let flow its life, “Liberty,” and the pursuit of happiness.

Liberty Smith: music by Michael Weiner, lyrics by Adam Abraham, book by Marc Madnick, Eric R. Cohen, and Adam Abraham; choreographed by Denis Jones; directed by Matt August, continues through May 21, 2011, at Ford’s Theatre, 511 Tenth Street, N.W., in Washington. Performances Monday through Saturday at 7:30 p.m. (except April 25), matinees on Fridays and Saturdays at 2:30 p.m. (except April 1 and 15 and May 6 and 13); noon matinees on May 6 and 13. Ticket prices: $15 to $55 with discounts available for groups, senior citizens, military personnel, and those younger than 35. Tickets available through Ticketmaster at 800-551-7328 and www.fords.org.

If you've read this far, you should know that I really liked Liberty Smith. I strongly recommend it and may even go to see it again myself before it closes next month.

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Asking for Whom the Bell Tolls?

Forget about the sacking of its top three business-side executives, or the "resignations" of executive editor John Solomon and editorial page editor Richard Miniter.

If you want the strongest sign that The Washington Times is teetering on the edge of self-destruction, consider this: The paper has dropped its comics page, which has not appeared in the past two days.

When a whole section of a newspaper disappears without comment, you know that trouble is at hand.

At least Mallard Fillmore -- which, oddly enough, started at the Daily Progress in liberal Charlottesville -- remains on page A2 of the Times.




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Libertarian Evolution

The front page of the Style section of Thursday's Washington Post had a long article on the announcement of a new exhibition at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History.

The article, by Jacqueline Trescott, begins:

The National Museum of Natural History announced Wednesday that it is dedicating a new hall to the story of human evolution, giving emphasis not only to how we became humans but how changes in the natural world affected human development.

The Hall of Human Origins, tracing a 6 million-year history, is scheduled to open March 17 -- 100 years to the day that the museum opened.

A news release from the Smithsonian Institution states:

The $20.7 million exhibition hall will be complemented by ongoing human origins research and education programs, which are all key components of the museum’s broader initiative, “Human Origins: What Does It Mean to Be Human?” The initiative focuses on the epic story of human evolution and how the defining characteristics of the species have evolved over 6 million years as its ancestors adapted to a changing world. The museum will launch a compelling new Smithsonian Human Origins Web site and a revolutionary virtual experience hosted on the Blue Mars 2150 virtual Web site. It will include a complete reproduction of the physical exhibition plus additional features visitors can only experience on the Web....

More than 50 U.S. and international scientific research and education organizations, such as the U.S. National Academies of Science, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Museum of Kenya and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and more than 70 distinguished scientists and educators are collaborating with the Human Origins Initiative’s research, education and outreach programs.

Visitors to the 15,000-square-foot Hall of Human Origins will be immersed in a unique, interactive museum experience illuminating the major milestones in the origin of human beings and the drama of climate change, survival and extinction that have characterized humans’ ancient past. On entering the exhibition from the Sant Ocean Hall, visitors will travel through a dramatic time tunnel depicting life and environments over the past 6 million years. Visitors will also engage with life-size forensically reconstructed faces of early human species, all designed to provide visitors with a sense of personal connection as they look into the eyes and faces of their distant ancestors.

Other key features in the exhibition include interactive snapshots in time using the actual field sites where research is being conducted, a display of more than 75 skulls (cast reproductions) and an interactive human family tree showcasing 6 million years of evolutionary evidence from around the world, a “One Species Living Worldwide” amphitheater show and a special “Changing the World” gallery, in which visitors can address pressing questions and issues surrounding climate change and humans’ impact on the Earth.

It turns out that the new exhibition is being funded, in large part, with a donation from libertarian philanthropist David Koch -- the same David Koch who was Ed Clark's running mate on the LP presidential ticket in 1980. Trescott continues:

The 15,000-square-foot space will be named for David H. Koch, a chemical engineer and executive vice president of Koch Industries who gave $15 million for the hall's construction. The other primary donor to the project is Peter Buck, a physicist and co-founder of Subway restaurants, who gave $15 million to an endowment for research and accompanying education programs.

The total cost of the hall is $20.7 million, with $3.5 million from other private sources and $2.2 million from the Smithsonian's federal funds.

