Customer Reviews

Flower Drum Song (1958 Original Broadway Cast)

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

FLOWER DRUM SONG is one of the small gems in the canon of Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals. The score contains some fabulous numbers, including the well-known "I Enjoy Being a Girl", though there is also the heartbreaking 11 o'clock number "Love, Look Away" (which must surely count as one of the duo's best ballads), and rousing numbers like "Grant Avenue".

Miyoshi Umeki has charm and joy to spare in her performance as Mei-Li, the young woman who enters the United States illegally, in order to submit to a forced marriage. Pat Suzuki plays the brash Linda Low, a sexy nightclub entertainer. The cast also includes Juanita Hall (SOUTH PACIFIC), Arabella Hong, Keye Luke and Larry Blyden. The original Broadway production was directed by Gene Kelly but by all accounts it was choreographer Carol Haney who was the real creative heart of the piece. FLOWER DRUM SONG was a modest success, running 600 performances.

Another example of how record producer Goddard Lieberson could elevate even so-so material and make it sound like a smash hit. The whole disc sparkles!

FLOWER DRUM SONG was NOT a smash hit. It got respectful though not terribly enthusiastic reviews and played out a successful run. The weakness was the book which borrowed too little of C.Y Lee's novel and is filled with weak (some say offensive) stereotype jokes. Hammerstein had a gem of a concept that is blown away in a few minor scenes...that the traditional immigrant parents want to hold onto tradition, while their americanized offspring want to follow modern local customs.
(FIDDLER ON THE ROOF would explore this theme much more fully.)

Still, the whole show was helped to no small extent by the songs and since that is all there is on the record, it actually makes for a highly enjoyable listen.

Miyoshi Umeki as the shy Mei Li contrasts nicely with brassy Pat Suzuki as nightclub singer Linda Low. There is less contrast between Ed Kenny as Wang Ta and Larry Blyden as Sammy Fong, possibly because the men get less of the score. The supporting cast, however, get a good share of the music: Juanita Hall leads the ensemble in "Chop Suey" and duets with Keye Luke lamenting the attitudes of "The Other Gereneration." Arabella Hong does a beautiful job with "Love Look Away" the show's standout ballad, though her character barely registers in the script. (In the novel, Ta's rejection leads her to suicide. In the musical she just disappears after her big number!)

There is a detailed synopsis in the CD booklet if you want to know how the plot ties all these songs together, but it is one of those cast albums where a synopsis is hardly necessary.

The book is in need of a re-write perhaps using more of the Lee novel as its source. The recent Broadway revival used a totally new story and re-allocated the songs. While the new version has its admirers, it is no more related to this FLOWER DRUM SONG than CRAZY FOR YOU relates to GIRL CRAZY..which is to say hardly at all.

The London cast (now out-of-print, but formerlly on Angel) is less impressive. However the movie sountrack (Decca Broadway) has some tasty new orchestrations and retains all but one song from the stage show, so that CD is worth getting...but start with this original cast disc first.

While this is certainly one of the lesser works in the Rodgers & Hammerstein canon, it is still head-and-shoulders above the work of many other composers of its time. The cast is wonderful and there is hardly a sour note among them (even from the inimitable Juanita Hall who was eight years on from her best voice). This show has the distinction of sharing one of the composing duo's most lovely and one of their most banal songs. "You Are Beautiful" is, in my opinion, one of the finest ballads ever written for the Broadway stage. Its sentiment is beautiful, as are its melody and performance. Unfortunately, most critics agree that "Chop Suey" is arguably the worst song R&H ever wrote. Bad, bad, bad! Otherwise, the songs are pretty much par for the course for the talented men. "A Hundred Million Miracles," "I Am Going to Like it Here," "I Enjoy Being a Girl," "Grant Avenue" and "Sunday" are all songs that are well-written and well-performed, but none of them really seem to stand out. Don't get me wrong, I love them all. But the overall score here seems to be lacking a certain vitality. Some of it is probably due to the material R&H were working with, some of it due to having Gene Kelly as an inexperienced (at least on Broadway) director and some of it due to the fact that Rodgers had just beaten cancer and Hammerstein was fighting the same dreaded disease. Taking all of this into account, the score is lovely to listen to and, as another reviewer pointed out, is period, not dated. Listen to the album and enjoy the experience of being a newly arrived Chinese immigrant in San Francisco, circa 1958.

FLOWER DRUM SONG was a respectable hit on Broadway, running for six hundred performances, making a national star out of the gifted Pat Suzuki, and cementing the celebrity of Academy Award-winning actress Miyoshi Umeki. The two actresses just shine in their roles: Umeki was a noted Japanese singer before "discovered" in the United States for the film SAYONARA (for which she won the Oscar), and her rendition of "A Hundred Million Miracles" is so haunting and lovely that when FLOWER DRUM SONG was turned into a film she was allowed not only to sing the entire song the first time it is heard but also to reprise it several times.

The amazing Pat Suzuki, inexplicably, was not retained for the inferior film version of the musical, which is an incredible shame: her brassiness not only wins you over on the famous "I Enjoy Being a Girl," but transforms the musically mediocre "Grant Avenue" practically into a showstopper. Arabella Hong, as Helen Chao, sings a lovely operatic rendition of "Love, Look Away," an oft-neglected R&H song of tremendous beauty. Indeed, this is probably their most overlooked score, with two clear duds ("Chop Suey" and "The Other Generation") but with otherwise real winners, including the liltingly charming "Sunday" (which should have become a standard), and the hauntingly gorgeous "You Are Beautiful," sung by Ed Kenney here, which is among the finest love songs R&H ever wrote. This cast album has become something of a classic--and it deserves to be.

One of the middle-level successes of the Rodgers & Hammerstein cannon. This is rather a whimsical look at the serious subject matter of inter-racial and inter-generational relationships in the Chinese districts of America.

