Lea Salonga and George Takei in Allegiance at the Longacre Theatre, New York. Picture: Matthew Murphy
Allegiance continues at the Longacre Theatre, New York.
Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★
Allegiance tells an epic story in unabashed epic fashion. This new Broadway musical boldly targets the audience’s emotions and pretty much succeeds in engaging them with lots of plot, not-too-distant history and a score that goes from driving, quasi-opera-like anthems to swingy pop tunes and yearning love songs reminiscent of the Big Band 1940s.
Depicted is the unjustified internment of Japanese Americans who lived on America’s West Coast during the Second World War. The edict forced them to give up their homes and businesses in an overreaching of wartime hysteria in the wake of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
The show’s book is by Marc Acito, Jay Kuo and Lorenzo Thione, and the music and lyrics were written by Kuo; a group of creators taking on Broadway for the first time.
The story centres on the Kimura family: the widower Tatsuo; his daughter Kei; his younger son, Sammy, and the elderly grandfather, Ojii-chan. Tatsuo’s wife died in giving birth to Sammy, and Kei has taken up the motherly duties. They operate a successful artichoke farm in California until the government moves them into a camp in the barren mountains of Wyoming. It’s there that divided loyalties come to the fore among the many inhabitants of the camp. There are those like the adventurous Sammy, who wants to prove his and his family’s patriotism by joining the US Army, while there are others like Frankie, a former law student, who resists the government’s eventual move to draft young Japanese men into service so long as their families remain in the camps. It’s a clash that eventually divides Sam and Kei, and their estrangement is resolved only 50 years later in scenes that frame the main body of the script.
The production, which had an earlier outing in California, has garnered particular attention in that it marks the Broadway debut of George Takei, the Japanese-American actor known widely for his role as a crew member in the Star Trek television shows and movies. He has also garnered fans for his work as a gay rights activist and his social media activities. The show was inspired by Takei’s own youthful wartime experiences when he and his family were incarcerated along with 120,000 other Japanese-Americans.
Takei plays the grandfather, and, in the framing scenes that begin and end the play, the aged Sammy. His work impresses with a combination of dignity and infectious playfulness.
Adding to the marquee luster is Lea Salonga, celebrated for her award-winning work in Miss Saigon along with her many concert and cabaret appearances. She imbues Kei with warmth and intelligence, and the score gives her plentiful opportunities to show off her vocal dynamics.
As the firebrand Sammy, Telly Leung brings another strong helping of dash and emotional heft to the proceedings. There is also excellent work by Katie Rose Clark as Hannah Campbell, the helpful US Army camp nurse who attracts Sammy’s romantic attentions, and Michael K. Lee, as Frankie, who becomes the love of Kei’s life.
The play covers a lot of stuff. Besides the scenes showing us the harsh life in the internment camp, often relieved with lighter moments of humour, there are passages that delve into the political ramifications of the internments. We also witness battleground fighting and the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
Director Stafford Arima takes us through all this handily with a semi-expressionistic approach to staging, further defined by Andrew Palermo’s choreography and Donyale Werle’s easily shifting sets. There are times, though, when following the development of the play’s two love stories gets a little thorny and the actual sequencing of events seems a bit muddled.
Despite this, I found enough genuine earnestness in the storytelling and enough artfulness and strength in its sometimes overwrought music to let this show win my allegiance.
Ron Cohen
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On Your Feet! – Marquis Theatre, New York – Review
Dames at Sea – Helen Hayes Theatre, New York – Review
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