In a statement, Koch saluted the Human Origins Program, saying, it "has the power to influence the way we view our identity as humans, not only today, but for generations to come." Koch, an MIT-educated engineer, has given generously to many educational, cultural and medical institutions, as well as to conservative political groups. He was the 1980 Libertarian vice presidential candidate.

The article doesn't mention that in 1995, Koch purchased the apartment that once belonged to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis when she lived in New York City. Koch sold the flat in 2006. (File that under "real estate trivia.")

No doubt there will be some complaints that the exhibition -- whose displays will trace back human evolution some four million years and include the recently discovered "Ardi" -- is the work of godless libertarians.

Such complaints might come from the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky. Those behind the Creation Museum believe -- and offer as scientific fact -- that the Earth is only about 10,000 years old, or younger, and that men and dinosaurs co-existed. Though the Answers in Genesis Creation Museum boasts that it is within a 650-mile drive for two-thirds of the U.S. population, it only attracted some 750,000 visitors in the two years after it opened in May 2007.

In contrast, the National Museum of Natural History has drawn about 6 million visitors already this year, as well as 7 million in 2008, 7.1 million in 2007, and 5.8 million in 2006.

Of course, the Natural History Museum offers more than a male porn star portraying Adam in the Garden of Eden. It also has the Hope Diamond, "Wild Ocean 3D" in on an Imax screen, and the reconstructed skeleton of a triceratops. So not everyone who wanders through the Natural History Museum's doors from the National Mall is coming for edification about evolution.

Even so, it is heartening to learn that millions more people are interested in actual science than in charlatanism.

(Illustrations credit: RPDI [Reich & Petch Design International]; courtesy of Smithsonian Institution)

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Charlottesville's Choo-Choo Flim-Flam

Charlottesville is agog with the news that a new passenger train rides through town on its way to Washington and New York. Rachana Dixit has the story in the Daily Progress:

A new, daily Amtrak train that will stop in Charlottesville before going to Washington and the Northeast received much fanfare on Wednesday as it rolled into the city’s West Main Street station.

“We’re really pushing rail and public transportation because it’s the wave of the future,” Gov. Timothy M. Kaine said during the train’s whistle-stop tour.

The new train was due to arrive at the station at 2:15 p.m., and it pulled in at roughly 2:24 p.m.

Beginning in Lynchburg, the train officially starts its service today and will add 14 more trips per week in Charlottesville. It came to Charlottesville on Wednesday from Culpeper and then headed to Lynchburg after Kaine — who received a rail hat that said “Chief Engineer,” a train whistle and bandana — hopped on.

Some area residents have advocated for more passenger rail service along the U.S. 29 corridor, most notably Meredith Richards, a former councilor and the chairwoman of CvilleRail and the Piedmont Rail Coalition.

The new train, which makes no economic sense (I'll get to that momentarily), is subsidized by Virginia taxpayers to the tune of at least $10.9 million over the next three years (Daily Progress figure) or perhaps $17 million (WSET).

The estimated number of new passenger trips per year ranges from 50,000 to 59,000, which means that each trip is underwritten by taxpayers for between $96 to $113 (using the higher subsidy amount).

The aim of the new service is to entice people away from driving to Washington on Route 29. For an individual, however, it is cheaper to travel by car than by train, even with the subsidy.

I calculate that it costs me, driving my 1999 Saturn, about $20.00 in gasoline (and I'm being generous: that's assuming gas is $2.50 per gallon, when it actually is less than that along the Route 29 corridor, at least until you reach the Beltway). It costs me between $1.00 and $8.00 to park in Ballston. Even if I park in the nearest commercial parking garage near my downtown DC office, the maximum charge for 24 hours is $22.00.

That means that the most I would pay to drive myself to downtown DC is $42.00, roundtrip, including parking. Since I nearly always park in Ballston, however, it is more realistic to calculate my cost to be $28.00 (if I spend all day in DC).

According to the Amtrak web site, the one-way fare on the new train is $29. Roundtrip fare is $58.

That means I save between $16 and $30 by driving myself.

If I were to travel with a friend or colleague and split the costs, we together save between $32 and $60.

For every person traveling together on that Charlottesville-DC trip, choosing Amtrak increases the cost by 100 percent while choosing a private automobile reduces it by 50 percent (up to the point every passenger seat in the car is filled).

