Anna’s Undies
or
The Front Row Follies

A review of Lincoln Center Theater revival of
THE KING AND I
At the Vivian Beaumont

April 7, 2015 IN PREVIEWS

NOTE TO READERS: I usually try to treat every show I review as if I am seeing it for the first time. However in the case of THE KING AND I such a position was not entirely possible.

Mr. Oscar Hammerstein II wrote the book and lyrics for the classic 1951 musical THE KING AND I basing his work on Ms. Margaret Landon’s novel ANNA AND THE KING OF SIAM, (which is in turn a reworking of Ms. Anna Leonowens’ dramatic memoirs of the 1870’s). THE KING AND I tells the story of the young widow Anna Leonowens who in the 1860’s has journeyed to Siam with her young son Louis. Anna has been hired as teacher for the King of Siam’s royal family as part of the King’s plan to modernize (westernize) his country while fending off the imperialist ambitions of European powers. As she starts her work, Anna finds herself being drawn into the intrigues of Palace life and even having conflicts with the King – primarily regarding a certain term of her contract that he claims to have no knowledge of. In turn the King is intrigued by the Englishwoman who apparently has no fear of him and who represents the western advances in sciences and ideas that he is aspiring to achieve. When Western adventurers call the King a barbarian whose country should be made a protectorate Anna helps him to entertain and influence an English Delegation with results that deeply affect the King, the Royal Family, Siam and herself.

Director Bartlett Sher and his production team are clearly in awe of THE KING AND I and have mounted a revival that is both an astonishing eyeful and a veritable crowd pleaser. But for all that Mr. Sher and Co. have accomplished to impress the hell out of the audience and make it feel that it has gotten its money’s worth, there is an air of self-importance and a tendency to miss details that keeps this revival from being the truly outstanding production it so clearly is trying to be.

The book itself is an example of this problem: the current revival makes certain revisions to Mr. Hammerstein’s book and cuts the song “A Puzzlement” in a way that adds emphasis to the King’s difficult position as a traditional Eastern monarch who must adapt and strategize in the face of European imperialism. For the most part, I actually like these changes which make His Majesty seem less naïve and driven by personal desires than in previous productions. However, there is a tendency to make the situation clear and then immediately expound upon another variation of the same point. This causes certain scenes to lose their tension and focus and become rather labored. Judicious cutting and refining would definitely help.

Of course even with such changes, the rest of the score is wonderfully intact: from the optimistic trepidation of “I Whistle a Happy Tune,” through the endearing “Getting to Know You,” and the climactic “Shall We Dance,” Composer Richard Rodger’s and Mr. Hammerstein’s widely ranging music and lyrics define characters, enhance the action and make up one of the truly great musical scores.

This production of THE KING AND I is indeed “Mrs. Anna’s” show as Ms. Kelli O’Hara’s Anna Leonowens sweeps into Siam with all the apparent eagerness and self-confidence of someone who is certain that she is right. But Ms. O’Hara makes it clear that Anna’s assuredness and insistence of promises being fulfilled is actually the armor her character uses to protect herself and her son in this strange new place. Bit by bit this shell is removed, letting us see the woman who can become a discreet champion of doomed lovers in the moving “Hello Young Lovers,” make a classroom of royal children into a believable mutual adoration festival through the joyful “Getting to Know You.” It is Ms. O’Hara’s ability to contrast Anna’s humanity and vulnerability with her overwhelming desire to have everything set to rights in the Kingdom that makes this Governess a heroic and sympathetic person instead of the interfering intruder she might easily have been. This Anna may be exasperated and critical of the King – earning our sympathy and well deserved laughs and applause in the explosive and difficult soliloquy “Shall I Tell You What I Think of You?” – but she champions his goals and even makes some effort to understand him.

As Anna’s employer, Mr. Ken Watanabe is a truly formidable King Mongkut of Siam, presenting a man driven by politics as well as royal prerogative. This King understands how essential it is for him to speedily assimilate new ideas and languages, while trying to maintain authority in a changing world. Thus for Mr. Watanabe’s King, his fascination for Mrs. Anna is that of someone who represent the challenge of a Western influence as well as a colleague with whom he can communicate. Mr. Watanabe uses his accent to provide a vocal brusqueness that would be natural for a Monarch who is still feeling his way through English. Alas, some of the spectators around me did have some trouble fully understanding him – especially when he sometimes hastened though his sentences. Furthermore – although I fear this may have been due to Mr. Bartlett Sher’s direction – Mr. Watanabe’s depiction of angst was often of an “all or nothing” style of delivery that made his version of “A Puzzlement” appear less a song of intellectual perplexity than of digestive trouble.