There is plenty of light and shade in the score, from the heavily dramatic, poignant Love Look Away to the great comedy moments in At The Celestial Bar and Don't Marry Me. Grant Avenue is a great dance number, easily visualised, celebrating Chinatown. This is sung by Pat Suzuki, who also gets to shine on I Enjoy Being A Girl, another of the score's highlights.

So the storyline might no longer apply, but that is no reason for the music in this show to be so overlooked. I'm pleased to see from another review here that there is a revival heading for Broadway.

Don't allow the fact that this is not one of the better known R&H shows put you off being this recording. Some good music is mixed with some great performances, to give a light, but entertaining confection.

At first play, I thought this one was a dud. But the more I listened to it, the more I liked it, and now I love it. Hammerstein's lyrics are very funny and loaded with pop culture references. The music is sweet at times, like Cinderella, and sassy at times, like South Pacific. The real gems on this album though are "The Other Generation", two songs really, one version sung by the adults and the other by the kids. It not only sums up the show in a funny and poignant way, but it is also one of the most powerful melodies Rodgers has ever written.

Though the Movie Soundtrack released years later garnered more interest, the musicality of this stage cast album has been overlooked for years by most theater buffs. This has been partly due to the evolving of the musical theater genre, and due to the period, or dated, quality of the way the subject matter was presented. But to some music, theater, and/or voice afficianados, this melodic presentation reveals surprising musical anecdotes. "I Enjoy Being A Girl" was on the Pop Radio Hit Parade immediately, on stations that, in those days, featured a comparitively (to today) large, but selective, playlist of good musical theater songs. The lyrics "...complimentary whistle that greets my bikini by the sea..." are surprising considering that 1958 was years before the mid-sixties had pushed that form of swimwear into the public eye. Though she is not as prominent in the credits as some of the other names in the cast, Arabella Hong's beautiful rendition of "Love, Look Away" is almost operatic-aria-like in it's gradual building of tension and final soaring climax. (Do we hear a hint of Lucine Amara here, or is it merely our imagination?) Sound Track album songs of that era sometimes had a tendency to have a shallower, washed out sound quality than the cast albums, which were usually released in higher fidelity. Even though the film soundtrack album for this show is better than most in this regard, one still can appreciate this orignal cast album as being the standard that pushed this great music to prominence in its day, set the stage for the film version, and has been waiting forty years to be rediscovered. This rediscovery has occurred recently in Los Angeles, as the first major live revival of the show (in the form of an up-dated story) has been playing to packed houses, and will continue to play through mid-January 2002. All involved hope that a national tour, and a Broadway run, will occur soon after.

I was introduced to the original cast of FLOWER DRUM SONG, as a small child, on vinyl. For me, some of the songs (written by Rodgers & Hammerstein) made such an impression that I memorized them in record time and sang them to myself quite loudly! It wasn't until later that I came to recognize the themes of intergenerational and intercultural tensions that arise in this story, set in San Francisco's Chinatown. The original cast shines here, with some of the finest jazzy vocals (including Juanita Hall and Pat Suzuki).

We see an example of a more "traditional" woman, just arriving in the United States from China (played by Miyoshi Umeki) and a modernized woman (Pat Suzuki). They both sing songs that reflect their natures ("I Am Going to Like It Here," is sung by the newly-arrived Mei Li and "I Enjoy Being a Girl" is sung by the fiesty Linda Low, who juggles boyfriends like balls in the air). There are also numerous songs reflecting the tensions ("The Other Generation," "Love Look Away") and joys ("Sunday," "You Are Beautiful") experienced by a community of people brought together by culture, yet divided by cultural awareness and experience.

Though, some may criticize FLOWER DRUM SONG for its stereotypical depictions of the "generic" and presumed Asian experience, I found that the musical possesses a lot of heart and the music totally memorable. I can still remember the lyrics to some of the songs--especially, "I Enjoy Being a Girl," which is really an anthem to all women who enjoy being who they are (yes, it is decidedly "anti-feminist" in nature, but it's fun and upbeat). You will enjoy this, too. Pat Suzuki, a legend in the jazz scene, was a great performer and brought such sass and sauciness to her role as Linda Low here, as well as Jack Soo (BARNEY MILLER), who appeared in this musical. Give it a chance and I think you will enjoy it.

The first instinct is to lump this with flops like "Allegro" thanks to its trouble-plagued casting and staging; but all things told (not least of which R&H's hospital stays during production) it's a very fine and apt score, with one of their best songs, the ethereal "Love, Look Away", the sort of thing with its slow, swingy rhythm that should have spread to the world of close harmony (i.e., the doo-woppers) but never did. Hammerstein did some of his most ingenious lyric writing, searching out new rhythms and templates. He must also take blame for turning "I Enjoy Being a Girl" into too much the cross of "A Wonderful Guy" and "Honey Bun" (and yes, someone should have instructed Pat Suzuki about her bikini), and one wonders what if anything went through Oscar's head as he wrote the dummy-like list for "Chop Suey": "Harry Truman, Truman Ca-POAT and Dewey....Hear that lovely 'La Paloma'/Lullaby by Perry COMA...." (Listen for yourself -- this is precisely how the great Juanita Hall sings it.) With R&H one member of the partnership almost always pulled the other out of the muck, and however dubious the project (the politically-correct revival underlined that) they almost always found it within them to create haunting and invigorating tunes -- as most certainly here.

Even though FDS was not their biggest hit (still a success by the standards of the day), it did not get great reviews (imagine that, compared to so much that has come since.)And there have been many, many shows with music that has barely survived that were bona fide hits. Hum a tune from Two Gentlemen of Verona? Or The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Oh, to have this quality today!