Page "West Side Story" Paragraph 7

The original book Laurents wrote closely adhered to Romeo and Juliet, but the characters based on Rosaline and the parents of the doomed lovers were eliminated early on.

Later the scenes related to Juliet's faking her death and committing suicide also were deleted.

Language posed a problem ; four-letter curse words were uncommon in the theatre at the time, and slang expressions were avoided for fear they would be dated by the time the production opened.

Laurents ultimately invented what sounded like real street talk but actually was not: " cut the frabba-jabba ", for example.

Sondheim converted long passages of dialogue, and sometimes just a simple phrase like " A boy like that would kill your brother ", into lyrics.

With the help of Oscar Hammerstein, Laurents convinced Bernstein and Sondheim to move " One Hand, One Heart ", which he considered too pristine for the balcony scene, to the scene set in the bridal shop, and as a result " Tonight " was written to replace it.

Laurents felt that the building tension needed to be alleviated in order to increase the impact of the play's tragic outcome, so comic relief in the form of Officer Krupke was added to the second act.

He was outvoted on other issues: he felt the lyrics to " America " and " I Feel Pretty " were too witty for the characters singing them, but they stayed in the score and proved to be audience favorites.

Another song, " Kid Stuff ", was added and quickly removed during the Washington, D. C. tryout when Laurents convinced the others it was helping tip the balance of the show into typical musical comedy.