A lot of dust can settle in 65 years, but director Bartlett Sher has taken his theatrical Swiffer to The King and I, and without having to rearrange the furniture. The touring production now on view at the Golden Gate Theatre, and based on the recent Lincoln Center Theater incarnation, looks very much as you'd expect The King and I should, but instead of dust in neglected crannies, Sher has uncovered nuances that spur renewed vitality even in a musical so often revived.
At its core, to be sure, The King and I has strong bones. The songs by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II have become indelibly etched into popular culture, and Hammerstein's book is both very specific to its distant circumstances and universally relevant in ways that can have uncanny contemporary weight. There is clarity in this production that illuminates these qualities even if not solving some of the clunkier machinations.
The story told in The King and I has been passed down through unreliable filters, beginning with the actual woman of mostly Anglo descent and her 19th-century adventures as a widow hired to teach English to the King of Siam's multitude of children. Historians have found inconsistencies and fabrications in Anna Leonowens' two memoirs published in the late 1800s about her experiences. Margaret Langdon then put her own popular spin on the material with her semi-fictionalized novel Anna and the King of Siam published in 1944, and Hammerstein further revised the story to give it a satisfying musical theater framework and to make it palatable to audiences of 1951. (No slaves burned at the stake in Hammerstein's version, as they were in Langdon's.)
Without stoking forced emphases, this production still makes clear the story's ongoing relevance. Colonialism, women's issues, human rights, isolationism, Western misadventures in Southeast Asia, and the dangers of forcing one culture's mores on another continue to resonate, albeit differently in 2016 than they did in 1951. A line that may have seen a throwaway until recently can now rouse murmurs. That's what happened on opening night at the Golden Gate Theatre when the king says, "I hope to build a wall around Bangkok, and then decide whether to let people in."
Such resonances and most everything else became overshadowed by Yul Brynner's increasingly looming presence. The show was originally conceived as a vehicle for Gertrude Lawrence, with Brynner receiving below-the-title billing when it opened on Broadway. He won a Tony Award as best featured actor in a musical, but by the time the movie was made, it was an Oscar for best actor that he took home. During the final decade of his life, Brynner played the King of Siam nearly nonstop on tour and in two returns to Broadway, and the musical became something of a golden throne from which he could reign over audiences.
The role of King Mongkut, stretched out of shape in Brynner's performances, is rendered with comparatively regal modesty by Jose Llana. While not a physically commanding presence on stage, Llana is still an imposing authority figure who adds a mischievous glint as he communicates exasperation through eye rolls, body language, and double takes. Yet Llana is not always able to quickly pull the eye when the stage gets crowded.
Laura Michelle Kelly faces no such problem as Miss Anna, always outfitted in an enormous hoop skirt that creates an enlarged personal space. But Kelly stands out for reasons that go far beyond her attire, with a first-class performance as the very proper but warmly charismatic governess. Playing English governesses is definitely in her wheelhouse; Kelly starred in the London and Broadway productions of Mary Poppins. But she brings specific charm and even skillful physical comedy to her role in The King and I, and when she sings "Getting to Know You" to her Siamese charges, we're happy to be under her tutelage.
Other major roles are expertly filled, especially by Joan Almedilla as the king's No. 1 wife Lady Thiang, who powerfully explains her devotion to the flawed monarch in "Something Wonderful." Manna Nichols is both steely and sweet as Tuptim, a slave girl delivered to the king as a gift. Nichols and Anthony Chan, as her doomed lover Lun Tha, effectively deliver the score's two big love ballads, "We Kiss in a Shadow" and "I Have Dreamed," then Nichols powerfully narrates her retelling of Uncle Tom's Cabin for the king and his guests that is subversive enough to provoke horrific punishment in many countries even today.
The Small House of Uncle Thomas, a ballet with Jerome Robbins' nonpareil choreography preserved, remains a highlight of The King and I as Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel is informed by Buddhism, Siamese dance, and the "scientific" knowledge that the king has commanded Anna to bring to the kingdom. The cross-pollination of cultures manifested in the expansive ballet is deemed a good thing by the musical's authors. But even in 1951, the musical's team of American showmen seems to recognize the dangers from believing the delicate balances that hold together any society might be better if only they acted more like us.
The King and I will run through Dec. 11 at the Golden Gate Theatre. Tickets are $55-$275. Call (888) 746-1799 or go to shnsf.com.