King and I Tour

[Princeton78]

Posted: 11/7/16 at 9:38pm

Just wanted to say that I caught the opening leg of the tour in Providence yesterday, and it was magnificent.  I saw the show in NYC in February on a night when apparently Kelli was not feeling well, and I was overall underwhelmed, with the giant exemption of Ruthie Ann Miles, who I thought was absolutely glorious.

The tour was fresh, sounded glorious (18 piece orchestra did the score as much justice as the large orchestra in NY), and Jose Llana and Laura Michelle Kelly blew me away.  Jose got every laugh you could have possibly gotten out of the role, and still broke your heart when he needed to.  Laura found nuances in the score I'd never heard, and her ending of "Hello Young Lovers" in full belt, nearly stopped the show.  I can't say enough about the chemistry between the two..it was remarkable and palpable.  The entire cast was in fine voice with Manna Nichols as Tuptim, another standout, along with Kelly.  Obviously, this wasn't a thrust stage, but otherwise, all the set pieces (including the boat) are there.  I don't recall the pillars shifting and moving during "Shall we Dance" at the Beaumont, but they did here, and I think the whole audience held their breath as Kelly and Llana swirled around them effortlessly.  

I found this performance to be more fresh, better sung, and ultimately more moving than the NY show, and I will very likely see it again when it hits Boston in April '17.

Just wanted to share.  :)

[MichelleCraig]

Posted: 11/7/16 at 10:23pm

Thanks for posting your thoughts. Seems like this is a must-see touring production for those of us not lucky enough to see it in New York.

[BroadwayConcierge]

Posted: 11/7/16 at 10:37pm

I also heard raves for the production from my friends in Providence. Seems like this is a tour not to be missed (as was the Broadway production!).

[mcsquared]

Posted: 11/7/16 at 10:53pm

Princeton78, another person living close to both Boston and Providence here though decided to wait and see it in Boston since was busy last week. Maybe I'll see you there!

[PatrickDC]

Posted: 11/7/16 at 11:31pm

Didn't see it in NYC so really looking forward to seeing it on Nov 17th when the tour comes through San Francisco. It's here for almost a month before Los Angeles.

 

[evamon]

Posted: 11/8/16 at 12:58am

That's wonderful to hear! I'll be in Dec for a week in December when it's playing. I'll definitely try catch it :) 

[ARTc3]

Posted: 12/11/16 at 10:37pm

I saw The King and I tour last night (San Francisco) and was completely underwhelmed. Laura Michelle Kelly was wonderful and the sound from my excellent seats was exemplary (I heard every word and the show is sung mostly beautifully), but everything else about this production was just so so. Jose Llana, who I have enjoyed in other productions, was acting in a totally different time period. His larger than life interpretation seemed way too contemporary and completely inappropriate. The blocking was overly busy and unmotivated. They looked like they were moving only to accommodate the sight lines of the Vivian Beaumont (thrust), but are now performing on a proscenium. The set was terrible. I read so many positive things about the design. Why? The main set piece is a rather ugly, bland back wall to the palace.

Its the King and I and as such always enjoyable, but of the many productions I have seen, this was by far the least inspired.

Updated On: 12/13/16 at 10:37 PM

[Danster]

Posted: 12/11/16 at 11:15pm

I loved the show with Kelli O`Hara and Ken Watanabe. I was going to go back last August to see Marrin Mazzie and Daniel Dae Kim, but it closed earlier than anyone had expected. Although I would love to see the show again, I am sure this is a scaled down version especially the beginning so I am not tempted to go.

Thanks for your comments

[gleek4114]

Posted: 12/12/16 at 1:17am

Does anyone have any idea if this tour will extend into the 2017-18 touring season? I would really love to see it, but the most feasible right now would be for me to go to Tampa to visit family and see it while I'm there. It would be ideal if they hit more cities in the midwest (Ohio area). 

[theatreguy12]

Posted: 12/12/16 at 2:20am

Looking forward to seeing this on opening night in L.A. this Tuesday.  

Have always been a huge Jose Llana fan.  

And what can you say about Laura Michelle Kelly that hasn't already been said.  What a charmer.   Loved her in Finding Neverland, and I'm eager to see her take on Anna.

