FIT FOR A KING
Revival of Broadway classic can’t dance away problematic colonial past,
The King and I (out of 4) Music by Richard Rodgers. Book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein. Directed by Bartlett Sher. Until Aug. 12 at the Princess of Wales Theatre, 300 King St. W. Mirvish.com, 416-872-1212.
So how does a revival of the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic musical The King and I, a story about an English woman educating the Siamese court on Western knowledge and social customs, sound in Toronto in 2018? Let’s dance, shall we?
The King and I premiered in 1951, starring Russian actor Yul Brynner as the King of Siam (there’s a red flag) and Gertrude Lawrence as the English tutor hired to educate the King’s children and wives, Anna Leonowens. It was the fifth Broadway production created by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, which was based on a book, which was itself based on the memoirs of the real Anna Leonowens (who settled in Canada near the end of her life, co-founding the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design), details of which are now considered to be exaggerated or outright fiction. Despite its firm place in the canon of American musical theatre with songs like “Shall We Dance?,” “Getting to Know You” and “Whistle a Happy Tune,” enduring its legacy of over 67 years, it’s rightly considered out of touch with today’s cultural sensitivity toward representations of colonialism, cultural appropriation, exoticism and sexism.
Growing pains in the Golden Age musicals hasn’t seemed to stop Broadway producers from bringing them back to the stage anyway — so the challenge is then placed on the director to either reproduce the traditional version or find new approaches for contemporary audiences. Bartlett Sher has become the go-to name for revivals that attempt to do the latter, having helmed acclaimed productions of South Pacific, Fiddler on the Roof, and now on Broadway, My Fair Lady.
In The King and I, now in Toronto courtesy of Mirvish Productions, Sher course-corrects where he can, without changing the fundamentals of the musical. The cast looks like the parts they play, the romantic love between the King of Siam (played with the posturing, goofball jokes, and tantrums of a child in a powerful man’s body by Jose Llana) and Anna (a serene and lovely Elena Shaddow) is downplayed in favour of a more complicated and nu- anced mutual respect, and leaves several of Anna’s attempts to Westernize Siam half-baked and unheeded. And Lady Thiang (a commanding Joan Almedilla, often the most magnetic presence on stage), the King’s official wife and mother to the throne’s heir Prince Chulalongkorn (Charlie Oh), is given the greatest character depth. The victim of an extremely patriarchal society, Thiang is constantly at odds: between love and hatred, between duty and rebellion, between order and chaos, between ally and enemy to Anna, all while orchestrating political advice from behind the scenes.
As the foil to Anna, she is not the hard-laced villain to the Englishwoman’s maternal instincts and ardent feminism she could be, but instead a complicated product of her envi- ronment. Through Anna’s “Hello Young Lovers” and Thiang’s “Something Wonderful,” the audience knows both women are moved by their romantic sides — for Anna, her husband’s death propels her into freedom and adventure, and for Thiang, it drives her further into her role in the palace. So when their biggest diversion occurs in respect to the fates of star-crossed lovers of Tuptim (Q Lim) and Lun Tha (Kavin Panmeechao), their decisions (Anna, to help them flee, and Thiang, to report them) are a matter of privilege instead of moral character.
Sher gives the audience small twists like that to complicate what can be an extremely simple story on the surface, from the frames of intersectional identity or global politics of the time — King Mongkut’s adop- tion of the English language and Western technology, education, and customs is said to have saved Siam from English and French colonialization, even though Anna’s presence in Bangkok and liberal use of the words “barbarians” and “savages” now feel uncomfortable and offensive. He also delivers a gorgeous ballet choreographed by Christopher Gattelli based on Jerome Robbins’s original work, framed by ornate sets by Michael Yeargan and costumes by Catherine Zuber. But, that ballet is Tuptim’s adaptation of Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe — and we have a whole other can of worms to work through.
What Sher can’t change is a soundtrack that’s beloved but only uses Thai music elements sparingly, so as not to alienate a Western crowd, antiquated gender roles, and an opening number that has the chorus as an evil-looking hoard of Siamese commoners before swiftly moving inside the palace and never emerging. Sher may be doing many favours for The King and I since its original production, but there’s still a question of whether that is only clear to viewers who have seen poorer jobs. And it’s worth noting that while Sher diversified his cast, the same can’t be said of its creative team.
While, to this critic, Sher doesn’t definitively solve the problems of The King and I, he makes a valiant effort and the touring production delivers a level of polished, old-fashioned musical theatre that you can whistle a happy tune to.
But for anyone who’s interested in digging beyond the shiny love story into the murky depths of its implications, this Rodgers and Hammerstein staple is still a puzzlement.