West Side Story at Hamilton: identity, erasure, and racism
by Shelby Castillo ’19, Opinion Contributor
West Side Story is a play that I watched and loved when I was younger. It has a fantastic musical score, intense and artistic choreography, and Rita Moreno, a trailblazing Puerto Rican actress. To its credit, the production tackles racial issues and is progressive in some ways such as depicting an interracial relationship and the white gang, the “Jets,” as Polish immigrants. It is understandable why any ambitious director would want to direct it, but putting it on at Hamilton is more than simply bad taste: it’s racist.
West Side Story is a “Romeo and Juliet” story in which Tony (Romeo) — a former member of an all-white gang called the “Jets” — and Maria (Juliet) — an Afro or Indigenous Puerto Rican with a brother who is in a gang called the “Sharks” — fall in love. Their relationship is tested through an all-out war between the gangs until it eventually ends like the classic Shakespearean tale.
West Side Story was created by Arthur Laurents and Jerome Robbins and consequently represents their conception of Puerto Ricans and Puerto Rican culture from a white male perspective.
In 1957, the original Broadway production cast Carol Lawrence, a white woman, as Maria. This pattern was echoed when the play was reproduced elsewhere with white actresses playing Maria. The play became so popular that they made a movie and — keeping with tradition — cast the white Natalie Wood as Maria in theoretical “brown face” with an inaccurate Puerto Rican accent. The only Puerto Rican in the movie, Rita Moreno, was put in literal brown face as well as every major “Puerto Rican” character. Brown face, in this instance, is either the attempt to place white individuals in the roles of Puerto Ricans or to darken the skin tone of performers to make them appear “more” Puerto Rican. The practice is directly related to black minstrel shows, where characters in blackface acted out black stereotypes on stage for the entertainment of white individuals.
Not to confuse race with ethnicity: white Puerto Ricans exist, but if the authors of the play put the main actors in “brown face,” it is clear they meant to portray Afro or Indigenous Latinx people. Knowing this, it is impossible to recreate the production with white characters playing white Puerto Ricans because the intention surrounds Afro-Latinx identity. To recreate the production with white “Puerto Ricans” would further erase Afro and Indigenous Latinidad.
The attempt to create a contemporary version of West Side Story, as the Hamilton version does, proves even more problematic. By moving the production into the contemporary era with the Bronx as its backdrop, the Theater Department is attempting to construct a musical that begs for an Afro-Latinx cast. Without it, we will see Puerto Rican culture and identity be botched on stage by people who are not Puerto Rican. They will be acting out an identity I can readily speak to as an Afro-Puerto Rican woman from the Bronx who has spent much of her college years trying to understand colonialism and the effects of Hurricane Maria.
What the Hamilton College Theatre Department is attempting to perform is my very being, along with the things and people that are closest to me. Take a moment to imagine me acting out your race or ethnicity on stage. If you’re okay with it, you are either Afro-Puerto Rican or in a position of power and should keep reading. If you’re not, think deeply about why.
It is no coincidence that this play had the most zealous recruitment process for actors of color on campus than for any other theater production in recent history. I am told by the assistant directors of Hamilton’s version of West Side Story that this play has garnered the most people of color in an on-campus production to date. But, far from exonerating the Theater Department, this only speaks volumes about the kinds of roles it thinks people of color on campus can or should play and when they believe we are necessary to make their productions “right.”
On Monday, Jan. 28, I met with West Side Story director and chair of the Theater Department Mark Cryer to express to him my concerns. I articulated the reasons why the play was not one that Hamilton College could successfully perform and that to do so would be inauthentic, inaccurate, and wrong. His response, to simplify a half hour conversation, was that “the risk is worth the reward,” and that we can’t shy away from racism and sexism in plays. With his latter point I had to agree — plays that put racism and sexism on stage are especially interesting to me because they allow directors to spotlight and problematize aspects of reality.
