School’s ‘Flower Drum’ Cast Gets Cultural Cues

“Everything in this country is all mixed up together. Living here is very much like chop suey. I like that.”

--Madame Liang in “Flower Drum Song”

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When she belts out “Chop Suey” at Friday’s opening of “Flower Drum Song” at Fullerton Union High School, Madame Liang could just as well be singing about the cultural stew that is the cast.

Mei Li, the Chinese picture bride, is played by a blue-eyed blond in the school’s Academy of the Arts production.

Old master Wang, the most traditional Chinese character in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical culture clash, is Latino.

And Frankie Lee, Chinatown nightclub master of ceremonies, is Korean.

Chop suey, indeed.

To be sensitive to the Chinese community and avoid caricature, a cultural education session was arranged between principal cast members and representatives of the Orange County Chinese Cultural Assn.

In doing so, the school also turned a dramatic exercise into an educational experience.

Retired accountant Richard T.P. Chou showed them how to use an abacus, and educator Sueling Chen offered the loan of her red and gold Chinese wedding dress.

Chou promised to introduce the young actors to his friend, Alhambra author C.Y. Lee, who wrote the novel the Broadway play was based on. Lee, 82 and still writing, has agreed to attend the opening.

They learned how to kowtow, a sign of respect that involves kneeling and lowering the head to the floor so that it makes a thump. They learned how deeply to bow-- 90 degrees for a parent--and who deserves a bow and who does not. (Parents, yes; nightclub owners, no.)

They discussed arranged marriages and the correct way for men and women to walk.

“It made everything so much more real,” said Catherine Futterer, who plays Madame Fong, the mother who arranged for the picture bride for her highly Americanized son Sammy. Now, when she’s onstage, Futterer knows Madame Fong should walk two steps behind her husband.

The cultural outreach is par for the course for co-directors Vicki Schindele and Alberta Strey, who like to pack learning experiences into the singing, dancing and acting opportunities offered to academy students. The students take regular high school classes as well. Students are involved in all aspects of the production, from hair and makeup to orchestra and choreography.

The directors selected “Flower Drum Song” because of the ethnic mix at the high school--largely Latino, followed by white and Asian--and the cultural issues that resound with many ethnic groups.

“Even though it takes place in the 1950s in the Chinatown community of San Francisco, the issues are universal,” Schindele said. “They’ve been experienced by all cultural groups.”

The generational conflict, how each generation adapts to American life and decides how much of the traditional culture to save and how much to change, should ring true for many students and community members, the directors believe.

When “Flower Drum Song” opened on Broadway in 1958, it won numerous Tony nominations, and the movie that followed was a hit too. But the casting of Japanese actress Miyoshi Umeki as the Chinese picture bride caused protests in the Chinese American community.

“The issue was that there wasn’t enough work for Chinese actors and actresses,” Strey said. “It’s just like now when an Anglo performs as a Hispanic or Indian, there are complaints.”

Chen, principal at a Montessori school, has no problems with the ethnic diversity of the cast.

“I hate to see race become an issue in any situation,” Chen said. “We have more things in common than we have differences.

“It’s wonderful, the different cultures. A Latino playing a Chinese--it’s great,” she said.

Chen thoroughly enjoyed the cultural session with the cast and was impressed with the students’ interest in knowing the story’s background. They asked how they could present their characters more authentically, and cultural association members were happy to offer tips.

“Most of all, we were there to confirm that everything [in the play] was a true story,” she said.

Lee, who worked as a consultant on the play and the 1961 movie, said some in the Chinese community criticized the story, the play and the movie as “stereotyping.” But he disagrees.

The plot of the play and movie is somewhat different--”more entertaining”--than that of his novel, but the characters are faithful to those he created, he said.

“I didn’t distort the characters, I based them on people I knew,” said Lee, who is currently working on translating into English a book of short stories he recently had published in Chinese.

People object to pigtails and thong footwear, he said, but, “You can’t go back and change history.”

To him, what’s important is encouraging the development of artistic works on Asian themes. He has been active at Cal State Los Angeles in supporting writing contests with Asian themes, and he’s looking forward to seeing another production of “Flower Drum Song.”

He’s also looking forward to the directors’ invitation to take him out for some local chop suey, an American food invention.

“I’ve been trying to find a place to eat chop suey, but I can’t find one,” he said. “They’ve all been replaced by genuine Chinese cooking.”