Millie: alternate version?

i know nothing about the alternate but millie was not a broadway revival

there is a School Edition in the works that'll be watered down. That's all I know...

A dinner theatre here in MD did an altered version last year in which all of the Asian text and themes were changed to Lithuanian. I don't think they licensed a "different version" but rather enlisted the aid of the broadway book writer who worked with the staff to change it.

FYI: It drained eeeeeevery ounce of humor from the work. Mrs Meers as a gypsy was painful to watch and the servant characters (which were changed to hulking white guys) were not that funny either. Line changes were equally as awful ("I won't stand by while critics praise ya. You're getting shipped to Lith-u-ania!").

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I'm doing millie at my school right now and we open tomorrow but it's the same broadway version. haven't seen any alternate versions of it out there but I guess there might be.

"Also--the stage directions in the script go on at length about the politics of it all.
Oh well then, if the stage directions (which no one gets to see) jusstify it, then I'm sure it's ok then.


Also--Muquin (Mammy) is satirical and ironic. It references Al Jolson, who performed it in Blackface--and equates Mrs. Meers to him.

I get it, but most of the people today who saw it don't. So they just laugh at the funny asians.

And Ching Li and Bun Foo are working to bring their mother to the US from China--so the lyrics of the song are sincere from there point of view. "

Just because the authors made them want to act like fools doesn't make it ok.
That was the excuse that minstrels used, and if you read the excellent book 'Blacking Up" you'll see that after emancipation Minstrels often turned to mocking other minorities, including Native Americans, Women and Asians. Not only was it racist, it was unoriginal.

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^^^^ A visual aid..

Anyway, I forgot to mention that at least in the film the poor sterotypes of Asians as slave traders and prostitutes was mitigated by the surprising mini-hero in the character of Tea. Although I don't know if Tea showed up in the stage version because I didn't hang around to find out.

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A dinner theatre here in MD ....

Yes, that is the theatre I am talking about. Funny that someone on the theatre staff told my friend that MTI licensed another version...maybe wires got crossed...

"The stage version was just offensively bad and remarkably unfunny altogether."

I have to agree with you on that.

"The Chinese men are real sincere characters, not caricatures of themselves."

Mr. Musicalsaregreat

I lived in China for over a year, and have many many Asian friends among people I work with doing Korean operas as well as dabbling in Peking Opera myself.

NO ONE I have ever met from Asia acts like that, unless they are trying to portray a stereotype. I'm sorry, if you don't find that offensive, then there is something wrong with you.

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Am I the only one to realize that Fenchurch always seems to have an excuse to be judgemental? I mean, Fenchurch has done and lived through EVERYTHING possible for him/her to "rightfully" say what is intolerable, wrong, etc.

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Updated On: 4/26/07 at 03:27 PM

I understand that you've lived in China, but you didn't answer my question, what is it that they specifically do that you find offensive? If you saw someone playing a Paris Hilton or Anna Nicole Smith character on stage, would you say that it is an offensive portrayal of white people? So again, specifically, what about those characters is offensive?

You know what my idea of an alternate version of Millie is? One that I'd actually wanna see.

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