The King and I (new tour based on the 1996 revival)The King and I (new tour based on the 1996 revival)The revival of the 1951 Rogers and Hammerstein classic The King and I that starts its national tour at the Fox this week has already traveled a long and winding road. It started at Australia's Adelaide Festival Centre where Richard Rogers' daughter Mary saw it, loved it, and started the process of bringing it to Broadway. It opened at the Neil Simon Theater on April 11th, 1996 with Lou Diamond Phillips and Donna Murphy as the King and Anna. Critics and audiences there also loved it enough to give it a two-year run and now a tour.
If what I saw on opening night is any indication, audiences across the country will love it as well - assuming major problems with the sound system are corrected. The costumes and scenery are bright and colorful, the performances admirable, and the story as compelling and coherent as it was nearly fifty years ago, if not more so.
Like South Pacific and Oklahoma, The King and I is more a play with music than a conventional musical comedy. The songs are an integral part of the book and flow naturally from it. And the story itself is a fascinating one. Based on her own diaries, it tells of how English widow Anna Leonowens travels to Bangkok in the 1860s at the request of the Siamese King Mongkut to educate his children and his court in modern "scientific" ideas. Anna and the King are the classic irresistible force and immovable object, respectively, and their progression from misunderstanding to mutual admiration and even affection is the mainspring of the plot. A tragic subplot involves the King's concubine Tuptim and her Burmese lover Lun Tha.
Lego Louis is a commanding figure as the King, claiming for his own a role that was for many decades the personal property of the late Yul Brynner. Susannah Kenton - granddaughter of jazz great Stan Kenton - is a terrific match for him both in voice and stage presence, and they work wonderfully together. Wen Zhang brings more than the usual depth to the role of Lady Thiang, the King's principal wife, and Eunha Jung brings a beautiful soprano to the role of the doomed Tuptim.
It's the character of Tuptim who writes and narrates the story ballet "The Small House of Uncle Thomas" - her version of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Thanks to the late Jerome Robbins' inventive choreography, this is usually a highlight of The King and I, and this production is no exception. The combination of Robbins' stylized movement, the eye-catching costumes, and fine performances by the dancers is a continual source of delight.
The evening on the whole would be a delight if not for one major technical problem. On opening night, at least, the amplified sound was just short of dreadful. The system ticked and popped, mics weren't always on or off at the right times, and the overall quality was bass-heavy and muddy, obscuring many of Hammerstein's lyrics. Hopefully the problems will be ironed out by the time you hear this review. If not, this tour is in danger of having its high dramatic, musical and scenic values undercut by lousy electronics.
The King and I continues at the Fox in Grand Center through Sunday, August 16th. Call 534-1111 for ticket information.