THE KING AND I at London Palladium - Sher Quality

Constant Reader, as you might have noticed, I am currently running through my Top 50 Musicals but pity the new musicals that land in the middle of this exercise... I cannot include them in the list so they will have to sit in the anti-room, swinging their tap-shoes and twiddling their thumbs, waiting for the next go-round.  Rules is rules...  and remarkably that is where the 67 year-old THE KING AND I finds itself now I have finally seen it on stage.

I had always resisted seeing it onstage as I had a lingering dislike of Rodgers and Hammerstein's canon which was probably as much to do with perception as anything else, I simply had not seen any on stage, only the film versions of their biggest shows: OKLAHOMA, CAROUSEL, SOUTH PACIFIC, THE KING AND I and THE SOUND OF MUSIC.  But after seeing Bartlett Sher's wonderful revival of SOUTH PACIFIC at Lincoln Center, I decided it was time to have another look at them - and here we are again in the safe hands of Sher with his Lincoln Center production now residing at the London Palladium, which has twice before been the home for the show.

What THE KING AND I has always been is a star vehicle: Gertrude Lawrence's agent contacted Rodgers and Hammerstein in 1950 to see it they could adapt a book about Anna Leonowens who had been a tutor to the children of the Siamese King Mongkut between 1861 and 1867.  They were wary, not seeing how they could make the episodic book into a through-story and also had concerns about Lawrence's failing vocal power but after seeing the 1946 film ANNA AND THE KING OF SIAM they saw how their show could be about the clash of cultures - the King wishing to open his country out to the West but reluctant to give up his absolute power - while the traditional musical love story could be relegated to the supporting characters of Tuptim and Lun Tha.

The search was on to find The King but none of the original choices were available - enter an actor who was concentrating on being a television director, Yul Brynner.  What was considered a supporting role suddenly took off with Brynner's magnetic performance and the show was a hit.  But tragically, Lawrence started to falter with the demands of the role and started missing performances regularly; she would recover but then be hit with another illness.  Despite hospital check-ups for the various ailments the doctors failed to diagnose that she had liver cancer.  She, Brynner and the show won Tony Awards in March of 1952 but her health continued to fail and she died in September 1952, one of her last wishes was for Brynner to be given star billing. 

Brynner's success in New York meant he could not appear in the London premiere which starred Herbert Lom opposite Valerie Hobson, and of course Yul Brynner went on to recreate his role in the 1956 film version opposite Deborah Kerr for which he won the Best Actor Academy Award; Brynner would finally play the King in London at the Palladium in a 1979 revival which he had already played on Broadway and a tour for three years.  He continued to play his iconic role on and off until four months before his death in 1985, even after being diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer two years before.  A limited engagement New York Center revival in 1960 gave Barbara Cook a chance to play Anna opposite Farley Grainger; she later said that, although she only played it for a month, it was her favourite role - she said the actress playing Anna is perfectly supported by both score and book.

This thought is certainly borne out by the extraordinary Kelli O'Hara who lights up the production with a luminous performance which fully justifies her Tony Award for it; her Anna is an intelligent, still-grieving widow who, while standing her ground to The King when she feels she is in the right, warms to his intellectual curiosity and belief in his country.  We had missed seeing her in SOUTH PACIFIC so it was a real thrill to experience her soaring, full-bodied soprano voice as she sang the standards "Hello Young Lovers", "Getting To Know You" and "Shall We Dance?"

She is joined by her Broadway co-star Ken Watanabe who was given a bit of a rough ride by the NY critics for his heavy Japanese accent but I thought he gave a winning performance, effortlessly bringing out the King's wily humour and curiosity as well as his imperious demands for respect.  It was a testament to both their performances that by the time of their climactic duet "Shall We Dance?" you can relax and just enjoy their obvious pleasure in performing together.  It's a role that is so identified with Brynner that Watanabe's success in the role is all the better for that.

It was announced that Ruthie Ann Miles would recreate her Tony Award-winning role as Lady Thiang but tragically she has hit by a dangerous driver in March, killing not only her 4 year-old daughter but her unborn child too. Miles is still credited in the programme as is Naoko Mori who was a glorious addition to the production, her version of "Something Wonderful" was one of the stand-outs and she made Lady Thiang a real presence.

I also liked Na-Young Jeon as Tuptim, the 'present' from the King of Burma to the King.  She too had real presence on stage and played the role was a keen pain; I particularly liked her singing of "My Lord and Master", which is one of my favourite songs in a score packed with classics.  One of the few failings of Hammerstein's book is the role of Lun Tha is so under-written: he literally runs on, sings a song with Tuptim, then runs off again - twice!  Dean John-Wilson ran nicely but that's about it.

As with SOUTH PACIFIC, Bartlett Sher's direction seemed to clear away all the accumulated clutter around the musical so the characters lived within the production, bringing fully thought-through lives onto the stage with them.  For such a lavish musical there are only 9 roles within it and Sher seemed to give them all - apart from Lun Tha - a space and a moment to make themselves known.  His production certainly had it's moments of lavishness - and of course the lengthy "Small House of Uncle Thomas" ballet in Act II - but Sher seemed to make the book numbers spring naturally from the action rather than signalling "Ok musical number, I'll hand over to the choreographer".

