Music Leonard Bernstein; Lyrics Stephen Sondheim; Book Arthur Laurents
WBOS Youth Theatre, director Emma Wetherall
Dormston Theatre, Sedgley – Saturday 15th November 2025
“West Side Story” is one of the best known of all stage musicals, dating back to the 1950s and there also being an Oscar winning movie version in 1961. The story is as we all know very loosely based on “Romeo and Juliet” with the Montagues and Capulets being replaced by New York gangs the Sharks and the Jets.
This is a very visual show and a lot of the musical numbers are out and out dance routines alongside the largely familiar selection of songs.
We open to a very effective scaffolding set, allowing for action to take place on different levels, with a stairwell on either side, allowing easy access to the higher or lower level as appropriate.
Underneath the gantry was a usable entrance which gave an additional option for moving characters on and off stage.
Scenes in other locations were largely depicted minimal set dressing – just enough to indicate where we were meant to be, whether this was in the seamstresses’ workplace or a bedroom scene. This allowed for scene changes to be slick and efficient and made a good use of the space available.
Unfortunately, there was one point in act two where I presume there should have been a partial blackout when one of the stagehands was removing the bed, rather than this being in full view whilst a scene was taking place.
At this point I do need to address the elephant in the room, namely the sound system, which seemed to be suffering a lot of technical issues throughout the evening. A lot of the dialogue became somewhat muffled and with around half the characters affecting Hispanic accents, this did make some of the show difficult to follow.
I appreciate that once it’s got going it’s difficult to stop but unfortunately the problems continued after the interval and into the second half.
All kudos then to the splendid young cast who just kept going and still managed to entertain us. And it’s always pleasing to hear when adopting a non-native accent, that these were all maintained excellently throughout the show and I didn’t notice any waverings.
I also didn’t notice any prompts either which is always a good sign.
We had a lot of energy from the cast throughout all the song and dance numbers, especially during the number “America” which is arguably the show’s best known song, so you need to get that right. And I am pleased to say they did.
Another highlight was the dance number “Dance at the Gym” which was full of energy from start to finish with everyone playing their parts magnificently.
We had an excellent performance from the young cast, as you’d expect from this company, as they gamely battled through the sound issues. Pretty much all of them were playing with a non-active accent and I wasn’t aware of any wavering all evening. I also didn’t hear any prompts which is also a good sign.
At the heart of the show is of course the relationship between Maria and Tony, the Romeo and Juliet of the 1950s you might say, and the two actors worked together well to bring them to life as a realistic pairing.
Lola Wooldridge seemed to be in her element in the role of Maria, giving us a well rounded characterisation – not always easy in musicals where so often the performance is all about the songs – giving us the full range of emotions as required by the part.
She was playing against Oliver Dean in the role of Tony, apparently in his first role with WBOS Youth. This was a very subtle performance, which was quite subdued compared to the rest of the Jets characters which I assume was a deliberate decision. And quite effective, as it made his rage outburst at the end of act 1 all the more shocking. I am also going to give Oliver a mention for his excellent performance as “Something’s Coming”.
Melvin Amah and Freddie Wetherall gave us strong and commanding performances in their roles as the gang leaders Riff and Bernardo. Honor Whitehouse was suitably empathetic in her role as Maria’s confidante Anita. There is shall we say a particularly uncomfortable scene in act 2 in which she very much held the audience’s attention.
Jordan O’Brien gave us a suitably sardonic performance in the role of Lt. Schrank whilst Isaac Lane contrasted this with being a bit more subdued as Officer Krupke, a role which in other productions I’ve seen being used more overtly comedically so an interesting choice to rein this in. He did unfortunately manage to find the unlit part of the stage on one occasion.
The rest of the cast performed well together – there was clearly a lot of fun being had during the “Gee Officer Krupke” song, which injected some welcome light relief from the tension of the main plot.
Overall, despite the technical problems, this was still a most enjoyable evening’s entertainment, one which the near-capacity audience very much appreciated, as did I.
Well done to everyone involved.
Reviewed by David G.
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