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Ravishing, dazzling, sumptuous. Such terms are not
excessive when applied to the touring production of "The King and I" at
the 5th Avenue Theatre.
Though this edition of the acclaimed 1996 Broadway
revival boasts a celebrity leading lady (British actress Hayley Mills),
it lacks bravura star power - the kind that lit up the musical's 1951
premiere featuring Gertrude Lawrence and a charismatic young Yul
Brynner.
The star of the evergreen Richard Rodgers-Oscar
Hammerstein II show on this occasion is the breathtaking visual splendor
engineered by director Christopher Renshaw and his superb Australian
design team. In its evocation of the exotic, teeming docks of Old Siam,
and tour through the treasure-filled palace of the 19th century Siam
monarch King Mongkut, this "King and I" looks authentically
splendiferous - as if every penny of the $5.5 million was spent at the
mother of all Bangkok bazaars.
The gilded Buddhist statuary and gauzy silk batik
draperies, the carved, painted archways and gleaming Asian bric-a-brac
ornaments, the brocade thrones and deep saffron murals in Brian
Thomson's spectacular scenic design are right at home in the 5th Avenue,
a showplace with its own extravagance of decorative Orientalia.
Bedazzled atmospherics make this "King and I" an
irresistible treat for the eyes. And as performed by a largely
Asian-American cast, with intelligent handling of a fraught
East-meets-West story, the show fends off racial caricature and the
limitations of gaudy fantasia. Paring the action to its essentials,
Renshaw allows us to both hear the luxuriant Rodgers and Hammerstein
score afresh, and re-examine the troubling culture clash at the story's
crux.
Still, the production has two glaring weaknesses.
Playing the intrepid English widow Anna Leonowens, Mills - to put it
bluntly - sings badly. And as the ruler who hires Anna to tutor his
children, Vee Talmadge bashes away at his role with all the subtlety of
a loud temple gong.
Though inspired by real events, "The King and I"
borrows more from the 1946 movie "Anna and the King of Siam" than from
Margaret Landon's same-titled historical novel, or from recorded fact.
(The real Leonowens is held in such official contempt in Thailand -
modern Siam - that this musical is banned there.)
As blond, breathy and likable as in her Walt Disney
days, Mills manages to brightly talk-sing some of her numbers. In "I
Whistle a Happy Tune," her Anna quells the fears of young son Louis
(Jesse McCartney), upon arriving in 1862 Siam. In "Shall I Tell You What
I Think of You?," she wittily rails against her visionary but arrogant
employer.
But it's almost painful to hear Mills strain for pitch
and resonance in more demanding melodies. Her tentative, shrill handling
of the plaintive "Hello, Young Lovers" marks the evening's musical
nadir.
Mills, who appeared as Anna in Renshaw's 1991-92
Australian version of "King and I," acts the role much more confidently.
Her primness is enlivened by a dash of girlish mischief, and she
vigorously challenges the King's "barbaric" views on women and slavery.
Mills also bonds sweetly with the court's adorable
royal tots, and looks swell in her shimmery, hoop-skirted gowns. (The
wealth of opulent costumes were designed by Roger Kirk.)
"The King and I" should represent a well-matched power
struggle between two stubborn but shrewd adversary-allies from different
cultures. Yet as an astute ruler squeezed between ancient tradition and
encroaching progress, Talmadge comes off like a bullying puppet king,
not a complex human monarch. While physically imposing, he tends to bark
and bellow his dialogue, mistaking bombast for authority.
Mills and Talmadge do make palpable a shiver of mutual
attraction during the famous polka to "Shall We Dance?" But it is one of
the musical's bold strokes that they spend more time debating politics
and philosophy than flirting.
Their dialogue would be even more intriguing if the
fictive Anna were not a high-born lady in satin, but (like the real
Leonowens) a spunky, dÀeclassÀe commoner clawing her way up. Still, it's
rare enough to get any intellectual stimulation and geopolitics in a
musical of this vintage.
For romance, and high drama, the story turns to the
Burmese concubine Tuptim and her secret lover Lun Tha (attractively
performed by Luzviminda Lor and Timothy Ford Murphy), whose trysts are
closely observed by the king's head wife, Lady Thiang (the impressive
opera singer, Helen Yu.)
Tuptim's rebellion against the King surfaces in the
ironic aria, "My Lord and Master," and later in the "Small House of
Uncle Thomas" ballet, devised by Jerome Robbins and faithfully
re-created here.
Presented to visiting English dignitaries as a vibrant
dance-drama, the "Uncle Thomas" ballet inventively mingles traditional
Asian movement and stagecraft (masks, puppets) with Western dance
inflections and values.
Though putting a humorous, mock-Buddhist spin on "Uncle
Tom's Cabin" can seem patronizingly out of context, here it deepens the
storyline and captivates the senses - a speciality of Rodgers and
Hammerstein, and of this flawed but captivating production.
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