Every few years, it's good for a local theater group to test itself against the demands of Leonard Bernstein's "West Side Story."

But the challenge is not for the faint-hearted or the unprepared. The show is driven by a powerful song and dance engine that can't be cheated or glossed over. It requires three good solo voices and a young chorus able to deliver Bernstein's classic melodies and Jerome Robbins' iconic choreography.

In Hawai'i, director Ron Bright has most often risen to the challenge. The current production at Paliku Theatre is his third, where, with choreographer Marcelo Pacleb and musical director Clarke Bright, Bernstein's classic vehicle is once again tuned up and given a good run. And some familiar images are given a new twist.

The dance numbers generally have the right intensity, where, in the words of Anita, they "dance like they have to get rid of something quick." However, we might prefer them more edgy and raw and less literal — like the Jets holding out their arms to mimic circling airplanes.

"West Side Story" may be one of the last big musicals to include the dream ballet sequence that Rogers and Hammerstein made obligatory. In this production, featuring "Somewhere" sung by Brittany Browning, the idealized childlike playground is served an effective rabbit punch when the dancers rip off their prep school sweaters to revert to the gang wear beneath.

The director has found three good voices to deliver the familiar music.

Kyle McCraw can usually find the high notes demanded of Tony, and his duets with Kim Anderson as Maria are requisitely lovely. But while the show's book makes Tony a lover rather than a fighter, McCraw's choir boy tone belies that he might have graduated from the Jets' street gang.

Anderson sings well and rises to the heightened melodrama that makes the closing scene — as the crowd is mesmerized around Tony's body — a finely honed moment of pure pantomimed melodrama.

Tori Anguay succeeds, as most Anitas do, with a mixture of Spanish spitfire that dominates her singing and dancing and a deeper undercurrent of feeling that balances her cynical realism.

In addition, Chris Villasenor as Riff and Zare Anguay as Bernardo energize their roles with competent dancing and seething emotions.

While it might be interesting to take in the current Arthur Laurents bilingual Broadway production, which has (significantly modified) Spanish lyrics, rest assured that the Paliku version has Maria traditionally singing "I Feel Pretty."

The rest of the original score is also there to take you out of the ordinary and into a heightened musical experience.