Not all Broadway musicals are fluff, but it's always something of a jolt to see "West Side Story" again and realize just how seriously it takes its Romeo and Juliet-inspired love story. When characters die here, it has an emotional gravity that can't be shrugged off with another show tune.

It's all the more bracing to see this great musical at Toby's Baltimore Dinner Theatre, where it makes for an evening of dinner, dessert and death. This confident production does the dinner theater proud, as a vigorous staging emphasizes the ethnic conflict that makes the central love affair so ill-fated.

If anything, director and choreographer Mark Minnick has that story moving along at such a brisk pace that what's gained in stressing the jazzy ferocity of Leonard Bernstein's tremendous score is somewhat lost when it comes to evoking the more lyrical qualities in Bernstein's music, Arthur Laurents' book and Stephen Sondheim's lyrics.

The Toby's production certainly has a visceral feel for the rumble in the urban jungle that sets the story in motion. Two rival gangs, the Sharks and the Jets, are fighting a turf war in a neighborhood defined by tenements, fire escapes and chain-link fencing. The energetic cast moves well as an ensemble in this 1950s period piece, with dance steps that look back to ballet and forward to hip-hop.

Add in colorful costumes and equally colorful language and you have a ghetto-glamorous setting for this violent love story. Although watching coat-and-tie-clad juvenile delinquents shout relatively clean epithets at each other inevitably will have you pining for the good old criminal days, there's no denying that the underlying social and racial issues still pack a punch.

That setting is no mere showbiz backdrop for the love story and the fabulous songs. It's a character in its own right, and it makes eternally relevant points about why people don't get along.

The forbidden love between members of rival gangs finds Tony (Matthew Schleigh) hopelessly enamoured of a Puerto Rican girl from the other side, Maria (Jessica Ball). Thanks to smart casting, the romantic chemistry is right in this production. Both performers have the acting and singing skills to make for a first-rate evening of tragic musical theater.

This means you'll like what you're hearing when this Tony sings "Something's Coming" and "Maria," this Maria sings "I Feel Pretty," and the two of them blend their voices for "One Hand, One Heart" and "Somewhere."

The only note of concern is that while Schleigh has a clear and sweet voice capable of hitting high notes, occasionally he has vocal strain when reaching for an especially high note. Perhaps this is indicative of the production's overall tendency to push forward with such loud immediacy that poor Tony and Maria are barely allowed any time to romantically and vocally enjoy each other's company.

Among the finger-snapping supporting performances, Tina Marie DeSimone is an admirably feisty Anita. She hits her notes and the pavement so assertively in "America" that it's a wonder that a few tenement bricks don't tumble to the ground.

Other fine performers include Darren McDonnell as Bernardo and Jake Odmark as Riff. They're ready to rumble, and it's a fight you don't want to miss.

"West Side Story" runs through Aug. 24 at Toby's Baltimore Dinner Theatre, in the Best Western Hotel and Conference Center at 5625 O'Donnell St., Baltimore. Call 410-649-1660 or go to www.tobysdinnertheatre.com.

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