However, I am not trying to stop a play from tackling issues on racism and sexism; I am trying to stop a play that attempts to depict Afro-Puerto Rican individuals as characters that anyone can play — especially on a campus where there are so few of us. Furthermore, it is easy for someone who is not part of the Puerto Rican community to speak of its worthwhile rewards, as they are not at risk. At its very best, a Hamilton production of this play can only fail in its attempt to portray an authentic and accurate Afro-Puerto Rican community. Either white individuals play in theoretical brown face or other black and brown people play Puerto Ricans and thereby promote the idea that people of color are “all the same” and easily interchangeable.
West Side Story, at its conception, is a whitewashed play created by white individuals who didn’t really consider Puerto Rican culture. There is a more accurate way to portray a “Romeo and Juliet” love story that involves white and Puerto Rican individuals. If, in the genesis of the playwriting process, you consult Afro-Puerto Ricans who are well informed of their heritage and racial identity and seek out Afro-Puerto Ricans to perform in the play, then it can happen. By then, however, it also won’t be the original and problematic West Side Story many know and love. Hamilton College, however, has very few Puerto Ricans enrolled and would not be able to achieve such an ambitious project.
In many of the plays at Hamilton, the casting of white leads is unproblematic because this is both a predominately white institution and many people of color on campus are not theater majors or involved in the Department. Modifying this play is not difficult. Hamilton can change it to more accurately fit the individuals who are going to be in it. For example, the play could be about two feuding groups, still dealing with topics of racism and sexism, while not attempting — and failing — to produce accurate Puerto Rican representations.
Acting as another race or ethnicity is not only racist but also a travesty. There is no way to do this play justice at Hamilton College because there simply aren’t many Afro-Puerto Ricans to act in it — I certainly don’t want to act in the play, nor do I have the time. Professor Cryer offered me the position of dramaturge, but I also don’t want to help anyone try to more accurately portray my identity. I find it insulting to request that I strip away all of who I am for others to papier-mâché onto their bodies like a costume. I doubt the majority of people at Hamilton College have ever met an Afro-Puerto Rican and actually sought to learn about their culture and identity until it became something they could use in preparation for a role. No matter the intention, this cannot adequately capture the pain, identity, and suffering of Afro-Puerto Rican people.
On Friday, Feb. 22, Professor Cryer agreed to meet with me again. I wanted to know if he had made any changes to the play since we last spoke. I had several meetings with other professors and faculty in hopes that he might have changed his mind. Professor Cryer told me that he could not change any of the lyrics to the songs and that he could not change the text but that he could change the meaning. He reimagined the “Sharks” as immigrants because — as he expressed — in the Trump era, many people view the immigrant as “bad.”
In Hamilton’s production, two of the immigrants are from the Dominican Republic, one is Vietnamese, another is Chinese, and they had planned to have one Moroccan character. When I asked if these individuals were the race or ethnicity they intended to play, he responded that he didn’t know if they were.
After speaking again with assistant directors, I learned that Afro-Puerto Ricans are still going to be inaccurately portrayed in the play as the main characters. Fortunately, Professor Cryer isn’t asking the other “Sharks” in the play to act as another race. An easy fix to one problem? Make all actors represent their own race in the play. I agree that theatre is about playing a part, acting out a role, being something you may not actually be, but playing “a preacher, or even a violent drug dealer on Gotham” — as Professor Cryer told me he did — is not the same as playing another race or ethnicity on stage.
No matter how accurate an actor tries to be, they will always fail in my eyes, as their comfort stepping into the role of another complex, marginalized identity is plagued by implicit stereotypes about the race or ethnicity they are wearing as a costume. This will be revealed no matter if they are white or another person of color — and no matter how good they “pass” at playing me.
What can you do? Buy a ticket to the show or donate directly to the Maria Fund — where half the proceeds of your $4 student ticket will be redirected — but don’t go to the production. You’ll be helping people of color without hurting us, and you’ll miss out on consuming inaccurate, racist, and overall hurtful representations of us.