I saw the show earlier this year at Lincoln Center with Kelly O'Hara and Ken Watanabe and thought it was a beautiful production.  It will be wonderful to have the chance to compare, but still appreciate the interpretation of the touring cast.  It sounds like it's getting a very positive response.

[bwayphreak234]

Posted: 12/12/16 at 7:15am

gleek4114 said: "Does anyone have any idea if this tour will extend into the 2017-18 touring season?."

 

I can tell you for a fact that it will be touring into 2017-2018 season!

 

[gleek4114]

Posted: 12/12/16 at 9:10am

So good to hear that! I'll wait to see what new cities are announced before I look into Tampa tickets! Thanks for the help!

[theatreguy12]

Posted: 12/16/16 at 3:38am

Saw it on Tuesday night in LA and really liked it.

It really is a beautiful production.

Spoiled having seen it at Lincoln Center with regard to the sets and the majestic, grand nature of the stage, but I thought it looked really good on tour. In its own way.

It also has the same lush costumes, and I felt the performances were outstanding.  

I will always love Llana, and I felt his interpretation was at once grand and playful.    He was super!  

LMK was just enchanting.  She's different from KO, but I must say that I liked her just as much. In her own way.

As for the two young lovers, I thought Tuptim had a glorious voice. I found her stronger than him, even though he was still pretty good.  

Though no one will sing "I Have Dreamed" better than Llana in my opinion. 

Overall, a very well done, beautiful production.  

Again, a bit spoiled by the majesty of the Lincoln Center staging, but the tour has achieved well with what they have.

[bear88]

Posted: 12/16/16 at 4:47am

I saw it in San Francisco last week, and I have no problem with any of the cast. The boat was impressive enough for me. I wanted to like it because I met a member of the company waiting for rush tickets. (House seats are 80 bucks, so rush was cheaper. Oh, the glamour of being on tour.)

If you like The King and I, you will enjoy this production. The problem was that I didn't really like the musical. It has some good songs, but that play-within-a-play in the second act is just stupid and drags on forever. (I never appreciated the Oklahoma ballet more, because at least that has a point.) The ending felt abrupt and pointless; there's a tragic story in there, but it didn't really feel tragic. Even in the context of a 1951 production, and the problematic treatment of the characters in Siam, the manufactured drama gets old pretty quickly. Kelly and Llana do their best, though, milking as many laughs and pathos as the material allows. 

[ljay889]

Posted: 12/16/16 at 7:18am

Wait, you don't think there was a point to the Small House of Uncle Thomas ballet?

[KathyNYC2]

Posted: 12/16/16 at 10:14am

ljay889 said: "Wait, you don't think there was a point to the Small House of Uncle Thomas ballet?

 

"

I was thinking the same thing. Seriously no point????? 

[LizzieCurry]

Posted: 12/16/16 at 10:16am

bear88 said: "If you like The King and I, you will enjoy this production. The problem was that I didn't really like the musical. It has some good songs, but that play-within-a-play in the second act is just stupid and drags on forever. (I never appreciated the Oklahoma ballet more, because at least that has a point.) "

Yeah, no reason for slaves to find a relatable story about slavery in another country, is there?!

[bear88]

Posted: 12/16/16 at 12:12pm

Yeah, no reason for slaves to find a relatable story about slavery in another country, is there?!

Perhaps "pointless" wasn't the perfect word. Yes, I got the slavery analogy in the "Small House of Uncle Thomas" ballet. The slavery of Tuptim was painfully obvious.

But despite the actress' best efforts, I didn't find the ballet a great expression of that analogy. It's a little hard to feel much when you're a bit embarrassed for the talented Asian-American performers who are going through what seemed like someone's 1951-era idea of Asian exotica. It's a bit hard to feel much when the ballet is incredibly drawn out and boring. Perhaps another production has been able to pull that one off. The show I saw didn't. So it did feel pointless, because you could have cut the entire ballet without losing a thing, and saved the audience an indulgent, momentum-killing piece. Tuptim's story is just as tragic without having everything spelled out in capital letters in the ballet. The impact of her attempted escape on Anna and the king is just as tragic.

Chalk mine up as an unpopular opinion, inartfully expressed. I enjoyed many things about the musical, but I didn't really like the show.

[LizzieCurry]

Posted: 12/16/16 at 12:17pm

I am Asian American and while I see some of your point regarding exotica (I liked the show much more than I did, but I waited until the end of the run on Broadway to see it, due to multiple instances of hesitation), but I didn't come down on it as hard as you did.

