It’s good to be “The King & I.” The Rodgers and Hammerstein classic that introduced the songs “I Whistle a Happy Tune,” “Getting to Know You,” “I Have Dreamed” and “Shall We Dance?” was given a major Broadway revival in 2015.
Transitioning “The King & I” from New York’s Lincoln Center to a national tour — which stops at The Bushnell May 30 through June 4 — was a bit of “A Puzzlement,” as the song goes. Weeks of special rehearsals were required. Sets created for a thrust stage had to reconfigured for prosceniums. A new cast was assembled, including Jose Llana and Laura Michelle Kelly in the title roles. “Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera,” as both Anna and the King like to say.
The production is directed by Bartlett Sher, who was associate artistic director at Hartford Stage in the 1990s. But there’s a fresh Hartford connection to this “King & I” that’s unique to the tour: Music Director Gerald Steichen, who spent six years conducting pops concerts for the Hartford Symphony Orchestra. He also spent nine seasons with the Ridgefield Orchestra and 15 with the New Haven Symphony.
The Hartford tour stop will be a reunion for Steichen and some of the HSO players who’ve been selected for the show’s pit orchestra. The musicians should be pleased. When Steichen was asked to be music director for “The King & I” — his first national tour since 1995, and his first of a Rodgers and Hammerstein show — he took the gig because he was assured that he’d be conducting a good-sized ensemble. He was promised between 13 and 17 musicians, more than in most tours.
“That number really sounds like something,” Steichen says in a recent phone interview. It meant he could use a full string quintet as the core of the ensemble “so every note of every chord can be heard.”
Likewise, there’s a proper brass section and “an incredible percussionist, who sounds like 10 people.” Once the tour began, Steichen realized he really needed a harp in there as well. The producers agreed, and he’s had one ever since.
“It’s just thrilling,” Steichen says of the ability to play Richard Rodgers’ dynamic multicultural score (using the original Robert Russell Bennett arrangements from 60 years ago) with the care and respect it deserves. He gushes about the entire production.
“The costumes are breathtaking. The boat at the beginning, that’s a thrilling image. The ‘Small House of Uncle Thomas’ ballet uses the original Jerome Robbins choreography. But the sound system is what really blows me away. We sound like an orchestra.”
There’s also the show’s grand, passionate story of a British schoolteacher who is hired to instruct the children of the King of Siam and ends up teaching the monarch a few things.
“The King & I” is set in 1862 — we’ve known Siam as Thailand since 1949 — but still has great contemporary relevance, Steichen says. “Politically, it’s still very timely. It asks ‘What does leadership mean in a time of transition?'”
The King of Siam himself, Llana, agrees. The actor, in phone interview earlier this month, notes the “political overtones that were in the play originally. Bart [Sher] and I are both political junkies. We were rehearsing this tour during the election, so this show is about the same age as the Trump administration.
“There’s a line in the show, a line that’s 60 years old now, where the King says ‘I want to build a wall around Siam.’ That line got no reaction two years ago [on Broadway]. Now it gets laughter.”
Llana is in a good place to judge how “The King & I” has changed over the years. He played the young lover Lun Tha in a previous Broadway revival of the show, which starred Lou Diamond Phillips and Donna Murphy, in 1996.
“When ‘The King & I’ was written,” Llana says, “there were still levels of Orientalism — what Americans thought Asians talk like. Now many people in the audience are Asian American, and they take pride in seeing Asian boys and girls onstage and seeing a company that is so proud of its Asian heritage. Every person in our company who’s playing an Asian role has Asian heritage. That was important to Bart, and important to Lincoln Center. As an Asian American actor who’s been working professionally for 20 years, I see more authenticity now. There’s something wrong about whitewashing a part meant for an Asian actor.”
Llana calls this “the happiest company I’ve ever worked with.” Among the 40 cast members and 20 crew members, he says there are married couples, siblings, parents and their children. Several cast members used their vacation break from the show earlier this month to visit Thailand together. The Hartford shows this week are the first ones following that break.
“We’ll all be refreshed,” says Llana, who chose to spend his time off in the Caribbean.
“The King & I” is based on Margaret Landon’s 1944 novel “Anna and the King of Siam,” which elaborated on the real-life relationship between King Mongkut of Siam and his children’s governess Anna Leonowens.
Llana says that Rodgers and Hammerstein’s choice of source material was “progressive for their time. Almost all the stories they chose for their shows were about strong-willed women. They dealt with racism. At the start of this show, my character is an absolute misogynist. He has a lot of wives. He doesn’t respect women. But he relents and understands that if a foreigner can teach him something, that foreigner could be a woman.”
THE KING & I, directed by Bartlett Sher, plays May 30 through June 4 at The Bushnell, 166 Capitol Ave., Hartford. Performances are Tuesday through Thursday at 7:30 p.m., Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 2 and 8 p.m., and Sunday at 1 and 6:30 p.m. Tickets are $36.50 to $121.50. 860-987-5900, bushnell.org.