Adding to His Majesty’s anxieties is the emotional isolation of his new wife, the Lady Tuptim. A gift from the court of Burma, Tuptim had already fallen in love with Lun Tha, one of the Burmese delegates, before she had ever been presented to the King. Charming Ms. Ashley Park is a wonderful Lady Tuptim, giving her role a grace and spirit that makes Tuptim more than just a girl driven by love. This is a woman who dares to hope for a better future even in the face of futility. Ms. Park’s memorable rendition of “My Lord and Master” – a song describing Tuptim’s emotions when she has been accepted as a wife to the King – manages to be both operatic and yet believably from Tuptim’s secret heart.

Although the handsome Mr. Conrad Ricanora’s Lun-Tha is not as imposing or even as heroic a character as the King is, his reckless and despairing love for Tuptim endows his role with its own power. When he sings “We Kiss in a Shadow,” Mr. Ricanora makes it Lun-Tha’s musical lure that unites him to Tuptim in their dangerous dream.

Where Tuptim feels trapped in the world of the Palace, Ms. Ruthie Ann Miles’ brilliant Lady Thiang is a poised inhabitant. Ms. Miles’ shows us the embodiment of a loving consort, who truly loves the King and does all she can for him and her son, the Crown Prince Chulalongkorn, seeing their potential for good. This is clearly shown in Ms. Miles’ moving performance of “Something Wonderful” which can all too easily become a hymn to enablement rather that the longing need of a woman to assist someone she loves in their aspirations for greatness.

As the heir of the King, Prince Chulalongkorn represents the aspirations for the future. Mr. Jon Viktor Corpuz presents us with a sturdy young prince who is not sure that he is really thrilled with life under Anna’s instruction and plays the Prince’s gradual warming to his teacher most quite well, keeping Anna unsure of how much her lessons are reaching him.

Mr. Jake Lucas succeeds nicely in preventing Anna’s son Louis Leonowens from becoming a mere prompt for other people’s dialogue. Indeed Mr. Lucas’ sunny young man provides an interesting contrast to the Royal Children, always being part of the crowd yet apart from them too which gives his duet with Chulalongkorn in the recap of a “A Puzzlement” a bit more depth than I expected in a reprise that was originally devised to cover a scene change.

Another surprise was Mr. Paul Nakauchi’s finely tuned performance as the King’s Prime Minister, the Kralahome. Mr. Nakauchi created an aloof dignitary who truly understands and respects his ruler, letting his feelings for him show briefly but most effectively.

The rest of the performers are all excellent, be they wives, children, courtiers, dancers and foreigners. Indeed the troupe who dance the balletic play-within-a-play THE SMALL HOUSE OF UNCLE THOMAS are simply phenomenal, performing this earnest “Siamese” take of UNCLE TOM’S CABIN with a flair and sense of fun that never crept into parody.

It is obvious from this splendid cast and the ornate production that Director Bartlett Sher truly has an embarrassment of riches on his hands. I only wish he could let some of that wealth fall to the sidelines when a concept does not quite work. Also it is apparent that Mr. Sher is enthralled by staging and designs that can only be appreciated properly from the back rows of the theater. This results in a lovely and inspiring state of affairs for anyone seated in the rear of the house but downright frustrating to those holding seats closer to the action, starting with the opening scene which became a debacle for many people sitting in the first four or five rows around the Orchestra Pit: As the stage extends over the musicians in orchestra an imposing model steamer sails onward, its prow towering above the front of the stage apron. When Captain Orton and Louis Leonowens appear on the top deck of this vessel, all that is visible for those unfortunates in the closer seats is Captain Orton’s cap. Then Ms. Kelli O’Hara makes what ought to be THE star entrance as Anna Leonowens. Her voice is clear and her hat the only visible part of her until she approaches the ship’s rail and treats the spectators seated beneath the ship to several long and unnerving views of the vast underside of her hoopskirt. After THAT introduction, I can report that under the interesting array of her crinoline, Ms. O’Hara wears sturdy traveling shoes, proper hose and clean pantalets that ended above the knee.

After this annoyingly awkward sequence, everyone climbs off the ship which pulls away to reveal a quayside setting that would have been perfectly fine from the very beginning since most of the action and singing takes place here anyway IN FULL SIGHT. But clearly someone’s judgement was woefully affected by the concept of that unfortunate ship.

