Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
‘The King and I’ has its moments
There’s something about “The King and I” that is faintly reminiscent of — dare we even think it? — opera. The national tour now at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts in Fort Lauderdale gives off that whiff with static visual vignettes, all perfectly placed and symmetrical. The canny sets suggest grandeur, and there are long stretches of the show in which the company sits in rapt attention while a leading character sings one of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s iconic songs straight and still.
Those show-tune classics include such standards as “I Whistle a Happy Tune,” “Getting To Know You,” “Hello Young Lovers,” “Shall We Dance,” “I Have Dreamed” and “Something Wonderful,” and they are delivered here in pristine fashion.
But that is where that operatic thing, whatever it is, evaporates. This production, a non-Equity tour, is missing the juice that can spark goose-bump excitement from the proscenium of the stage right up to the back of the balconies. Whether it is the economics of a national tour or not, all the delightful dancing can’t distract from a few corners that seem to have been cut here and there. The sprawl of a narrative set in a royal court is, in this case, unconvincing.
The story is set in 1860s Bangkok and follows the lively relationship between Anna Leonowens (Angela Baumgardner), a British school teacher and the King of Siam (Pedro Ka’awaloa). The king brings Anna to the royal court to teach his many children and gets more than he expects when the two differ on modernization in the kingdom. A shrewd ruler, King Mongkut hopes to dodge being overtaken by the superpowers of the day, Great Britain and France, with a deft display of dining and diplomacy to charm visiting envoys. The all-important evening includes a Siamese retelling of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” staged as a sort of Chinese opera. It is this show within the show for which this “King and I” saves all its stagecraft magic, and it is a captivating sequence.
There are other highlights. Lady Thiang’s “Something Wonderful” has equal parts steel and sweetness as sung by Deanna Choi. The crowd-pleaser “Shall We Dance,” with just a bit of prickly heat between the king and Anna, unfolds beautifully, like the layered skirts of a taffeta ballgown.
As for the rest, it feels a little truncated (weren’t there more royal offsping and dinner guests?) and rushed, as if the audience will not make it a moment beyond 2 1⁄2 hours with a 15-minute intermission. And let’s face it: That might not be wrongheaded. When all is said and done, “The King and I” is a musical comedy, a classy one to be sure, but it ain’t no highfalutin opera.
“The King and I” runs through Dec. 2 at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts, 201 SW Fifth Ave., in Fort Lauderdale. Showtimes are 8 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays; 6:30 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 25; 2 p.m. Saturdays and Wednesday, Nov. 28; and 1 p.m. Sundays. Tickets cost $40-$125. To order, call 954-462-0222 or go to BrowardCenter.org. rhagwood@southflorida.com