Allegiance

I, with my stone-cold bitch-face, shed a tear twice during the two and a half hours I spent inside the Longacre Theatre. The first tear fell during the opening number -- Lea Salonga's voice live is just astounding. The second tear fell during the last few moments of the musical, when everything is wrapping up and the story comes full circle.

So great, I cried a couple of times. But those two moments were the only two times I felt anything during the show. There's so much there -- the story is interesting, moving, and deep. Unfortunately Allegiance did not live up to expectations. George Takei, the man behind the story, making his Broadway debut, was barely a supporting character. The characters were two-dimensional. The story dragged. The romances were anything buy romantic.

I had a huge problem with the lighting and projection design. It was all too dark. I expressed my feelings about blackouts in my last post -- blackouts take me out of the performance, make my mind start to wander. The most creative part of the musical was the recreation of the Atom bomb dropping on Hiroshima. The lighting design at that moment was gorgeous and evoked emotion, which is what was lacking during every other moment.

The standout performance was Michael K. Lee. Although I wasn't necessarily on his side (the resistance), Lee's character, Frankie, was the most fleshed out and three-dimensional. Telly Leung's voice has grown since Godspell, but his character was undeveloped. There was so much heart put into the musical, but poor direction killed it. If the book of a musical is bad but the music, characters, story itself, direction, etc works... who cares how lame the book is. In the case of Allegiance, the music isn't memorable enough and the characters aren't fleshed out enough.

Overall I had a good time, but was underwhelmed. Go see the show if only to see George Takei onstage and experience his story. There's a lot of heart behind the production, but the execution left me wanting more.