Allegiance
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Cititour.com Review
Where does your loyalty lie? With your country, or with a cause you believe in? With the family you were born into, or with the people who become your family? Those themes drive Allegiance, an ambitious original Broadway musical with a lot of heart loosely based on the World War II experiences of one of its stars, Star Trek actor George Takei. It’s a hefty story to tackle in a musical, and the results are mixed, but what the show lacks in excitement it almost makes up for in the power of its subject.
Takei and his family were among the 120,000 Japanese Americans who lost everything when they were sent to internment camps following the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Allegiance opens in 2001, when an elderly Sam Kimura (Takei, making his Broadway debut at age 78) learns of the death of his sister Kei, a woman he hadn’t seen for 50 years. Except for the final scene, the rest of the show takes place in the 1940s, as a young Sammy Kimura (Telly Leung) fights to make things better for his fellow detainees after he and his family have been relocated from their Northern California farm to a camp in Wyoming. Takei also plays Sammy’s grandfather in these scenes.
Conditions are deplorable, but the ill-treatment doesn’t stop Sammy’s desire to enlist in the military and fight for his country. His opposite is Frankie Suzuki (Michael K. Lee), a student vehemently opposed to a loyalty questionnaire the detainees were asked to respond to. As Sammy goes to war, Frankie becomes romantically involved with Sammy’s sister Kei, played by Tony winner Lea Salonga, returning to Broadway for the first time in eight years, while their widowed father (Christopheren Nomura) makes a choice with harsh ramifications
It’s a powerful tale of survival in the face of injustice, and although book writers Marc Acito, Jay Kuo and Lorenzo Thione don’t trivialize what happened by settling for easy resolutions, they do employ some melodramatic flourishes about how brother and sister were torn apart. And the story doesn’t benefit as much from a musical treatment as it could if Kuo’s music and lyrics were more distinct and alive.
Stafford Arima directs an excellent cast fully committed to their characters, which makes for an affecting, if not entirely exciting, two and a half hours. But Allegiance serves as a sobering reminder that there were plenty casualties of war on the homefront, and their stories need to be told.
By Diane Snyder
Visit the Site
http://allegiancemusical.com
Cast
George Takei, Telly Leung, Lea Salonga, Katie Rose Clarke, Michael K. Lee, Christopheren Nomura, Greg Wantanabe, Aaron J. Albano, Belinda Allyn, Marcus Choi, Janelle Dote, Dan Horn, Owen Johnston II, Darren Lee, Kevin Munhall, Manna Nichols, Rumi Oyama, Catherine Ricafort, Momoko Sugai, Sam Tanabe, Elena Wang, Scott Watanabe, Scott Wise
Open/Close Dates
Opening 11/8/2015
Closing 2/14/2016
Preview Open/ Preview Close Dates
Preview Opening 10/6/2015
Closing Open-ended
Box Office
212-239-6200
Theatre Info
Longacre Theatre
220 West 48th Street
New York, NY 10036
Map
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