Chop suey lyrics hammerstein2/29/2024 ![]() So a regal name like the Golden Pearl Theatre disappears, and in its place comes Club Chop Suey, replete with dancing girls in takeout boxes, fierce fans that snap off the dancers wrists and gigantic chopsticks. After all, the play is set in the early 1960s, right around the time Mickey Rooney was dazzling folks with his piece of shit portrayal as Mr. Authentic Chinese culture on Grant Avenue isn’t what these white audiences crave. On a good night, the aforementioned masses may top out at around six people. Those two who present these authentic works are her dad’s old buddy Wang Chi-Yang (a warm and deft Bryan Pangilinan) and his foster brother Chin (the charmer Joey Alvarado). She begins waitressing at a nightclub featuring performers who are spending their time bringing authentic Chinese dances to the masses of San Francisco’s Chinatown. When she arrives to San Francisco after her father dies in prison defying the communists, she only possesses the clothes on her back and a flower drum (thankfully, this premise is very different than the mail order bride trope which brought her over in the original version). Her hints of sadness, guarded joy and path to discovery create the truth required for this pivotal role. This story starts and finishes with Chinese opera performer Mei-Li (a fantastic, honest turn by Homestead High School senior Emily Song). While some of the performances are a little imbalanced and a few moments of choreography didn’t always cohere, there are certainly plenty of wonderful touches that bring forth a show that is rich in culture and heritage, a thrilling investment for an Asian story to be told in the way it needs to be told. It doesn’t take long to realize that this production, beautifully stewarded by director Lily Tung Crystal, is a more honest interpretation which comes from David Henry Hwang’s complete 2002 makeover of the show’s book. Oh, there have been plenty of Asian portrayals in film and opera, many of them downright offensive and embarrassing. And for many years, “Flower Drum Song” was the only musical that featured Asian faces. When this show premiered on Broadway in 1958 followed by the film version three years later, portrayals of Asian characters in film and on stage were a rarity. Their faces were used, but their truths were not. There is also a palpable authenticity to the performances, a group of Asian artists grabbing hold of their narrative, despite the fact that this piece was not constructed as their narrative at all in the original 1958 Broadway production. There is a sliver of painful poetry as the ocean pelts the new immigrants in their rickety boat that brings them to the promise of a new land. It only takes a single viewing of the opening tableau of the Palo Alto Players production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Flower Drum Song” to feel the richness of what’s to come. Ta (Jomar Martinez) and Mei-Li (Emily Song) search for love in San Francisco’s Chinatown of the 1960s in “Flower Drum Song,” through May 12th in Palo Alto.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |