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Theatre in Review: The King and I (Lincoln Center Theater)

Kelli O'Hara, Ken Watanbe. Photo: Paul Kolnilk

In the current issue of Lincoln Center Theater Review, Sandy Kennedy, who appeared in the original production of The King and I, says that Rodgers and Hammerstein "were afraid it was going to be a bomb and everybody was going to be disappointed because South Pacific was such a success." One wonders if Bartlett Sher and his colleagues, having delivered a well-nigh definitive revival of South Pacific at Lincoln Center Theater in 2008, felt the same anxiety. If so, they can relax; their King and I is one of the most meticulously produced musicals that New York has seen in years -- with one exception, which we'll get to in a moment.

On entering the Vivian Beaumont, it becomes apparent that the production's design team has been given an enormous canvas on which to work. The set designer, Michael Yeargan, has framed the action in enormous side panels featuring gold-embossed Siamese deities; the stage is covered with a stunning gold and red curtain. Once the show begins, he conjures up a harbor in Bangkok, complete with a ship that enters and breaks apart as the first scene unfolds. Once the action moves inside the King of Siam's palace, Yeargan takes advantage of the Beaumont stage's enormous depth, maneuvering a series of towering pillars and set pieces -- including a giant golden Buddha -- to represent various palace locations. This is surely one of his finest design. Donald Holder's lighting calls up deep blue night looks, dimensional side washes that carve dancers out of the stage, and sunsets the color of blood oranges. Catherine Zuber's costumes pay tribute to some of Irene Sharaff's iconic designs while vividly realizing a vast range of clothing, from stunning dresses wrapped around bell-shaped bustles to the much-more-revealing and colorful outfits worn by the members of the King's family.

Best of all, Scott Lehrer's supremely subtle sound design, working with a larger-than-usual orchestra, creates the plausible illusion that the singers and musicians are unamplified. Like South Pacific, The King and I is an expression of the Rodgers and Hammerstein ideal of the musical play, which eschewed hard-sell showbiz tactics for a seamless, almost naturalistic, style in which the songs arise naturally out of the dialogue. The King and I is that rarest of things, a musical that doesn't try to overwhelm audiences with noise and color. For its characters, singing seems as natural as breathing.

And few leading ladies these days sing as naturally, or as beautifully, as Kelli O'Hara, who all but caresses each phrase of "I Whistle a Happy Tune," "Getting to Know You," and "Hello, Young Lovers." Once again, O'Hara impresses with her ability to slip inside the contours of a role, transforming herself without letting us see how she does it. Her Anna Leonowens is not a troubled adventuress, as played by Donna Murphy in the 1996 revival, but she packs a formidable amount of steel behind her façade of Victorian propriety. She has clearly been toughened by the need to support herself and her son while making her way through a world ruled by men, and she is possessed of an unflinching sense of right and wrong. When she and the King battle over an alleged broken promise -- she insists he guaranteed her a home outside the palace, something he can't quite recall -- a sense of outrage, usually carefully curtailed, finds its powerful voice. And when, late in the evening, she stands up to the King, in front of his court, over his treatment of a runaway wife, we fully understand what a disruptive force Anna has become.

Sher has also obtained a quietly stunning performance from Ruthie Ann Miles as Lady Thiang, the King's first wife and chief apologist. Miles, best known for her wickedly amusing Imelda Marcos in Here Lives Love, is an imposing figure ruling over the King's household. Her singing is every bit as good as O'Hara's; her rendition of "Something Wonderful" is one of the evening's highlights. Ashley Park and Conrad Ricamora are in fine voice as the doomed lovers Tuptim and Lun Tha; Tuptim can be rendered as a standard weepy ingénue, but Park makes her into a complicated, even anguished, figure. Edward Baker-Duly has a nice turn as the British diplomat who once romanced Anna and is ready for round two.

The evening's one significant drawback is the King. Ken Watanabe, best known in the US for his film work, is a striking presence, but his English pronunciation is at best problematic. His diction is passable in the dialogue scenes, but when he sings, the sense of the words is lost. (His rendition of "A Puzzlement" really is a puzzlement.) Furthermore, his portrayal, full of broad gestures and a tendency to strike petulant poses, undermines the character's authority. Often, he seems to be lost in his own world; he and Anna frequently occupy the same stage, but they almost never seem to breathe the same air.

This is especially problematic because, unlike South Pacific, which is held together by two poignant romantic plot lines, The King and I, for all its scenes of adorable children and clandestine lovers meeting in moonlight, is a cooler, more cerebral affair, concerned as much with the clash of cultures and philosophies as the conflict of hearts. It's not until very late in the second act, when Anna and the King take part in "Shall We Dance," that it becomes clear that they share an attraction -- and they are quickly separated by a profound disagreement, followed by the King's early death. Seen from the distance of 60 years, Oscar Hammerstein II's libretto contains a remarkable number of ideas, contrasting eastern and western value systems as well as democracy versus absolute monarchy, women's rights, and religious faith as a foundation of society. But unless we feel that Anna and the King are joined, intensely, in their dance of ideas, The King and I can come across as a relatively placid affair.

Still, Sher's staging provides the required pageantry, especially in the delightful "March of the Siamese Children" (one of Richard Rodgers' finest compositions) and in Christopher Gattelli's delightful reworking of Jerome Robbins' ballet, "The Small House of Uncle Thomas." (The latter, in which Tuptim, who plans to escape the palace, presents her Asian-dance version of Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel, remains a fascinating, almost head-spinning piece of cross-cultural comment.) And we are never far from the next transporting Rodgers and Hammerstein melody.

All told, Sher and company have built a stunning royal palace, and if it occasionally feels less inhabited than it should be, the appointments are satisfyingly lavish. -- David Barbour


(24 April 2015)

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