Sher is reunited with his SOUTH PACIFIC creative team and they all contribute to the show's success: Christopher Gattelli recreates Jerome Robbins' choreography well -  I even liked the potential interest zone-out of "Small House of Uncle Thomas" with it's fine central performance by Ena Yamaguchi!  Michael Yeargan's glorious Siamese court shimmers with gold opulence of the court without overdoing it and also gives us a memorable opening scene of Anna's ship coming into the Bangkok harbour against a turbulent sunset.  Catherine Zuber's costumes are pure joy and Donald Holder's lighting also give the production a glorious sheen.

THE KING AND I is playing until the end of September - do see it, it's Something Wonderful.

 

 

For the first time in months and months and months O and I went to a picture show - they have sound and everything nowadays. The film that was honoured by our presence was Christopher Nolan's sci-fi epic INCEPTION.I must say although I was initially thrown and floundered for about 20 minutes I soon found my dreamscape feet and was hooked throughout the film's lengthy running time.

The screen it was showing in was one of the Odeon's smallest and there were only a handful of us there until just as the lights went down for the obligatory ads when a constant stream of punters appeared and by the the time the film proper started it was full! Luckily they were very quiet.
The convoluted plot involves Leonardo di Caprio (filling out with every new film) as Cobb, the best man you can employ to enter someone's dreams and generally move things about in there for corporate gain. But Cobb and his sidekick Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) have their most challenging job yet when the shadowy - aren't they always? - businessman Saito (Ken Watanabe) wants them to infiltrate the dreamworlds of a rival Fischer (the oddly featured Cillian Murphy).

As Saito wants an untried action, a thought to be implanted in deep sub-consciousness, Cobb gathers together a team to help him - the cocky impersonator Eames (Tom Hardy), the King of sedatives Yusuf (Dileep Rao) and Ariadne (Ellen Page) a young architecture student to design the landscape the dream will take place in.However Ariadne discovers a secret Cobb has kept from the others - his dreams are haunted by his dead wife Mal (Marion Cotillard) who appears to be bent on revenge for him living on without her. But once inside the rival's head they find that they are all in danger as Fischer has previously been treated for such intrusions and has a personal army to thwart any attempt to interfere with his dreams.

A race against time ensues - can the team manage to implant doubt in his mind? Can they escape the businessman's dream army? Can Cobb escape from his tortured memories of Mal - or will she get her revenge? Ahh go and see the film and find out!As I said while I was there I has hooked on the journey our intrepid band take but since then I have had a few doubts about it. I read an interesting review where a female critic took several swipes at Christopher Nolan's vision. I have to agree that the dreamscapes are remarkably prosaic - rainy NY streets, hotel, an empty city of lakes and high-rises and, most boring of all, an arctic bunker a la James Bond.

I am hoping Nolan would respond by saying that the visions are the boring businessman not his. But where was the surrealism that makes dreams such a challenge usually in film? Where was the wondrous colour and strange juxtaposition? Dreams should be something unlike life - not like so many dull action films. I fear also the lengthy dream level set in the arctic had the film loosening it's grip on me.Also, while it was good that the Cobb - Ariadne relationship doesn't devolve into a standard love story, I have the sneaking suspicion that this could be because Nolan really has no idea how to write a credible female character. The potentially fascinating character of Mal is written rather large as a man's nightmare woman - it is thanks to the hypnotic Cotillard that she emerges as a haunting creation. It's very much a Boy Film - it's very father-based, mothers are never referred to. I also found it rather irksome that the whole film was ultimately resolved by a daddy and kids Happy Ending.The performances are all luckily from the same dictionary of dreams page. Leo has a role which is surprisingly an echo of his last one in SHUTTER ISLAND - husband haunted by the death of his wife having flashbacks to his boy and girl playing in the garden! Like, Leo... let it go lover! Actually he gives another fine performance. He is nicely partnered by fellow former child-actor Gordon-Levitt who gets the best of the hotel sequence.Tom Hardy steals every scene he's in as Eames the laconic forger who can change into any likeness in any dream, his sardonic lines give the film a much needed dash of humour. Ellen Page is fine as the architecture student who realises Cobb's obsession will jeopardise the job and Ken Watanabe is fine although sometimes incoherent as Saito while Michael Caine and Pete Postlethwaite give telling cameos as the fathers of Cobb and Fischer.

Constant Reader, you will know I have rated Marion Cotillard's performances in LA VIE EN ROSE and NINE and here again she gives a film a vibrant shot of genuine pain and febrile intensity as Mal, so you yearn for her next appearance. I just wish Nolan had given her more screen time.I am sure the film will intrigue and have filmsites a-buzz for a while, how long it lives in the memory though will have to be seen. I would however recommend you see it on the big screen while you can as the film will diminish if seen on a smaller screen.