West Side Story on a Sunday Afternoon

It's an alley, just a back alley somewhere in a less toney part of NYC, narrow, with fire escapes spanning the brick buildings. There may have been a summer rain, because the asphalt is wet and reflects some lights from the street at the corner.
And standing up on the second landing we see a gloriously young Natalie Wood , her purple dressing gown swirling about her, and an innocent Richard Beymer as he stands below.
Their hands are outstretched to each other and they sing "Tonight, tonight, the world is full of light...with suns and moons all over the place..." The alley grows luminous, not an alley at all, the buildings fall away, and we're transported. We're in a place beyond pain and poverty, despair and loneliness. We're in a place beyond real life. We're in love.
That's what West Side Story has done for countless audiences on stage and that's what the 1961 movie did for me at the age of 17, when I first saw it in the Graumann's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. There on the huge screen and hidden in the delicious darkness of my seat next to, of all people, my parents, I fell in love with this story as old as Shakespeare and as new as my first prom date, which would be the very next night.
In my life I have fallen in love many times. And yes, I think of them as love, every time. They were the closest experience I have had, anyway. The euphoria of the first days. The smile you cannot wipe away even when you want to. Your face hurts! The sleeplessness, the longing, the meal skipping as all appetites turn to the beloved.
The anticipation.
Who would not buy a bottle of that at any price?
Tonight. Tonight. I'll see my love tonight.
For at this moment in WSS, all is new and tantalizing in its promise. It is light and luscious, a frothy raspberry cream dessert that you will gladly skip dinner for.
This is my favorite part of the movie and my favorite part of love. Before gang war and hatred tear these lovers apart, before fear and habit take the magic days and nights of our romances and turn them back into...well, the same old 24 hours. This special time, captured forever on the screen.
West Side Story ages well, much better than I have. For awhile this afternoon I am young again. For there they are, Tony and Maria, always young, hopeful, beautiful, forever entranced. I see their glowing faces, hear their whispers of "Te Adoro," the tender last words of the song, "Good night, good night, sleep well and when you dream, dream of me...tonight." And we do. Through all the days and nights and joys and disappointments of our lives, yet do we dream of light and love and hope.