Though a poor "King and I" is possible, it's improbable, since the it's one of the most perfect theater pieces ever created. Few shows have both epic sweep and great moment by moment intimacy, and a story so fully deserving of every flourish, and the running time. If traditional staging values (starting with some preservation of the genius that Robbins wrought) are maintained and the text and score carefully negotiated, it's almost impossible to ruin. Almost. Of course, there's no danger of anything close to that here. It's more a question of how successful these elements coalesce, based on expectation.
"I'm a comedian, but in my spare time, things bother me." Garry Shandling
Lincoln Center Theater's The King and I arrives this spring much like the ship Chow Phya heaves into view of Bangkok on the Vivian Beaumont stage: a majestic vessel of excellent construction, expertly piloted and bringing with it many wonderful things—starting with Kelli O'Hara. What's more, in a year of bland nostalgic revivals, this grand and glorious production gives you hope in the nonprofit stewardship of our theatrical heritage. Artistic revolutions and usurpations have shaken Broadway over the decades, but Rodgers and Hammerstein's timeless lessons about empathy and equality bear repeating.
I was just thinking... I wonder if the New York Times waits 'til after intermission to post reviews online? That way, the cast conceivably wouldn't be distracted during the opening night performance...
If that's the plan, it should be up any minute, right?
Very Positive from Huffington Post, but some issues with Ken's diction.
The results, at the Beaumont, leave us shaking our heads in wonderment at just how good this "Something Wonderful" musical is -- although first time viewers are more likely to simply be swept away by the saga of Anna and the King of Siam. This King and I is excellent, although it does not soar quite so much as South Pacific. No matter; full value is given, and it's a treasure to have the show back on the Broadway boards after a seventeen-year absence.
I think her only stiff competition is Kristin Chenoweth this year. I haven't seen 20th Century yet, but I've heard she's amazing in it. I'm crossing my fingers for Kelli though.
April 16, 2015: A big, scrupulously detailed 19th-century ship glides toward the audience in the opening moments of Bartlett Sher’s resplendent production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “The King and I,” which opened on Thursday night at the Vivian Beaumont Theater. It’s an impressive sight, worthy of every “oooh” it elicits. But its presence wouldn’t count for nearly as much if it weren’t carrying such precious cargo. That’s the determined, hopeful, anxious woman in a hoop skirt who runs onto the deck, toward the ship’s prow, and into our field of vision as if in cinematic close-up. Her name is Anna Leonowens, and she is played, you lucky theatergoers, by Kelli O’Hara. One look at her face, agleam with intelligence and apprehension, and you suspect you’re in the hands of a guide you can trust. Then she starts to sing. And even if the familiar song she delivers (“I Whistle a Happy Tune&rdquo usually makes you cringe, your confidence in her — and the Lincoln Center Theater production in which she appears — starts to soar. It will stay contentedly aloft for the next 2 hours and 50 minutes. As you probably already know, Mrs. Leonowens’s task in this 1951 musical is to educate a passel of royal Siamese pupils in the ways of the West. The job of Ms. O’Hara — and that of Mr. Sher and Ken Watanabe, the commanding Japanese film star who portrays the King of Siam — is to educate 21st-century audiences in the enduring and affecting power of a colonialist-minded musical that, by rights, should probably embarrass us in the age of political correctness.
"Anything you do, let it it come from you--then it will be new."
Sunday in the Park with George