{"id":2890,"date":"2012-01-24T23:48:11","date_gmt":"2012-01-25T04:48:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/?p=2890"},"modified":"2012-01-31T19:43:16","modified_gmt":"2012-02-01T00:43:16","slug":"shall-we-dance-and-think-about-privilege-and-race-the-king-and-i-at-tobys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/?p=2890","title":{"rendered":"Shall We Dance and Think About Privilege and Race? THE KING AND I at Toby’s"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0Theater Reviews Page<\/a> | Previous Theater Review<\/a> | Next Theater Review<\/a><\/p>\n

Shall We Dance and Think About Privilege and Race? THE KING AND I at Toby’s<\/h2>\n
\"\"<\/a>

Heather Marie Beck and David Bosley-Reynolds<\/p><\/div>\n

Published on BroadwayWorld.com on January 24, 2012<\/p>\n

To all accounts, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II were dragged somewhat reluctantly by their wives into the project that became The King and I<\/em> (1951). And when Rodgers and Hammerstein did become involved, they focused more on the piece as a vehicle for the talents of Gertrude Lawrence and for lovely songs and spectacle than scoring points in any serious national discussion. But sometimes the discussion finds you.<\/p>\n

The excellent revival of The King and <\/em>I at Toby\u2019s Columbia provides an opportunity to reexamine a show most of us think we know. Viewed from 60 years on, the musical seems like a logical next step, after South Pacific<\/em> (1949), in the authors\u2019 consideration of racial privilege and segregation, a topic then coming to a boil in the United States. (Truman had integrated the Armed Forces only three years before, and some of the cases shortly to be consolidated as Brown v. Board of Education<\/em> were already wending their way through the courts.)\u00a0 Broadway held a much bigger place in the popular culture and the national discourse then than it does now. So Rodgers and Hammerstein could not possibly have failed to weigh their contributions to that discourse, or to be ignorant of the impact those contributions would have.<\/p>\n

Everyone is “The Other”<\/h3>\n

Just like South Pacific<\/em>, The King and I<\/em> addresses the American racial discussion only by indirection.\u00a0 In the earlier work, the focus is on miscegenation, and the \u201cother\u201d race is Micronesian (the planter\u2019s children) or Vietnamese (Bloody Mary\u2019s daughter), in neither case African American. In The King and I<\/em>, the focus is on privilege, and the un-privileged \u201cothers\u201d are women, Southeast Asians, even whites \u2013 in fact everyone who is not the King himself is in a non-privileged status at some point vis-\u00e0-vis the King. Even the King, it emerges, is un-privileged and suspect next to the monarchs of the European colonizing powers.<\/p>\n

In this drama that turns completely on group identity and privilege, U.S. race relations are explicitly dragged in only as a critique of gender relations in the Siamese court, via the Uncle Tom\u2019s Cabin<\/em> pantomime and ballet. But every status disparity, whether between men and women, Thais and Burmese, a king and his subjects, Simon Legree and Eliza, or Queen Victoria and King Mongkut, is shown an enemy to human potential and happiness. It is hard to imagine a musical in which the baneful effects of privilege are more fully limned and pilloried.<\/p>\n

The relevance and power of this denunciation could hardly have been lost on Rodgers and Hammerstein\u2019s contemporaries, no matter how indirectly it was expressed.<\/p>\n

As the world knows, The King and I<\/em> is built around the tale of Anna Leonowens, a British governess hired by the King of Siam in 1862 to teach some of his wives and children. Leonowens (in her two memoirs that were the source of Margaret Landon\u2019s novel about her, which in turn was the source for The King and I<\/em>) presented herself as a symbol of British breeding and enlightenment, bringing civility and a progressive view of gender roles to an utterly patriarchal court. Even historically, this was a slight gloss; Leonowens was of mixed Indian and English parentage, and of low birth \u2013 facts she was at pains to conceal. But her feminism was real, realer in fact than Rodgers and Hammerstein gave their character credit for.<\/p>\n

Your Grandmother’s Feminism<\/h3>\n

What Rodgers and Hammerstein gave us was your grandmother\u2019s feminism (well, many grandmothers\u2019 feminism): female freedom defined primarily as the freedom to cleave to a man of one\u2019s own choosing, after the relationship derives value from a conventional romance. Some of Rodgers and Hammerstein\u2019s greatest songs, all in this show, extol that kind of love: HELLO, YOUNG LOVERS, MY LORD AND MASTER, and I HAVE DREAMED. The King\u2019s unsentimental view of gender relations seems more perceptive in some ways, and probably nearer what the historical Leonowens would have appreciated, but it denies women the right to choose a mate. And the horrifying treatment of Tuptim, the Burmese concubine whose l\u00e8se majest\u00e9<\/em> consists simply of insisting on romantic autonomy after having been given to the King, makes clear that this freedom is nonetheless fundamental and indispensible, akin to Eliza\u2019s and Uncle Tom\u2019s need not to be slaves. It may not be the whole cause, but the cause is lost without it.<\/p>\n