This “sightlines be damned” tendency occurs consistently and aggravatingly throughout the evening, caused by the arrangements of the set, a prop or groupings of the cast members and I firmly and regretfully lay the blame for this ineptitude at Mr. Bartlett Sher’s feet. Doubtlessly Mr. Sher is trying to emulate the beautifully cinematic flow of SOUTH PACIFIC (a show he dazzlingly revived at the same theater some years ago), but the palatial progression and set pieces of THE KING AND I constantly works against such a dynamic approach due to the need for the action to be visible to the entire audience and because all the time taken for the constant onstage shifting and rearranging of scenery tends to drain off more and more energy.

Then too, it appears that Director Sher sometimes focuses on the impressive climax of a scene but lets everything coast into it. At other times he allows the action to build up ponderously, such as the aforementioned thematic repetition of the King’s concerns with Europe. For me the worst instance of all this sloppiness is in Act 2 during Anna’s final confrontation with the King. Each of her accusations is rushed along like a run-on sentence that comes to a halt with her final indictment of His Majesty. This haste robs Ms. O’Hara and Mr. Watanabe of their most powerfully dramatic moment since each of Mrs. Anna’s charges is meant to hit the king like an emotional body blow until he can no longer take it and finally erupts at her.

Still, there is much to praise in Mr. Sher’s work from the scholarly and politically shrewd King through Anna’s delightfully individual relationship with each of the Royal Children. Mr. Sher makes certain that even the smallest role onstage provides another character in the story rather than function as mere walking scenery. If I had to argue with any of the characterizations it would be with Mr. Edward Baker-Duly’s Sir Edward Ramsey: why must this visiting dignitary who had been part of Anna’s past always get played with a sort of to-the-gallery vapidity? I have seen this style of portrayal often enough to assume it is traditional with revivals of THE KING AND I but to me is just seems silly and makes Anna and the King’s interaction with Sir Edward of far less importance than we have been led to believe it should be, especially after all the highlighting of the King’s political concerns.

Choreographer Christopher Gattelli is quite faithful to Mr. Jerome Robbin’s original dances but marvelously makes the fullest use of the vast Vivian Beaumont stage to permit the performers to come alive rather than merely re-enact the glory of Mr. Robbin’s past work.

Similarly Mr. Ted Sperling directs a wonderfully large orchestra that truly glories in Mr. Richard Rodgers unforgettable music (with the classic orchestrations of Mr. Robert Russell Bennett and Ms. Trude Rittman’s additional arrangements). Alas the Overture deserves better treatment, not merely being truncated which would have been understandable given the length of the show, but being rewritten into a mere hit parade of tunes lingering on “Shall We Dance,” a theme that is usually never heard in the overture because it is reserved for actual performance to heighten it’s impact. Such a spoiler of an overture is better discarded altogether.

The sets (besides the confounded boat) are simple yet grand. Mr. Michael Yeargan understands how sumptuous and magnificent does not have to be overwhelming. He skillfully evokes the Bangkok riverside and the Palace Environs on the large performance space with care and even delicacy. The sets and stage action were admirably lit by Mr. Donald Holder and Mr. Scott Lehrer’s judicious sound designs assured that even if the scenes cannot be fully seen by everybody, they can clearly be heard.

It has been observed that certain moments of THE KING AND I star not only the actors but the costumes they wear and Ms. Catherin Zuber’s gorgeous creations take the stage most impressively. From English hoopskirts to Siamese pha nungs, Ms. Zuber’s garments both capture the eye and define the character of the wearer. While using new designs to make Mrs. Anna look most charming, Ms. Zuber wisely does not eschew the magic of the famous pink satin ball gown that has always made “Shall We Dance” one of the most memorable moments in musical theater. On an irreverent note, THE KING AND I’s opening scene makes it most clear to the closer seat holders that Ms. Zuber is as just meticulous about designing the cast’s underclothes.

THE KING AND I is slated to open on April 16 and it is sure to be a popular draw and should not be missed. All the same, I feel sad that some unfortunate and thoughtless choices will prevent this revival from being the defining hallmark production that it ought to be. And I close with a word of advice:

When booking your seats, avoid the first five rows around the stage.

and an ardent plea to Mr. Sher:

SINK THAT SHIP!

About the reviewer:

I am a computer programmer, wannabe writer who loves theater and just got into the habit of inflicting my theatrical opinions.
I live in New York. Moshe can be reached at MB1224@aol.com