Glad you enjoyed it so much.
But, to clarify my disappointment with it, I felt its relationship to THE KING AND I was an idea, not something that the show realized. Yes, if you read the articles and publicity before the show you could say, "Ah yes, it's a reversal of THE KING AND I, this is how Orientals feels when their culture is represented by U.S. musicals." Regular audience members walking out might be more likely to say "WTF?" Unlike CLYBOURNE PARK this show did not effectively dramatize its cultural reversal. It stated it and expected to be applauded for it. And I'll add a personal caveat: I'm tired of cultural appropriation. I like to think of it as a melting pot. Works better that way.
One final thought: in it's insistence on cultural appropriation as a dominant theme, the show slipped at times into a kind of anti-Americanism. I'm no Trump flag waver, but it felt smug and it irritated me. I don't think it was a mistake that the song that got the most applause was "Democracy." That's something we do far better than China. |
