ORIGINAL BROADWAY SOUNDTRACK
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Flower Drum Song (Original Broadway Soundtrack) (Columbia Masterworks, OS 2009, 1958)
Cast Notes: There's a longer story, of course, behind the original development of FDS from C.Y. Lee's novel into a Broadway musical but I'll leave it to a better site to summarize that history. What's wort gleaning from this is that Rodgers and Hammerstein were committed to using (in the words Lee) "an all-Orieintal cast," rather than White actors in yellowface and that meant FDS (and the subsequent film) would draw from then-little known talent to fill the key roles. Two non-Asians were eventually used - Larry Blyden as nightclub owner Sammy[1] and veteran African American singer Juanita Hall who played Madam Liang on both Broadway and in the film.
Pat Suzuki, who was cast on Broadway as Linda Low, was already a recording artist prior to being cast but her role helped elevate her profile considerably. And the top billed star was Japanese actress Miyoshi Umeki who had won an Academy award for her work in Sayanora a year or so prior.
Music:
Besides the overture, the first real song in the movie is "One Hundred Million Miracles", sung by Umeki as a way to demonstrate her mastery of traditional Chinese culture. While flower drum songs exist in China, I don't know how close R&H hewed to recordings of them or if they simply riffed on the concept. Personally, I always thought the song-writing on this song bordered, at times, on fortune cookie-ness and especially as the first song, it can be rather cringe-worthy. Regardless, I just don't consider it a very interesting song musically or compositionally but I'm including it here given that it is a notable attempt at "representing" Chinese culture within the musical (and luckily, one of the few).
"I Enjoy Being a Girl" is one of the musical's most enduring songs, still showing up in commercials. It's also one of the more hated songs (at least amongst those who are wont to hate songs from FDS) for its girly-girl message. Not a feminist anthem, no no no. Lyrically, the song is memorable enough but as with "Miracles," I don't find it compelling, musically.
Ah..."Chop Suey". I have to say, at least someone did their history since for a song about the complexities of ethnic assimilation, "Chop Suey" does indeed seem apropos to explain the Chinese American condition. The only problem is that while "Chop Suey" comes off as a laundry list of Americanisms - hula hoops! nuclear war!(?) - what R&H managed to leave out was...the Chinese and/or Chinese American parts. As it stands, "Chop Suey" is a rather one-sided take on double consciousness. That said, once this song sticks in your mind, you will never, ever get it out, especially the way Juanita Hall opens it with that loud, brash, "chop sueeeeyyyyy, chop sueeeeyyyy." Don't say we didn't warn you.
For reasons explained in another post, the ballad "Love Look Away" is one of my favorite songs of the musical...but not because of how it's sung here by Arabella Hong, playing the lovelorn Helen Chao. I mean no disrespect to Hong but her approach to this song feels way too operatic; it's an ill-fit and even sounds a bit shrill. Nonetheless, I thought it important to include the song's original form so that later versions could be compared to it.
There's this great moment in Wayne Wang's masterpiece Chan Is Missing, right at the end of the film, where the song "Grant Ave." comes on and it's meant to be this moment of irony as Wang contrasts FDS' stage set fantasy of S.F. Chinatown (the actual neighborhood already being a fantasy set itself) to the verité shots of early 1980s Chinatown and its people. In a way, "Grant Ave." is unintentionally intriguing as a facile take on a neighborhood that very much wears its artificialness on its own facile walls. It's also a swinging, catchy tune - very R&H - but so cloying, you could get a toothache off it. The songwriting here makes "One Hundred Million Miracles" sound like a Dylan song. "And the girl who serves you all your food is another tasty dish?" Eeesh.
[1] In the film version of FDS, Sammy is played by the actor who was Blyden's understudy in the musical: Jack Soo.
Cover Art: Let's see - Chinese calligraphy-influenced font? Check. Pagoda? Check. Golden Gate Bridge? Check. Cable cars and Chinese lanterns? Check.
No real subtlety here - the cover art splashes together all the requisite visual cliches you need to know that this is going to be some kind of story that is connected to both the Chinese and San Francisco. Design-wise, it's also awkwardly saddled by the arrangement of text on the left that competes for visual attention with the graphic elements.
Back cover is purely text and provides a synopsis of the musical and a run-down of the main talents.
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