Keeping Cool with the Lexington Theatre Company
As Observed by Kevin Lane Dearinger
June 29, 2019
The talented young cast of The Lexington Theatre Company’s production of “West Side Story” is in its fourth day of rehearsal. It is a hot and humid Saturday in late June. In eleven days, the company will face their first audience at the Lexington Opera House. They take a brief break at noon, having been hard at work since ten o’clock, not counting an earlier group warm-up. It is still an hour until lunchtime.
Dressed in dancer-black, choreographer Mark Esposito sits on the floor in front of the mirrored wall, so like the hundreds of mirrored walls he has faced in his life as a dancer. Glasses on, glasses off, he studies his notes, looks around for his dancers, and asks the stage manager to bring “The Jets” back in from their break. They return quickly, eager for what is to come. Esposito does not keep them waiting. His voice is low, comforting but direct; he knows he will not have to raise his voice to be heard and heeded. His actor-dancers are ready.
Esposito is staging the dance for “Cool,” Leonard Bernstein’s jagged musical setting of crouching violence (“Pow!”) and finger-snapping rage. Calmly, he begins by placing each performer in position on the stage. He knows their real names, but he addresses them by their character names. “Action.” “Baby John.” “Snowboy.” “Anybodys.” “A-Rab.” The actors move without hesitation, trusting their choreographer’s expertise and their own agile bodies and minds. They try a move, a lunge, a step. Repeating, repeating, and then moving on. The experienced dancers pick up the details immediately, and the less-experienced are not far behind. They catch up and wait for more.
Despite air conditioning and lyrics that demand they stay “cool,” perspiration starts to dampen foreheads. In the choreographed movement, patterns emerge, and small vivid moments pop into focus. From time to time, Esposito asks, “Does that make sense?” Heads nod. Feet move. Fingers snap. He half-sings the music, filling in the counts, “Da-da-da. Da-da-da. Two-three-four.” Heads roll and snap. “Take the arms slow,” Esposito cautions, “Remember to grow into it.” They rehearse with the music, piano and drums for now, but somehow the sound of a full orchestra seems to be underscoring every move. Each repetition brings them closer to their goal.
Getting it right matters.
The steps seem as familiar as the tune and the lyrics. “Boy, boy, crazy boy!” The Jerome Robbins’ staging has been “classic” American dance since “West Side Story” first changed the course of the Broadway musical in 1957, but it is Esposito’s job, his art, to take what is familiar and make it new, generating the thrill, the energy, the emotion, all that has for so long made “West Side” a viscerally moving stage work. Movies can reshoot, cut, and edit, but the dances in a live performance have just one chance each night of being precise, clear, and dramatically lucid.
As Esposito rehearses his dancers, it becomes impossible to watch their work without tears in the eyes and a lump in the throat. The steps are full of drama, theatre, and history, and there is a glory in getting it right. This is something that Mark Esposito knows and knows well.
They take it from the top, one more time before lunch, with music, full out. The choreographer is pleased, “Well done,” he says, even as he gives a few gentle, pointed notes. After lunch, they will work on the “Somewhere Ballet,” a more delicate, legato dance, another emotional color to evoke.
Mark Esposito has been dancing professionally since he was sixteen. He has worked with the great director-choreographers, Michael Kidd, Agnes De Mille, and, most importantly to his career, Jerome Robbins. Esposito has impressive Broadway credits, including revivals of “The Music Man” and “Guys and Dolls,” but “Jerome Robbins Broadway” (1989) changed his life. With over sixty dancers, one of the largest companies of dancer-actors in Broadway history, Esposito spent six months of rehearsal learning the classic Robbins’ dances for “West Side Story,” “The King and I,” “High Button Shoes,” “Fiddler on the Roof,” and many other standard-setting shows. Those dances are still in his notes and, even more so, in his bones. He knows not only the steps but also the dramatic intention behind every movement. His production for The Lex is his sixth staging of “West Side Story;” he has performed a number of its roles and appeared in the 1980 New York revival. When he speaks, it is with the authority of experience.
The past, however, is Esposito’s guide and not his destination. He met the cast of The Lex production on Wednesday morning. By Thursday, he had taught the company two-thirds of the dances, and by Friday night, he says, he was already confident that his dancer-actors would more than meet his challenge and their challenge. The dances for “West Side Story” at the Opera House will be iconic, but, live and onstage, they will be as new as the next moment of life.
“Easy, Action!”
“Pow!”
The Lexington Theatre Company presents West Side Story, July 11–14, and Newsies, August 1–4. Tickets for performances at the Lexington Opera House are available at Ticketmaster.com or by calling 859–233–3535.
