Soft Power – The Public Theater, New York

Alyse Alan Louis and Conrad Ricamora in Soft Power at The Public Theater, New York. Picture: Joan Marcus

Soft Power continues at The Public Theater, New York until 17 November 2019.

Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Imagine a musical where Hillary Clinton, having recently lost the 2016 US presidential election, sings the 11 o’clock number, professing with gospel fervour her belief in democracy.

And why is she singing this? Hold on to your hats! It’s because a recently acquired friend and possibly more, a handsome business executive from China, has just tried to convince her to come with him to his country where its leaders are not chosen by the ballot box – a poor way, he says – but selected by a committee made up of smart folks who know what’s best for the people. And with her qualifications, he assures her, she would be heading the country.

It’s an offer our Hillary refuses and left alone on stage, she sings: “Look this country’s a disaster in so many ways/But… we have the power… to change… That’s why I believe in/Democracy.”

Well, now you have a sampling of the infectious quirkiness, tickling surprises, winning hodgepodge of ideas, and stunning relevance that infuse Soft Power, the new Off-Broadway musical – or as it sometimes is described “a play-with-a-musical” – created by the noted American Chinese playwright whose works range from M. Butterfly to Disney’s Tarzan, David Henry Hwang (book and lyrics), and featuring music and additional lyrics by Jeanine Tesori, a Tony Award winner for Fun Home.

Co-produced by New York’s Public Theater and Los Angeles’ Center Theatre Group, the show has been lavishly mounted. It projects the visual and aural luxury of classic Broadway on just a slightly miniaturised scale, with a 14-person cast and some 23 musicians, while brimming over with satire, political savvy and passion and even ideas about the strengths and foibles of musical theatre.

The “play” part has Hwang (Francis Jue) being approached by a Shanghai entertainment mogul Xue Xing (Conrad Ricamora) to adapt a Chinese romantic comedy movie smash into a Broadway musical. It’s part of the Chinese “soft power” effort to win over foreign hearts and minds with culture.

“America has produced so many international products – Catcher in the Rye, Saturday Night Fever, so many!” expounds Xue. And the projected musical, he contends, “will bring Chinese values to the world”.

But there’s an immediate East-West clash of values. The movie concerns a married couple who have fallen apart, found other lovers but in the end stay with each other out of marital duty and the need to save face. The movie’s title in English is ‘Stick with Your Mistake’.

Hwang wants to change the plot so that the two follow their hearts. But before the matter is resolved, Hwang takes Xue to a performance of what else but The King and I, to be followed by a campaign rally for who else but Hillary. It happens to be election eve. We also learn that Xue, a married man, is facing a dilemma similar to that of the movie, as he brings along Zoe, a trim and blonde musical theatre performer (Alyse Alan Louis).

Then, on election night on a street in Brooklyn Hwang is near-fatally stabbed in the neck in a random act of violence and possible hate crime. (Such an incident actually happened to Hwang and is regarded as the initial impetus for this work.) And it’s in his unconscious while recovering from trauma that the “musical” in Soft Power takes deliciously over.

It’s The King and I, turned inside out, “with a Chinese point of view”, and we learn that it has become a long-running hit in Shanghai.

The Tesori music is gloriously enveloping with its resonance of late Richard Rodgers, and our first glimpse of the orchestra is breathtaking, with the musicians silhouetted in a series of compartments against the back wall of the stage.

Xue, now becoming the “I” of The King and I, is saying goodbye to his daughter, as he travels for business to New York. Once there, in this fun house version, the New Yorkers he encounters on the street are all played by Asian artists, simply terrific, with lots of off-the-mark New York-ese and blond wigs.

And as in the play part, Hwang takes Xue to a Hillary rally, this time at “America’s most famous restaurant”, McDonald’s, transformed into a hot night spot with roller-skating waiters and a desperately but impressively twerking Hillary working to keep the attention of her supporters. Zoe/Louis, of course, is now Hillary, the “King” of The King and I that Xue must instruct in the better Chinese way of doing things.

One thing he teaches her about are the tones used in speaking Chinese so that she can say his name properly. When she succeeds, they connect in a number that both sublimely jabs at and celebrates ‘Shall We Dance?”

Then the election happens, and Xue must buck up a despairing Hillary, gorging on ice cream and pizza. He also dashes off to Washington to end the US’s declaration of war against China, even getting the gun-toting (and dancing) officials there to put down their automatic rifles, and then makes his above-noted plea to Hillary to come with him back to China.

I suspect that this synopsis – even as incomplete as it is – sounds like a show that’s totally and incomprehensibly scattered, but it shapes up as one of the most entertaining and satisfying offerings currently on New York stages. It has intelligence and wit along with goofiness, and the score is a rarity these days in sounding gorgeously melodic.

The connection between Ricamora’s Xue, with leading-man panache, and Louis’ Hillary, vibrant, appealing and funny, anchors the proceedings with palpable emotion along with the zaniness.

Leigh Silverman’s ebullient staging lets the script’s political points be made without losing the sense of fun, while Sam Pinkleton’s choreography, often basic but telling, is woven wonderfully into the storytelling. The sleek, handsome sets by Clint Ramos, lit by Mark Barton, and the costumes by Anita Yavich, sometimes mocking Broadway’s attempts at both quotidian and glitter, make for a grand visual souffle.

True, some of the script’s jokey complaints about Caucasians playing Asians in Broadway shows are pretty anachronistic right now. Jonathan Pryce wouldn’t have a chance at the Engineer in Miss Saigon in today’s climate.

But you can’t help feeling deeply moved when Jue’s Hwang just before the finale steps forward to talk about his being stabbed. Because of racism, he always felt something horrible would happen to him, he relates, and now it has and he has survived.

“You feel – at least for a moment – like you can do anything,” he says. “So I wrote this show. Which ends with a whole chorus of faces – most of which look like mine.

“Singing about our country. With face and heart.”

              Ron Cohen