The problem? When you're a Jet you're a Jet all the way. From your first cigarette to your last dying day.

So goes the classic conflict -- boy-meets-girl-meets-street gangs armed with switchblades and seething hatred -- afflicting the urban Romeo and Juliet (modernized into Tony and Maria), and the warring Montagues and Capulets (toughened into the white Jets and Puerto Rican Sharks) in the tale of New York thugs and two people in love. All set to iconic music (props to Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim) and killer choreography (give it up for Jerome Robbins).

Welcome to "West Side Story," Spring Mountain Ranch edition, opening tonight.

"That choreography is extremely difficult," says Terrence Williams, directing this production of a musical that traces its lineage to the 1957 Broadway original, the 1961 film and up through New York's current, bilingual revival.

"Our choreographer did a tour of 'West Side Story' and picked up the choreography there. That's fantastic, but then you have to translate that to actors in community theater, who are not professional dancers. But ours is remarkably close, only a handful of things were simplified."

"West Side Story's" score is Broadway royalty:

The gang menace fueling "Cool"; the energetic mockery of "Gee, Officer Krupke"; the MAMBO! electricity of "Dance at the Gym"; the immigrant quarreling over the quality of American life, danced across a tenement rooftop in the exhilarating "America"; and a lush soundtrack of love: "Something's Coming," "Tonight," "I Feel Pretty," "Somewhere," "Maria" and "One Hand, One Heart."

While Williams' "West Side Story" scrupulously adheres to certain details -- the director, who cast several white actors as Sharks, even sent them to tanning salons -- others are more elastic.

Consider the playful bickering of "America" ("I think I'll go back to San Juan; I know a boat you can get on; Everyone there will give big cheer; Everyone there will have moved here.")

Onstage, only Shark women tease and taunt each other. Williams opts for the film format: a battle of the sexes, starring Shark leader Bernardo and his squeeze, Anita.

"We felt it's so familiar to people with Bernardo in it that it was worth it to do it as it was in the movie," Williams says.

And "West Side Story's" tragic twosome will add dimension to their dilemma. As written, Tony, once the presumably swaggering head Jet, floats through much of his scenes in a romantic bubble with scant trace of his former fierceness till he is provoked by the Sharks near the tragic conclusion.

"Tony is so vulnerable and in love that it's very hard to believe he was once a gang member who was ruthless and beat up people," says his portrayer, Eddie Gelhaus, who aims to subtly shift the tenor of Tony. "My goal is to show that wild side a little, but still show that vulnerability. The challenge is to not stereotype him as how people knew the movie version (played by Richard Beymer) or the guy on the Tony Awards who was in the revival, but bring something new."

Likewise, the ethereal Maria will get a less Shakespearean spin from actress Janay Bombino. "It feels like she just fell in love with a guy she saw that day," Bombino says. " 'Romeo and Juliet' is my least favorite Shakespearean play because I feel that's not what love is about, this instantaneous thing. You can approach the character in that she doesn't fall in love overnight, but with the idea of America and this new life she has."

Conversely, one of "West Side Story's" most harrowing scenes involves the candy store assault on Anita by the Jets, climaxed in the original stage show and movie with an inference of rape. Subsequent versions have treated it more bluntly, an approach Williams plans to emulate -- but carefully, within the family-friendly confines of Spring Mountain Ranch State Park.

"At the top of the show, they're full of pride -- walk tall, you're a Jet," Williams says. "By spelling it out just a little more than you see in the movie, it shows that in their own perception of who they are, it's a little warped from how they portray themselves."

Alterations aside, "West Side Story" remains -- 52 years after giving Shakespeare a New York accent -- a potent, socially aware tale of boy-meets-girl-meets-ruinous racial hatred.

The gal? She feels stunning and entrancing. Feels like running and dancing for joy. For she's loved by a pretty wonderful boy.

The guy? He just kissed a girl named Maria. And suddenly he's found how wonderful a sound can be.

The problem? Here come the Jets like a bat out of hell. Someone gets in their way, someone don't feel so well.

Contact reporter Steve Bornfeld at sbornfeld@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0256.