I enjoy riding on a train as much as anyone. It is my preferred mode of transportation between Washington and New York. (There's no way you'll find me driving on the streets of Manhattan.) I once even took the Acela from New York to DC. Someone else was paying for it, of course.

Enjoying railroad travel should not, however, blind us to the fact that passenger rail, because it is not economically viable in an open market -- that is, in the absence of government subsidies -- exists only because of a transfer of wealth from the poor (who, by and large, do not travel by train) and the rich (who like to travel by train because it is the chic thing to do, and they can pretend to be environmentally conscious while doing it).

Looking at the numbers, however, why would any rational person choose to take the train rather than drive between Charlottesville and DC? Besides saving money, you would have more flexibility in terms of choosing when to depart and arrive, and if you have a change of plans -- or if your DC-area business is in Tyson's Corner rather than Capitol Hill -- you are better able to adapt to your travel needs and desires. What's more, if I drive myself, I can talk on the phone or listen to NPR without worrying about bothering other passengers.

This is a bad deal. Anyone who thinks otherwise has been bamboozled. (To be fair, people with large disposable incomes and who care little about their travel budgets might rationally choose the Amtrak option. The rest of us would not.)

And watch out: They're going to foist this boondoggle on Richmond and Roanoke, too. (No word about Elm Grove.)






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Review of 'West Side Story'

Last week, I posted an interview with actor/dancer Cody Green, who plays Riff in the new production of West Side Story, currently in a pre-Broadway tryout at the National Theatre in Washington, and I promised that I would later post a review of the show.

Here it is, as submitted to The Metro Herald for publication in its next edition:

History Repeating:
Una Nueva ‘West Side Story’ at the National Theatre
Rick Sincere
Metro Herald Entertainment Editor

While in London ten years ago, I saw a revival of West Side Story at the Prince of Wales Theatre.

During the first act, Katie Knight-Adams, who was playing Maria, was having trouble with her voice. During the interval it was announced that she would be replaced in the second act by her understudy, Celia Graham. An amusing moment took place about two minutes into the second act when Rosalia says of Maria: "She looks somehow different." Laughter rumbled through the audience, which evoked puzzlement at first, then barely constrained smiles from the actors -- that line had been delivered hundreds of times in the past, and never before got a laugh. But that day it had a special meaning.

The line has special meaning, too, with the new production of West Side Story now playing at Washington’s National Theatre. And the “difference” is even more markèd, given that Rosalia’s line is now delivered in Spanish, rather than English, and that it is now part of a dialogue scene that leads into “Siento Hermosa” instead of “I Feel Pretty.”

Directed by West Side Story’s original librettist, Arthur Laurents, this production features both dialogue and lyrics spoken in Spanish by the Puerto Ricans – Maria, Anita, Bernardo, Chino, and the Sharks – while the Americans – Tony, Riff, A-Rab, Anybodys, and the Jets – continue to speak and sing their lines in English. More on that later.

Fifty-two years ago, the original production of West Side Story – conceived and directed by Jerome Robbins, music (and uncredited lyrics) by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and book by Laurents – had its pre-Broadway tryout at the National Theatre. During that tryout period, West Side Story took on the shape and characteristics that have been seen by theatergoers for almost half a century.

Five decades later, Laurents decided that West Side Story needed to be shaken up, and he has done so – up to a point.

Acknowledging that ours is a more outwardly multicultural society today than it was in 1957, the biggest change Laurents has made is the translation of portions of the book and lyrics into Spanish. Initially, he planned on projecting surtitles in English translation for those audience members who are not Spanish-speaking (as would be done for an opera sung in Italian, for example). During the preview period of the Washington run, however, the director scuttled those plans, so that now the Spanish dialogue and lyrics are raw and untranslated.

The effect of this, while it may uphold some inchoate artistic integrity, is to exclude large portions of the audience from fully understanding what is said on stage. The only people who are able to comprehend it more completely are those who (a) speak Spanish or (b) have virtually memorized the book and score of West Side Story prior to coming to the theatre.

That aside, and though I expect an active debate about the merits of Laurents’ decision about language, the use of Spanish in the play seems somewhat arbitrary (while still far less arbitrary than its intermittent use in the original version).

In various places, Laurents chooses to have his characters switch from Spanish to English when an important statement is made. In the best example, assimilationist Anita forsakes English for Spanish after her boyfriend is killed by the native New Yorkers. This makes sense dramatically and would likely occur in real life.

