A Classic Flowers Anew

Totalitarian repression, cheesecake and Lea Salonga: These were the primary ingredients of the pop gruel known as “Miss Saigon.” The ingredients have been recombined for a new dish. It’s “Flower Drum Song,” wholly revised and gleefully self-aware, at the Mark Taper Forum.

A few tons shy of a mega-musical--no fake helicopter here, no power ballads saccharine enough to stop communism dead in its tracks--it’s a raffishly entertaining response to the 1958 original.

Rodgers & Hammerstein purists may freak out (in their genteel way, of course) regarding what librettist David Henry Hwang has done to “their” show, based on the C.Y. Lee novel. Along with an entirely new story line, Hwang delivers some pretty wild mood swings. One minute, the Chinese refugee Mei-Li (Salonga) is talking about her father’s death at the hands of Chairman Mao’s thugs; the next, we’re inside Club Chop Suey, on Grant Avenue, San Francisco, California, U.S.A., taking in a nightclub routine featuring Linda Low (Sandra Allen) and her Fresh Off the Boat Dancers--”stripping refugees,” as one character calls them.

So it has its conflicted aspects. But in a lively, comically viable way. And by the end, Hwang and company manage a key thing: They make something of their primary love story.

In ‘58, “Flower Drum Song” told the tale of mail-order bride Mei-Li, who with her father arrived in Chinatown at the behest of her intended, hepcat Sammy Fong. Both Sammy and Wang Ta were stuck on the hyper-assimilated nightclub thrush, Linda. Wang Ta had another gal a-pining, Helen Chao, who sang “Love, Look Away.”

The songs remain largely the same, albeit reordered and reassigned, but Hwang ditches the story line. In the new version, Mei-Li sings “A Hundred Million Miracles” in Tiananmen Square. Her father, a Chinese Opera master performer, tears down a Mao banner in protest and is promptly beaten. Mei-Li sets sail for San Francisco, where she meets her father’s old opera cohort, Wang (Tzi Ma).

Wang keeps the old opera traditions alive in his tattered but proud theater, the Golden Pearl. Fridays, however, he reluctantly turns the club over to his son, Ta (Jose Llana), whose star performer is Linda. Mei-Li, falls hard for Ta, who dreams Broadway-style dreams. Wang rejects his off-night success at first. Then, with the guidance of theatrical agent Madame Liang (Jodi Long), Club Chop Suey takes off; Wang gets the bug and transforms into Sammy Fong, the “ancient Oriental wise guy” headliner.

It’s too much for Ta. “We’re turning into some kind of weird Oriental minstrel show!” he bemoans. The rejected Mei-Li, meantime, has gone to work in a fortune cookie factory. She is engaged to the factory owner and plans to return with him to China. But what about Ta? Will love find a way? Can Ta conquer his own self-loathing and cultural prejudices long enough to appreciate anyone who sings like Lea Salonga?

Two songs from the original Broadway edition have been cut: “Sunday” and “The Other Generation.” For director-choreographer Robert Longbottom’s Taper premiere, a song lost in tryouts (“My Best Love”) has been resurrected and assigned to Uncle Chin (wonderful Alvin Ing). And now, Mei-Li ends Act 1 with the (jarringly) peppy “The Next Time It Happens,” a refugee from Rodgers & Hammerstein’s “Pipe Dream.”

The Taper production is big for the Taper, though smallish for a Broadway-minded revival. Working with scenic designer Robin Wagner’s simple, pagoda-dominated unit set, Longbottom keeps the action zipping. The standout ensemble number is “Fan Tan Fannie,” stylized just so, costumed with trashy panache by Gregg Barnes. And reassigned to Madame Liang, wittily embodied by Long--she is, in the old parlance, a great broad, if no great shakes vocally--”Grant Avenue” is a pleasure. As Linda, whose most famous tune is “I Enjoy Being a Girl,” Allen lacks wit, but lacks nothing else required by the role.

Hwang was inspired to take on “Flower Drum Song” after seeing the Christopher Renshaw revival of “The King and I.” Like that production, this one has been mounted with an eye and an ear toward cultural authenticity. Jamie J.J. Guan is listed as the Chinese Opera consultant and “Warrior Dance” director. Musical director David Chase, arranging as well as he can for a six-piece band, makes use of an ehru , or Chinese violin. He also throws in some Esquivel effects for the cheeseball nightclub bits.

Hwang can’t resolve everything he’s after. At one point, Ta realizes what he’s missing: a sense of cultural history in his floor show. “So long as these tourists are coming to Chinatown,” he reasons, “they oughta see at least one number that’s actually Chinese.” Hwang may as well be talking about his own rewrite. He and Longbottom can’t get enough of the kitsch potential--the gay wardrobe volunteer, Harvard (Allen Liu), refers to it directly. Yet Hwang wants to address “real” stuff, too--the questions of what Asian Americans then (and now) deal with, in and out of the entertainment realm.

Certain things are missing. We never see Mei-Li assisting Ta in his nightclub rehearsals; we have to take their mutual attraction on faith. A lot of Hwang’s wisecracks are simply coarser versions of those peddled by the ’58 edition. And why keep even a deliberately discordant version of “Chop Suey,” one of the few truly lousy R&H; numbers in existence?

Such questions tend to dissolve whenever Salonga is singing (though she’s raggedy in the upper register), or when Long is strutting around in heels, giving Eve Arden a run for her money. You may or may not buy what Taper artistic director Gordon Davidson writes in the program notes, regarding “Flower Drum Song” and the Taper’s commitment to “culturally and socially aware theatre.” “Shake that pan-Asian booty! awareness” comes in many forms, I suppose.

As does success in musical theater. For all its nutty contradictions, and ultimately because of them, “Flower Drum Song” succeeds.

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“Flower Drum Song,” Mark Taper Forum, 135 N. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. Tuesdays-Fridays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 2:30 and 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Also: Nov. 19, 8 p.m., and Nov. 28, 2:30 p.m. No performances Nov. 22 or 7:30 p.m. Dec. 2. Ends Dec. 2. $45-$50. (213) 628-2772. Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes.

Lea Salonga: Mei-Li

Tzi Ma: Wang

Alvin Ing: Chin

Jose Llana: Ta

Allen Liu: Harvard

Sandra Allen: Linda Low

Jodi Long: Madame Liang

Ronald M. Banks: Chao

Charlene Carabeo, Rich Ceraulo, Eric Chan, Marcus Choi, Michael Dow, Thomas C. Kouo, Keri Lee, Blythe Matsui, Jennifer Paz, Robert Pendilla, Chloe Stewart, Kim Varhola, Christine Yasunaga: Ensemble

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Music by Richard Rodgers. Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. Book by David Henry Hwang. Based on the original by Oscar Hammerstein II and Joseph Fields. Based on the novel by C.Y. Lee. Directed and choreographed by Robert Longbottom. Supervising music director David Chase. Scenic design by Robin Wagner. Costumes by Gregg Barnes. Lighting by Brian Nason. Sound by Jon Gottlieb and Philip G. Allen. Hair and wigs by Carol F. Doran. Music director Charles duChateau.Chinese Opera consultant and Warrior Dance staging by Jamie H.J. Guan. Production stage manager Perry Cline.