By Eric Marchese Special to the Register
'King and I' couldn't be more regal

Anyone who has seen "The King and I" may wonder why musical theater companies continue to program it into their schedules. Could anyone surpass the definitive, Yul Brynner-Deborah Kerr film of 1956, and hasn't everyone and his grandmother seen at least one stage version?

Though you may answer "no" to the first question and "most likely" to the second, it's obvious that the Richard Rodgers-Oscar Hammerstein II work was an instant classic upon its 1951 premiere, great enough to capture the Tony Award for Best Musical, great enough to be staged repeatedly - a grandly sentimental yet unsyrupy classic.

Musical Theatre West's fifth staging of this show in the troupe's 55-year history is well-cast from top to bottom, expertly directed and choreographed by Roger Castellano and music-directed by Dennis Castellano.

From the start, Hammerstein's libretto - based on Margaret Landon's "Anna and the King of Siam," itself drawn from the diaries of Anna Leonowens - is a culture clash steeped in a battle of wills. Anna (Elizabeth Ward Land), an English schoolteacher, is hired by the King of Siam (Daniel Guzman) to educate his children, and his many wives, in the "scientific" ways of the Western world. It's the early 1860s, and the king dreams of seeing his country take its place among the world's great nations.

Anna admires this enlightened despot for his farsightedness and sharp mind, but finds his stubbornness exasperating and his chauvinism appalling. Her etiquette and good breeding aside, she has the backbone to stand up to him - and stand she does, infuriating a ruler used to getting his own way.

An unsympathetic king, though, would kill "The King and I." Deeply conflicted, his bravado masks his self-doubt - something we see almost immediately but which Anna several years to realize. By the time she does, it's almost too late for both of them, making the play's closing scenes among the more heartbreaking of any musical's.

Suggestive of Kerr, Land delivers an Anna of deep springs of emotion, putting her own vocal twist upon the famed score. She shows Anna's frustration with the king's egotism and his subjects' subservience, distaste for his customs and, eventually, saintly patience toward him. With energy and charisma to spare, Guzman makes the twisted logic of the king's beliefs and methods plausible.

Cherrie Cruz and Richard Bermudez contribute stirring vocals as Tuptim and Lun Tha, the young lovers from the poor neighboring country of Burma, their ill-fated romance mirrored in Tuptim's striking, highly stylized version of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," while Suzanna Guzm‡n is a proud yet humble Lady Thiang, the king's number-one wife, who adores him, flaws and all.

Rodgers' wistful, lushly romantic score, among his best, is finely rendered by the pit orchestra and, vocally, by the cast. Todd K. Proto's costumes are suitably exotic, yet not bizarrely so, and the lavish sets, rented from The Set Company, create visual grandeur, making this one regal "King."

11/9/2005

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