This morning I spoke to a fellow at the fitness club and, in talking to him, I had a couple of thoughts about West Side Stories -- a couple of places where they missed opportunities to talk about relevant issues. First, they essentially didn't comment on generational issues or issues of age. In the advertising, there were prominent comments about youth feeling that they weren't listened to. American culture has a fetish about youth and about the idealism and naivete of the young -- none of this was dealt with in the play. Second, just as they were riffing on West Side Story to make a point, West Side Story was riffing on Romeo and Juliet. The story might have tied loose ends together if they had played off the way in which each generation draws lessons from the culture of the past and reinterprets it from their own perspectives. It was still a powerful and moving play, even if it missed a few opportunities.