Takei sells all-American corn, and winningly
ALLEGIANCE Starring George Takei Longacre Theatre
Allegiance, the new musical that opened Sunday, is as corny as Kansas in August and as obvious as Lady Gaga on a red carpet. But darned if it won’t get a grip on your heartstrings.
The flawed but defiantly moving show, which marks the Broadway debut of beloved Star Trek actor and social media darling George Takei, tackles an underexplored dark chapter in our history: the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. In Takei’s childhood, his family was herded into the camps that essentially imprisoned people of Japanese ancestry, the majority of them U.S. citizens.
Allegiance follows a fictional family, the Kimuras, who are forced off their Califiornia farm and into the Heart Mountain Relocation Center. “Where are we?” asks Ojii-Chan, the gentle patriarch, played by a sweetly mischievous Takei. “Wyoming,” responds his bright, sturdy granddaughter, Kei, portrayed with no-nonsense clarity by former Miss Saigon star Lea Salonga. “I not ask why,” OjiiChan counters. “I ask where.”
Act One offers several such knee-slappers, some inserted at awkward moments. When Kei’s brother, Sammy, played by the affable, robust-voiced Telly Leung (and in old age by Takei), tells the camp nurse he tried to enlist but was turned down, she asks, “Flat feet?” “Yellow face,” he quips.
As Allegiance progresses, though, it comes to wear its sense of purpose more comfortably, even finding flashes of dark wit to mitigate the hokum. We’re introduced to Mike Masoaka, a real-life figure who as spokesman for the Japanese American Citizens League discouraged resistance to oppressive government policies. Played here by Greg Watanabe, he is abrasive but not unsympathetic.
Our treatment of the Japanese in their homeland is also acknowledged, in a sobering nod to Hiroshima that precedes a mockchipper production number cele- brating the war’s end. The songs, written by Jay Kuo, show little imagination in nodding to oldfashioned musical comedy. But Kuo’s ballads offer flashes of poignance amid the banality. (Takei sings shakily, as his character might, but with winning gusto.)
The book, by Kuo, Marc Acito and Lorenzo Thione, can deal affectingly with the conflicts that tradition and current events may pose in any family. And director Stafford Arima culls potent performances from his actors. Michael K. Lee plays Frankie Suzuki, a witty rebel who loves Kei but clashes with her brother, who joins the Army to prove his patriotism.
These developments are accompanied by contrivances, and a few more lame jokes. But if you can make a critic who sneered in the first act leave the theater a little teary-eyed, you’re probably doing something right.