[NEohioPAL] Review of "The King and I" at Playhouse Square

[Bob Abelman via NEohioPAL]

Success of touring ‘The King and I’ is no puzzlement



Bob Abelman

Cleveland Jewish News, The News Herald, The Morning Journal

Member, International Association of Theatre Critics





The double-edged sword associated with revivals of Golden Age musicals is that our overfamiliarity with the work – its score, its staging, its characters and the actors who defined them – cries out for change while simultaneously condemning it.   Novelty and nostalgia are always at odds in theatrical re-productions.



This is particularly true for stage-to-screen musicals like “The King and I,” where our memories of the original work are cinematic. These perpetually preserved images are impossible to replicate in a live production and are reinforced with every viewing of the 1956 film, so each attempt at innovation is blatantly obvious and often underwhelming.



And yet, director Bartlett Sher’s production of this Rodgers and Hammerstein classic, on tour and on stage at the Connor Palace Theatre, offers creative changes and new ways of tapping our emotions without ever detracting from why it was a classic in the first place. 



For more of this review, go to www.clevelandjewishnews.com/columnists/.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.neohiopal.org/pipermail/neohiopal-neohiopal.org/attachments/20170209/ca3b1169/attachment-0002.htm>