But in another instance, when Chino (Joey Haro) comes to see Maria after the rumble, their conversation is entirely in Spanish, until he switches to English to say, with emphasis, “Tony killed Bernardo.” It seems that the opposite would be the case in “real life” – that the early part of the conversation could be in English but, when Chino wants to emphasize the bad news, he would switch to Spanish.

Later in the second act, when Maria and Anita are trying to deceive Lieutenant Schrank (Steve Bassett) by talking about Maria’s “headache” and fetching a remedy from Doc’s pharmacy, it would be much more natural for the two of them to speak in Spanish in front of the monolingual police officer. Instead, Laurents retains the convoluted English dialogue.

What this adds up to is that, whenever Laurents wants to ensure that the audience understands what is being said, he uses English, even if (dramatically and realistically) the use of English at that moment makes no sense. This ultimately undermines Laurents’ purpose, and the interposition of Spanish becomes just as arbitrary as its lesser use was in 1957.

Laurents has also taken liberty with other bits of dialogue, which is his privilege both as director and as playwright. Glad Hand (Michael Mastro), for example, during the dance at the gym, nasally repeats “Abstinence! Abstinence!,” setting up a joke in the second act. Yet, as funny as Glad Hand’s remonstrances are, they are decidedly geared toward a 21st century social reality and do not ring true as something a person in 1957 might say.

Mystifyingly, Laurents (and Sondheim) have not made an effort to change the made-up slang that they used in 1957, thinking at the time that if they used current slang, it would seem dated and outmoded in the future. They were wrong, of course, and both have complained later that the artificially constructed slang seems even more dated than the real patois of the era would have.

This would have been a perfect opportunity for the two surviving creators of West Side Story to fix something that they and others have acknowledged to be a problem. But we are still stuck with “spit hits the fan” and “motherlovin’ street” instead of words that any fifth-grader would use and understand. (Admittedly, the realistic equivalents of these words should not be printed in a family newspaper, but they are perfectly acceptable on a Broadway stage.)

There are other complaints made by Laurents and Sondheim over the years. Sondheim, for example, has said that he dislikes the lyrics he wrote for “I Feel Pretty” because they are far too sophisticated and witty for a girl of Maria’s social class and educational level. Whether Lin-Manuel Miranda’s translated lyrics solve this problem, I can’t say, because I don’t understand Spanish. (I don’t even know if Miranda’s interpretation is close to the original, or if it’s an entirely new construction that fits the mood and the music without literally translating Sondheim’s words.)

Laurents has also not overcome the most fundamental difficulty with the plot of West Side Story, one that is common to the source material, Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet.

That is, how can you explain the depth of romantic feeling between Tony and Maria (or Romeo and Juliet), who have their “love-at-first-sight” meeting in the middle of the first act and never have any time to get to know each other before the stage is strewn with dead bodies?

Shakespeare, at least, characterizes Juliet as a petulant, pouting, adolescent girl who stomps her feet and weeps in order to get her way. Juliet is a manipulative “daddy’s girl”. Similarly, Shakespeare gives us a randy Romeo who lets his hormones carry him away.

Laurents (or Robbins and Bernstein, who began work on West Side Story before Laurents and Sondheim became involved) doesn’t give us these kinds of characterizations for Maria and Tony. Maria is bland: pretty and charming, to be sure, but without any other discernible personality traits. She is starry-eyed and romantic, but without depth.

Tony, on the other hand, is down-to-earth and responsible. At the outset, he is shown as having grown out of the stage of teenage mischief and misbehavior. (He is the only one of his friends to hold a real job.) So for him to be the one who falls head-over-heels in love in a trajectory that leads to his death is completely uncharacteristic. One of the other Jets – Action (Curtis Holbrook), for instance, or A-Rab (Kyle Coffman) – who are explicitly angry and dysfunctional would be more likely candidates for Tony’s fate, yet they are alive at the end of the play.

What is even more indicative of the vacuity of Tony and Maria’s personalities is that, in this show that is so heavy on dance – energetic, dynamic, kinetic dance – the two “romantic leads” dance the least of anyone on stage. They are the most static characters of the ensemble, yet their story is the central core of the play. Is this intentional?