The King may revel in the tyranny of his privilege, but it is still Rodgers and Hammerstein\u2019s choice not to make a villain of him, any more than they would want to demonize the segregationists who bought tickets to sit in their audience. They may enshrine an Uncle Tom\u2019s Cabin<\/em> ballet in the heart of the dramatized debate, but they are not about to present the King as a latter-day Simon Legree.<\/p>\n

Love for the Oppressor?<\/h3>\n

Instead, the King is given many allowances, because he is striving to better his country and is in some ways as much a prisoner of patriarchy as his concubines. That is the burden of his chief wife Lady Thiang\u2019s song SOMETHING WONDERFUL. I do not think any modern musical could present that song that way; it would sound like an abused wife singing a paean to her spouse.\u00a0 But within this 1951 artifact of a show, it works. Likewise, the King is softened by Rodgers and Hammerstein; in the end, he cannot bring himself to lash Tuptim though according to his received ways he should (by contrast the Tuptim in Anna\u2019s memoir was publicly tortured and then burned alive \u2013 after Mongkut had first promised Anna he would spare her).<\/p>\n

The conflict of progressive and retrograde messages in this show (How much love can you give a well-intentioned oppressor? Is it feminist to fight for the right to choose a man whose regard is vital?) gives rise to a powerful temptation in modern stagings, which is to sweep all those 20th<\/sup>-Century conflicts under the rug, and simply tell a powerful story of love affairs and children and pluckiness, shot through with heavenly music. And this particular production, directed by Shawn Kettering, does succumb to some extent.<\/p>\n

Resist the Sentimental Wash<\/h3>\n

Fortunately, the show has a way of forcing these issues back to the fore, most notably in the \u201cSmall House of Uncle Thomas\u201d ballet, here choreographed beautifully by Tina DeSimone (based on the Jerome Robbins ballet seen on Broadway and in the 1956 movie). In the ballet, patriarchy and racism take on an urgency that is not to be gainsaid.<\/p>\n

In any case, even seen merely on a superficial level, the show connects, when presented well.\u00a0 And this production, as I said before, is excellent. David Bosley-Reynolds\u2019 portrayal of the King especially holds the attention.\u00a0 (Half the time he sounds uncannily similar to Yul Brynner who originated and inhabited the role for many years.) Whether soliloquizing or dancing the polka with Anna (Heather Marie Beck, whom I admired in Xanadu<\/em>), he leaves you hanging on every word and gesture.\u00a0 Beck carries the tunes well, with perhaps just a hint of shrillness, and swings a mean hoop skirt.\u00a0 Julia Lancione\u2019s Tuptim and Jeffrey Shankle\u2019s Lun Tha (Tiptim\u2019s lover) harmonize beautifully and look lovely together. (Look out for Lancione’s powerful high notes.) And Crystal Freeman makes what can be made of the aforementioned SOMETHING WONDERFUL. Dancer Tegan Williams is exceptional as Eliza in the ballet sequence. The costumes by Florence Arnold are lavish and eye-catching.<\/p>\n

Do go.\u00a0 But when you do, and the conundrums of race, class, and gender that lie just beneath the surface beckon to you, think about them; do not drown in the sentimental wash, although, especially at the end when the King lies dying and a roomful of desperate tykes beg their teacher not to desert them, drowning will be difficult to resist.\u00a0 Rodgers and Hammerstein designed the ending to reduce you to tears, and they knew what they were doing.\u00a0 Resist anyhow. Think instead.<\/p>\n

Copyright(c) Jack L. B. Gohn, except for image<\/p>\n

\u00a0Theater Reviews Page<\/a> | Previous Theater Review<\/a> | Next Theater Review<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rodgers and Hammerstein designed the ending to reduce you to tears, and they knew what they were doing. Resist, even at this excellent revival,and think about the conundrums of race, class and gender that that lie just beneath the surface.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3098],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-closeup","category-theater-reviews-and-commentary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2890"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2890\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2899,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2890\/revisions\/2899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}