[bear88]

Posted: 12/16/16 at 1:14pm

In fairness, works of art are products of their time, and The King and I is no exception. The exotica element bothered me less than the tediousness of the long ballet, with the stars literally sitting in the wings as the audience. The ballet didn't enhance the show, in my view, or give a different perspective. Maybe it did when the musical was first performed. I'm certainly accustomed the long ballet interludes in shows from that era (hence my mention of Oklahoma, also by Rodgers and Hammerstein) but this one didn't add anything for me. Maybe the ballet was handled better in New York. I don't know. It just landed with a thud, and kept going on and on. 

And yes, I'm being a little harsh. But my wife had the same reaction. The energy was sucked out of the audience too. 

[AHLiebross]

Posted: 12/25/16 at 1:37am

I'm seeing it Wednesday afternoon at the Hollywood Pantages. I have seats in the last orchestra row. I'm curious if I'll feel as involved as when I have better seats.

Audrey

[OlBlueEyes]

Posted: 12/25/16 at 12:52pm

I love The King and I, and especially this Lincoln Center production, which I saw once with each king. But the ballet has always been its low point for me. I can see why many appreciate it. Asians in Asian costume displaying the fine arts of their own culture.  Enchanting. It certainly is well-integrated with the story. I think my main problem with it is length. Fifteen minutes. Cut five minutes off it and I'm fine. Now it brings the main storyline to a complete halt for too long.

I'll bet there are a lot of fellow Philistines out there on this. The period of inserting ballets into the middle of musicals was critic-driven, not audience-driven.

The first time or two I saw the film, I was puzzled by the progression in just a few months of this relatively young, virile King to his deathbed. Did they want me to believe that the King was dying because Anna had humiliated him in front of his subjects? That would be a hard sell. I'm OK with it now. There must have been lots of fatal jungle illnesses going around at that time in history. Of course the King doesn't show much in the way of symptoms. But it brings everything to a good resolution.

[ScottyDoesn'tKnow2]

Posted: 12/26/16 at 12:21pm

I saw the magnificient production at Lincoln Center with Ken Watanabe, Kelli O'Hara, and Ruthie Ann Miles and loved the show. However, I have to agree with The Small House of Uncle Thomas ballet really being needless, which surprised me because I thought it was an absolutely highlight in the movie and was seriously looking forward to it when I finally got to see a professional live production of it. Maybe because I enjoyed the energy and momentum of show up to that point (whereas the movie was becoming a bit lifeless by that point) that I felt the ballet brought everything to a screeching halt and lasted way too long despite the excellent choreography and dancing on display.

I went with a few of my fellow Asian-American friends and we came to the conclusion that it seemed like the original creative team got really excited to incorporate Thai-style dances and costumes that they learned and also wanted to hit the slave analogy extremely hard to make the show "important" (Rodgers/Hammerstein's "Got to Be Taught" lecture) that they sacrificed further development of the story. The ending is always so rushed afterwards. It goes from Anna/King friendship then fight, Tuptim presumably being put to death (Ken Watanabe was extremely effective with that whip), and Anna wanting to leave only to have the King get suddenly sick due to heartbreak somehow and dying. I felt like more could have happened to make it a more natural progression if so much of Act II wasn't devoted to the ballet.

Updated On: 12/26/16 at 12:21 PM

[Californian]

Posted: 12/26/16 at 11:33pm

I saw the tour in LA, and enjoyed the tour as much or more than I did the NY production with Marrin Mazzie and Daniel Dae Kim.  Both Jose Llana and Laura Michelle Kelly are wonderful.  

[OlBlueEyes]

Posted: 12/29/16 at 2:14am

The ending is always so rushed afterwards. It goes from Anna/King friendship then fight, Tuptim presumably being put to death (Ken Watanabe was extremely effective with that whip), and Anna wanting to leave only to have the King get suddenly sick due to heartbreak somehow and dying. 

That is a good observation. The ending is rushed. We go right from the high of the polka to the low of the whipping. And then all of a sudden the King is mysteriously dying.

Then again the master, Mr. Hammerstein, might have been right on target. The last minutes of the musical do command your absolute attention, and the ending I think is effective.