On Wednesday, October 14, 2015, I attended the UTEP Dinner Theatres evening

production of West Side Story the iconic 1957 musical based on a conception of Jerome

Robbins that places the classic story of Romeo and Juliet in contemporary New York City

between two warring immigrant gangs as produced by Gregory Taylor and directed by Jaime

Barba.
West Side Story presents the tale of two star-crossed lovers from different factions of

immigrants living in the bad part of mid-century New York City, with Tony (portrayed by Hugo

Arreola), a Polish boy with Jet affiliations falling for the Puerto Rican Maria (as played by Nabil

Gonzalez). As tensions rise between the Sharks and Jets, we find Tony being brought in by his

old friend Riff (played by Julian Maldonado) to assist them in driving them off their turf. When

Tony shows up to the rumble with every intention of stopping it, Riff is stabbed and killed by

Marias brother Bernardo (portrayed by Joel Aguilera), who is consequently stabbed and killed

by Tony. Through a series of misunderstandings, Tony ends up shot dead as Maria watches.
This being a dinner performance, I started the night off with a fairly disappointing

margarita with far too much cheap sour mix in it. As I sat waiting for the dinner to begin showing

itself, I found myself in a fairly pleasant conversation with my tablemates in the, albeit cramped,

space between our table and the wall. The salad was satisfactory, and the chicken was savory if

dry. The dessert brownie felt as if it had been taken out of the freezer at the last moment and not

been allowed to thaw such that the ice cream on top of it only melted due to the ambient

temperature of the room.

The scenic design by Michael L. Spence was spectacular. The modularized fire escape set

pieces allowed for very crafty and ingenious scene work, particularly between Arreola and

Gonzalez. Unfortunately, this did not carry through to the set for Docs store, and led to a few

awkwardly long scene changes where Doc (as played by Casimiro Saldaa) appeared to

scramble to get his store on spike in time. The scene in Marias bedroom was also incredibly
awkward due partially to the lack of space afforded by the set piece they designated for it. That

being said, the scenic design overall was phenomenal, as was the lighting by Marissa Diaz. The

lights cue at the end of Cool gave me chills. The projections by Don Cieslik were a clever idea

executed well for the large part, but unfortunately appeared to fall out of sync with each other at

times (e.g. moving through the skyscrapers). Ciesliks sound design also had some very

interesting choices, in particular the use of reverb effects on the microphones at certain points.

During certain songs, the reverb was incredibly distracting. That being said, its implementation

towards the end as Hugo called out for Chino (played by Allen Thompson) was beautiful and

really lent itself to the isolation in the alleyways being felt by Hugos character.
In regards to the actors, it was fairly evident that many of the lead actors were chosen for

their voices and little attention was given to their abilities to portray their characters. Arreola and

Gonzalez had absolutely no romantic chemistry as Tony and Maria, which led to an astounding

awkwardness in all of their supposedly loving scenes. Gonzalez did a fine job portraying Maria,

with a wonderful frenetic energy that she surprised me at the end as she brandished the gun used

to kill her lover. Hugo Arreola portrayed Tony as the whiniest, wimpiest gang member ever to

walk New York streets. The difference between innocence and weakness was blurred at best in

Arreolas performance, partially leading to the two leads having the romantic chemistry of a wet

sponge.
Overall, the performance was enjoyable. The acting was lackluster among the leads, but it

was mostly compensated by their singing. The dancing was great, the designs were phenomenal,

and it was, on the whole, an enjoyable evening.