Oddly enough, all this quibbling about the core and structure of West Side Story seems largely beside the point, because once the music and dance are added to the mix, it is easy to forget the flaws of the piece, and to forget that Laurents missed his chance to fix them.

Joey McKneely has reproduced Jerome Robbins’ choreography, as most other revivals of the show have done. He has done so brilliantly, so that as familiar as these dance numbers are, they seem energetic and fresh. This does, however, bring up the question: If Arthur Laurents really wanted a radically new approach to West Side Story, why did he not seek to re-imagine the choreography as well as other elements of the show?

The production design, while echoing Oliver Smith’s original sets and Irene Sharaff’s original costumes, is also fresh, practical, and reflective of the setting: an improvement over the creaky and dated reproductions we have come to expect. David C. Woolard dresses the cast in gang colors – variations of orange for the Jets, variations of purple for the Sharks – that help us to discern the differences between the two groups without banging us over the head. His choice to put the Jets’ girls in miniskirts and the Sharks’ girls in more modest dresses was spot on as an attempt to express the cultural divide between the natives and the immigrants.

James Youmans’ scenic design works marvelously (except when one can hear the gears shifting under the stage) to evoke Manhattan in the late ‘50s, with one exception: Maria’s “balcony” looks out of place. Rather than using the fire escape for the balcony scene, Maria appears on an outcropping of painted wrought iron that looks out of place in New York but would be perfectly acceptable in the French Quarter of New Orleans or – dare I say it? – 15th century Verona.

The whole production is enhanced by the lighting design of Howell Binkley, who keeps us in a theatrical frame of mind when the script starts to compel us toward naturalism. Binkley plays with hue and intensity in such a way that we can understand why he is a multiple winner of the Helen Hayes Award.

Laurents has added a few new conceptual elements to the play that are (mostly) brilliant in themselves and help to hold the whole thing together.

With Youmans’ assistance, Laurents has directed a rumble scene that is far more claustrophobic than any we have previously seen. By bringing down a cyclone fence where one might normally expect an act curtain across the front of the stage, we can observe how the gang members feel trapped in their neighborhood, in their society, in their dead-end lives.

In the dream ballet, Laurents adds a new character, Kiddo (a role alternated by Nicholas Barasch, whom I saw, and Kyle Brenn), a boy soprano who sings “Somewhere,” which was originally intended by Bernstein to be sung offstage by an adult soprano. Kiddo’s presence onstage as part of a triad with Tony and Maria adds a degree of hope for the future amid the tragic circumstances of the play. Kiddo’s presence is long overdue.

One change that still seems a bit odd is at the end of the show. In previous productions, per the stage directions, the Jets and the Sharks depart the stage while jointly carrying Tony’s lifeless body with them, in the style of a funeral procession. While that ending had some problems, it worked well. The new ending – and this really is not a spoiler – is a tableau that shows Maria kneeling over Tony’s body, her head covered in a veil, in a scene reminiscent of nothing other than the Pietà of Michelangelo. This strains too far – but at least it lacks the now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t cross-and-chain that Natalie Wood wore in the continuity-challenged last scene of the movie version.

The cast of this new production of West Side Story is uniformly excellent. Laurents has found a new international star in his Maria, Josefina Scaglione, an Argentine actress and singer. Scaglione is matched well with Matt Cavenaugh as Tony. That the two have chemistry is undeniable.

Karen Olivo brings bottomless energy, strength, and emotion to Anita, the play’s most fully-realized, multidimensional character, while George Akram as Bernardo expresses well the divided loyalties of a new immigrant in an unwelcoming society.

It may be unfair to be so analytical of West Side Story, which despite its detractors (such as critic Sheridan Morley) has come to be known as a musical theatre classic. While the show has its flaws and cracks, when it is taken as a whole – and this production in particular deserves to be seen as a whole – it is tremendously entertaining, emotionally moving, and inexorably memorable. I can wholeheartedly recommend the new West Side Story to audiences in Washington and, presumably, beginning on March 19, in New York.

West Side Story, directed by Arthur Laurents, continues at the National Theatre in Washington through Saturday, January 17. Tickets are on sale now at the National Theatre box office or through Telecharge at www.telecharge.com or by calling (800) 447-7400. Ticket prices range from $46.50 to $91.50, with a limited number of premium seats priced at $151.50. Group tickets are available by calling (866) 276-2047. For more information, visit www.nationaltheatre.org.

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