Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II | The King and I / 2017

making oneself at home

by Douglas Messerli

 

Richard Rodgers (music), Oscar Hammerstein II (book and lyrics, based on Margaret Landon’s Anna and the King of Siam), The King and I / Los Angeles, Hollywood Pantages Theatre / the performance Howard Fox and I attended was a matinee on January 18, 2017

 

 The King and I, obviously, has no witchcraft behind it. Yet, given the exoticism of the “barbarians’” world that the proper English school marm, Anna Leonowens (Laura Michelle Kelly) enters, it might as well be magical, which the sets (in this case by Michael Yeargan), costumes (by Catherine Zuber), and music all attempt to recreate. The Thailand of Rodgers and Hammerstein is a gold and marbled fantasy land that has been, quite literally, “dreamed up.” Is it any wonder that the straight-thinking Anna keeps demanding of the King (José Llana) a "normal" home outside the confines of the palace.

      Symbolically, of course, she is asking for a “home” with him, an impossible thing. How is she to become the teacher to his family and him if she, too, is not a kind concubine, and her refusal to enter into that state is also what makes her even more interesting to him—not to say her outlandish dress and manners. In a song I had forgotten, since the movie had excised it, “Western People Funny,” we get the so-called barbarians’ reaction to Anna and her kind, and we get a new perspective on how the Victorian hoops and tight ribbons must have appeared to the Siamese.

     This King, however, is clearly not stupid, and quite openly perceives that he will be seen by the English and other western cultures as a barbarian, particularly if he desires to “build a wall around Siam to protect his country.” Hearing these lines on stage two days before the inauguration of a President who has expressed that very desire, made many in the audience, I am sure, flinch.

      Anna sagely advises him to do just the opposite, to invite the outsiders into his world so that they might see he is not a true barbarian. Of course, by doing so, the writers and composer hint that the true barbarians, in this case, may be the westerners, not the people of Thailand; and this insinuation helps to soften the quite obvious colonialist sympathies of the musical, something that has always made me winch in watching the film and stage work. It’s still hard—hearing such works as “A Puzzlement” and even “I Whistle a Happy Tune”—whose reprise during the King’s death seemed terribly inappropriate and, I’d argue, should have, as the movie did, been deleted—as does the endless repetition of “etc, etc., etc,” makes it somewhat difficult to stomach some of this musical’s disdain of cultural differences.

     Never mind, by the time the big bash is over, and we’ve experienced the cross-cultural lectures of the stunning Jerome Robbins-inspired ballet-within-a musical, “The Small House of Uncle Thomas,” the situation has radically shifted. The King, a bit like Trump, is now convinced of his own cleverness, and Anna, after a breathless series of polkas in “Shall We Dance,” has fallen in love with the seeming barbarian.

      Given her position still as an outsider, however, she cannot completely “redeem” him, and he is still committed to punishing his slave-concubine from Burma, Tuptin (Manna Nichols). He is, after all, a kind of barbarian in Anna’s eyes, and recognizing that he remains so in her eyes, quite literally destroys him.

     However, even the fact that the departing Anna determines to stay on and help the Prince Chulalongkorn (Anthony Chan, so much better than the movie Prince) during his new reign, it is hard to forgive her moral abandonment. And, in the end, we do feel that, despite all of her good intentions, it is she who has been not only the King’s adversary, but his personal barbarian—a kind of colonialist amazon who has imposed her views and values upon a vastly developed society, even if it be an autocratic one.

      The things that save this musical from its thematic inconsistencies are many: the wonderful singing of all involved (although the necessary amplification of voices, given the vast size of the Pantages theater, was a bit disconcerting), the simple yet elegant settings (including a gloriously beautiful curtain used to marvelous effect throughout), along with orchestral settings I’d not heard before which made me aware of just how muted was the symphonic version presented by the 1956 movie, as well as all the other stage-craft talents in lighting and costumes, and, of course, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s resplendent score. I admit that I loved this production.

 

Los Angeles, January 19, 2017

Reprinted from World Cinema Review and USTheater, Opera and Performance (January 2017).