(See Cover)
I went out at the Eastern Gate,
I saw the girls in clouds;
Like clouds they were, and soft and
bright,
But in the crowds
I thought on the maid who is my light,
Down-drooping, soft as the grey
twilight;
She is my mate.
—Chinese Love Lyric, 680 B.C.
Clouds of girls drift across the stage. Girls soft and bright, girls fast and funny, girls with dreamy looks and pouty looks, girls with languid smiles and impudent grins, girls with unruly bangs and neat velvety chignons, girls with eyes slanted a little and girls with eyes slanted a lot. Amid all the girls, one stands out in twilight softness. When she first appears, her slow, sloe eyes look down, ever so shy. Then she bounces her head in a pert little Chinese kowtow and the hoarse, sweet husk of her voice sounds hauntingly soft. "Ten thousand benedictions, Sir . . ."
Mei Li, the "picture bride," has traveled far to greet her future father-in-law in the stubbornly Oriental parlor of his San Francisco home. And she has arrived on time. Until now, Flower Drum Song has been nothing but the newest Rodgers and Hammerstein hit musical—brisk, bright, opulently staged, professional. When Miyoshi Umeki glides onstage to star in her first Broadway show, her first four words capture the house. The warmth of her art works a kind of tranquil magic, and the whole theater relaxes.
But that small voice and wistful smile need something to set them off. The need is quickly fulfilled—by Linda Low, a buxom, button-nosed stripper from the Celestial Bar, whom the musical's plot casts as Mei Li's rival. Bold, brassy and bubbling with unabashed sex, Linda belts out a song that tells all:
I'm a girl, and by me that's only great!
I am proud that my silhouette is curvy,
That I walk with a sweet and girlish
gait,
With my hips kind of swivelly and
swervy . . .
The swivel hips belong to Singer Pat Suzuki, and, like Miyoshi, the chubby Nisei is bouncing through her first Broadway part. Whatever else may be said for or against Flower Drum Song, it brings to Broadway two of the most endearing stars in many a season—surrounded by a fascinating Oriental chorus line that will give the most jaded Stage-Door Johnnies a new incentive.
Scouting for the Khan. In a season when all the streets of Manhattan's theater section seem eastbound,* assembling this chorus line took on a scope that recalled nothing less than the recruitment of Kublai Khan's harem. Like the Great Khan's emissaries—who, Marco Polo reported, graded their finds "at 16, 17 and 18 or more carats, according to the greater or lesser degree of beauty"—Rodgers and Hammerstein operatives went to work in Hong Kong, Paris, London, San Francisco, Chicago and New York. Director Gene Kelly and Choreographer Carol Haney scoured theaters, nightclubs and Y.W.C.A.s. Co-Author Joseph Fields judged a San Francisco Chinatown beauty contest and watched for talent that would look right on Flower Drum's riotous Grant Avenue.