When the hit “Flower Drum Song” first opened on Broadway in 1958, it was greeted both warmly and frostily by the Asian-American community.
Warmly, because the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical offered some high-profile work to some deserving Asian-American actors — as few shows did then.
Frostily, because “Flower Drum Song” dealt with Chinese and Chinese-Americans in terms of broad stereotypes, presenting what was decried as the white American’s view of Chinese life and culture, complete with the use of pidgin English and such notions as a Chinese-American nightclub called “Club Chop Suey.”
Now “Flower Drum Song” is back on Broadway as a hit revival, starring “Miss Saigon” Tony Award-winner Lea Salonga as Mei-Li, a Chinese immigrant girl trying to find her way in the new and bewildering land that is America.
The revival has gotten some great reviews — “As gorgeous as ever,” Newsday; “Rapturous,” USA Today; “Daring, vibrant and charming,” NBC — but is still stirring some controversy.
`Outdated material’
The New York Times, while lauding performances, described the show in terms of being a “relic,” because of its “outdated material.”
Philippines native Salonga disagrees.
“It’s relevant,” she said.
For one thing, she noted, playwright David Henry Hwang (“M. Butterfly,” “Golden Child”) has rewritten the book — which in the original made sport of both Chinese and Chinese-American culture — to make it more acceptable to 2002 audiences.
In the 1958 version, Salonga’s character was the daughter of a strict, traditional Chinese father and was sent to America as an arranged, mail-order sort of bride who finds herself in a San Francisco strip joint.
In Hwang’s version, she is an orphan who flees the oppression of the Chinese Communist government.
As Salonga noted, the parents of cast member Telly Leung actually swam 7 miles from the Chinese mainland to Hong Kong to make new lives for themselves — eventually in Brooklyn.
“We have a lot of people here [in America] who swam from Communist China,” Salonga said. “I think this play captures the Asian-American experience in a good way [with] stories of a lot of Asians leaving their homeland for a better life in America.
“There are people who go through the most dire circumstances, just to have a better life. That is always relevant, because it still happens, even today. People come to this country to escape tyranny and prejudice and bloodshed and violence. They come to this country because of its promise of freedom and prosperity.”
Salonga’s own experience is reflective of the cultural shifts and stresses that many Asians undergo coming to the U.S.
A natural
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She was born in the Philippines and grew up in a middle-class household in Manila, where as a small child she took to standing on the living room table and singing, using the end of an electrical cord as a pretend microphone.
At age 7, she got to perform for real as one of the children in a local production of “The King and I,” another musical about East-West culture clash.
“I was picked to do the speech at the end because I was the loudest child,” she said.
By age 14, she had done two Philippine movies and continued to work in local musicals. In 1988, at age 17, she responded to a Manila newspaper ad seeking local actors to try out for a new musical to be called “Miss Saigon.” She auditioned, passing the muster of the president of the Philippine Singers Union, who called her mother in hopes of being able to hire the teenager.
“She said, `Who are these guys?’ and `She’s busy in school,'” Salonga said. But her mother finally agreed to let her travel to London and meet producer Cameron McIntosh. She was cast in the London production of the show, and then came to the United States with it in 1991.
There was a furor in New York then over the casting of British actor Jonathan Pryce instead of an Asian-American in the leading role of the Eurasian. Salonga became embroiled in a similar fight because, though Asian, she was not an American, either — thus was in violation of union rules.
Her supporters cited an American flag her father had been presented because her grandfather had died fighting with U.S. forces in World War II.
“They said, `Tell [the first] President Bush we will return this flag if she isn’t in the show,'” she said.
Star status
The dispute went to arbitration. Offering proof that she had had leading roles in Philippine productions as well as with “Miss Saigon” in London, she was granted an exemption because she qualified as “a star” and not simply an actor.
She stayed in the show for a year and won the Tony for best actress. It seemed that she was on her way to becoming a queen of the Great White Way. But Salonga went back to Asia, starring in shows such as “They’re Playing Our Song” in Singapore, Manila and other Far East venues, as well as performing in Philippine films and television.
She was in Manila doing “Miss Saigon” again when the call came inviting her to Los Angeles for a tryout run of the “Flower Drum Song” revival. She went, had a lot of fun and met the man who is now her fiance — L.A. computer technology specialist Robert Hien. They plan to marry next September.
Salonga says she likes the skies in L.A. because their brightness reminds her of the Philippines. Asked if she felt more Filipino or more American, she replied, “More Filipino.”
“There are some parts of me that are quite American in terms of my personality,” she said, “but I was born in the Philippines and raised in the Philippines. Having said that, I fell in love with an American and I plan to raise my children in this country.”
“I like the idea of it. There are a lot of things I don’t like about America, but I like the ideas — and the hope that it brings.”