Theatre in Review: Allegiance (Longacre Theatre)

	George Takei, Lea Salonga. Photo: Matthew Murphy

There are a few things that don't quite work -- and a couple that are flat-out wrong -- in Allegiance, but every time the show threatens to succumb to sentimentality or formulaic musical comedy gestures, it surprises with something striking, even shocking. Many of these moments are the work of the director, Stafford Arima, making a long-overdue Broadway debut. Arima has been here, there, and everywhere, serving as assistant director on several Broadway shows, staging Altar Boyz and Carrie Off Broadway, and mounting a production of Ragtime in the West End, among a great many other things. On the evidence here, he has finally arrived at his true destination.

Arima's accomplishment is all the more impressive because he is working with material that requires special handling if its starkly powerful message is to come through. The show's subject is the internment of 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II -- one of the most shameful episodes in modern American history -- and the sight of dozens of innocent citizens arriving at a godforsaken outpost in Wyoming, dressed in their best suits and overcoats, with tags affixed to them, is an arresting one. For an instant, it's impossible not to think of Jews in the German concentration camps. (Yes, I know; the Nazis' Final Solution constituted a far greater horror; the United States didn't practice genocide. Still, the thought of 120,000 citizens being rounded up and imprisoned -- for years -- casts a permanent chill.)

Throughout Allegiance, Arima creates any number of stage pictures that inventively illuminate the stunning injustice with which Japanese Americans were treated. The internees, having arrived at their desolate location, are told to strip, on the spot, for medical examinations, and a tide of terror and dismay spreads through the crowd; their status has been reduced to that of human inventory, to be cataloged and filed away for the duration. Later, a half a dozen or so of them are seen behind a scrim, caught in a dust storm, their bodies writhing in discomfort (one of several sequences inventively choreographed by Andrew Palermo). Eventually, some of the young men are allowed to join the Army, only to be sent on a suicide mission; after the battle, the stage is littered with bodies, and the soldiers' loved ones -- mostly wives and mothers -- mysteriously appear, removing the men's dog tags to the eerie sound of wind chimes. As a radio broadcasts news of victory over Japan, the company stands in darkness, projections of mushroom clouds rising up on their bodies, the scene climaxing with an enormous overhead photo on the upstage wall of Hiroshima in rubble. Released from the camps, their civil rights restored, a gaggle of internees uncertainly shouts, "Victory!" as a trio of GIs circles them, urging them to let bygones be bygones. ("We thought you were the enemy/You proved us wrong!/Now just get back home where you belong.")

In its broad outlines, Allegiance also traces a family history in a manner that is surprisingly tough-minded. The action focuses on the Kimuras -- grandfather Ojii-chan, father Tatsuo, daughter Kei, and son Sammy -- who will be torn apart by their misfortune. Much of the conflict turns on a questionnaire that is distributed to the internees, especially two key questions: (1) "Are you willing to serve in the armed forces of the United States on combat duty wherever ordered?" and (2) "Will you swear unqualified allegiance to the United States of America and forswear any form of allegiance or obedience to the Japanese emperor?" As Tatsuo says, "They lock us up, then ask for loyalty?" Sammy, who believes that a unit of Japanese American soldiers will offer proof positive of their Americanness, is eager to sign up. The offended Tatsuo refuses to have anything to do with it, even if it means a more stringent form of incarceration -- a decision that adds to the already high tensions between father and son. Kei, the dutiful daughter drifting into a spinster's existence, falls in love with Frankie Suzuki, another internee, and joins him in his plan of political resistance, hatching a scheme to spread awareness of the camps. As these decisions play out, the family will be torn apart, never to be fully put back together.

If the book, by Marc Acito, Jay Kuo, and Lorenzo Thione, is adept at tracing the characters' wildly differing fortunes, it is far less successful at creating fully realized characters. Sammy, Frankie, and Tatsuo each stake a position and repeat it endlessly; the Sammy-Tatsuo relationship hinges on the old cliché of the father who lost his wife in childbirth and can't forgive his son. No room has been made for nuance, the kind of odd details that turn a fictional creation into a recognizable human being. This would be all right if Kuo's score filled in the characters' outlines, but the songs tend toward anthemic melodies loaded with subtext-free lyrics and the simplest of rhymes. The opening number, "Wishes on the Wind," has a lovely tune, but the words ("Wishes on the wind/Dreams that touch the sky/Our heads are bowed/Our eyes are lifted/Hope is riding high") are stranded in Hallmark territory, a problem that persists all night long. The best songs have more of an edge, including "Get in the Game," in which Sammy tries to raise the spirits of his fellow internees with the prospect of a baseball league; "Paradise," Frankie's cutting "tribute" to camp life; and "442 Victory Swing," in which everyone anxiously faces life in peacetime.

Kei is by far the most interesting character and Lea Salonga makes the most of her, tracing her evolution from family peacemaker to political activist, and blossoming thanks to her love for Frankie. She confidently brings down the house with her solo, "Higher," and remains a warm and likable presence throughout, even when standing up to Sammy in an argument that will resound for decades. Telly Leung demonstrates his formidable musical theatre skills as Sammy in such numbers as "Get in the Game" and "What Makes a Man," in which he explores his feelings of resentment for Tatsuo, but he has a slightly opaque quality. We see his anger for his father, but not his love, and, perhaps because of the way the role is written, he seems distressingly one-note at times. George Takei -- himself an internee during World War II and the production's guiding spirit -- is slyly amusing as Ojii-chan, especially when he is outwitting a US soldier by furtively hanging a set of wind chimes behind an American flag; he also appears as the elder Sammy in the opening and closing scenes. Katie Rose Clarke makes a strong impression as Hannah, the Caucasian camp nurse who signed up for service in a burst of patriotism and finds herself betraying her ideals on a daily basis. As Sammy's love interest, she also figures in a baldly melodramatic Act II plot twist that proves damaging to the show as a whole; still, she is a gifted comic actress with a lovely voice. Michael K. Lee makes a strong impression as Frankie, who has no use for pointless loyalty oaths. Christòpheren Nomura is a dignified, if slightly monotonous, presence as Tatsuo. Greg Watanabe makes a tragic figure out of the real-life character of Mike Masaoka, who, as head of the Japanese American Citizens League, collaborated in the internment, and who intersects with the Kimuras at a couple of key points in the narrative.

It can't be easy designing a musical that plays out in such squalid circumstances, but the set designer, Donyale Werle has come up with a workable plan involving a series of sliders that resemble the cheap wood used in the camps' buildings; a couple of locations, including the Kimura's farm, feature backdrops that have the lovely, delicate style of Japanese paintings. The stage pictures are filled out by Darrel Maloney's projections -- especially those of the camp -- which often have the distressed quality of old photos found in one's attic, full of scratches and imperfections. He also covers the stage with blown-up images of that notorious loyalty questionnaire, emphasizing its importance. Howell Binkley demonstrates once again his superb knack for adding excitement to a musical number with lighting. Kai Harada's sound design allows for total intelligibility; he also adds to the power of the battle scenes with nerve-rattling gunfire and bomb effects.

Even as it arrives at a reconciliation of sorts -- which, if staged with more restraint, would be far more powerful -- Allegiance doesn't sugarcoat the events it portrays. No restitution is offered to people who lost everything they had; we see them being given twenty-five dollars and a bus ticket home. (The wonder is that, by and large, they simply restarted their lives, uncomplainingly.) This is a story that should be told -- that, I suspect, too many Americans do not fully grasp -- and, even in this vastly imperfect production, it resonates powerfully. And, in its best moments, it will have you asking yourself, How did this happen in America? Could it ever happen again? -- David Barbour