Chu Chem is a
musicalMusical theatre is a form of theatre combining music, songs, spoken dialogue and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
with a book by Ted Allen, lyrics by Jim Haines and Jack Wohl, and music by
Mitch LeighMitch Leigh is an American musical theatre composer and theatrical producer best known for the show Man Of La Mancha....
.
Allen's inspiration was a trip to Kaifeng Fu,
ChinaChina is a cultural region, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
, the site of a major
JewThe Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
ish
migrationHuman migration is movement by humans from one district to another, sometimes over long distances or in large groups....
in the 10th century. Around this subject matter he devised a play-within-a-play with an intricate plot involving a group of
OccidentalThe Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term that can have multiple meanings depending on its context...
actors who join a troupe of Chinese performers to present the title character's story.
Chu Chem is a
musicalMusical theatre is a form of theatre combining music, songs, spoken dialogue and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
with a book by Ted Allen, lyrics by Jim Haines and Jack Wohl, and music by
Mitch LeighMitch Leigh is an American musical theatre composer and theatrical producer best known for the show Man Of La Mancha....
.
Allen's inspiration was a trip to Kaifeng Fu,
ChinaChina is a cultural region, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
, the site of a major
JewThe Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
ish
migrationHuman migration is movement by humans from one district to another, sometimes over long distances or in large groups....
in the 10th century. Around this subject matter he devised a play-within-a-play with an intricate plot involving a group of
OccidentalThe Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term that can have multiple meanings depending on its context...
actors who join a troupe of Chinese performers to present the title character's story. Chu Chem is a scholar who, with his wife Rose and daughter Lotte, journeys to Kaifeng Fu to learn about his ancestors and find a husband for the young woman. Prince Eagle suggests she become one of his
concubinesConcubinage is the state of a woman in an ongoing, usually matrimonially-oriented relationship with a man who cannot be married to her, often because of a difference in social status.-Concubinage:...
, a proposal she finds distasteful. Eventually he abdicates his throne for the woman he loves, and Chu Chem discovers the Jews became so
assimilatedCultural assimilation is a political response to the demographic fact of multi-ethnicity which encourages absorption of the minority into the dominant culture...
into their new homeland that no traces of them are to be found.
The production's designs attempted to imitate traditional Chinese theatre, ironically with
sumois a competitive contact sport where a wrestler attempts to force another wrestler out of a circular ring or to touch the ground with anything other than the soles of the feet. The sport originated in Japan, the only country where it is practiced professionally...
wrestlers (one the son of
Man Mountain DeanMan Mountain Dean was a professional wrestler of the early 1900s.He was born in New York City and from childhood was remarkably large in stature. This trait led to a lifelong interest in competitive sport, and also made it easy for him to lie about his age in order to join the Army at the age of...
) grappling onstage during intermission to entertain the audience. Director
Albert MarreAlbert Marre is a American Tony Award-winning director and producer in the theatre.Born in New York City, Marre made his Broadway debut as an actor and associate director of the 1950 revival of John Vanbrugh's Restoration comedy The Relapse...
cast
Yiddish theatreYiddish theatre consists of plays written and performed primarily by Jews in Yiddish, the language of the Eastern European Ashkenazi Jewish community. The range of Yiddish theatre is broad: operetta, musical comedy, and satiric or nostalgic revues; melodrama; naturalist drama; expressionist and...
stars
Menasha SkulnikMenasha Skulnik was a Jewish American actor, born in Warsaw, Poland, primarily known for his roles in Yiddish theater in New York City...
and
Molly PiconMolly Picon was an American actress of stage, screen and television, as well as a lyricist...
as Chu Chem and Rose,
Marcia RoddMarcia Rodd is an American actress.Rodd was born in Lyons, Kansas, the daughter of Rosetta and Charles C. Rodd. She studied drama at Northwestern University. In the 1950s, she moved to New York City and performed on stage. Rodd spent the 1960s appearing on Broadway in such plays as Neil Simon's...
as Lotte, and
James ShigetaJames Shigeta is an American film and television actor. He is also a standards singer, musical theatre and nightclub performer, and recording artist. He is a Sansei or third-generation American of Japanese ancestry.-Early life:...
as Prince Eagle. Choreographer
Jack ColeJack Cole was an American dancer, choreographer, and theatre director known as the father of theatrical jazz dance.Born John Ewing Richter in New Brunswick, New Jersey, Cole virtually invented the idiom of American Show Dancing known as "Theater Dance." He developed amode of jazz-ethnic-ballet...
also took on the role of Mongol Lord Hoo Hah.
During rehearsals Picon, upset that her role had been reduced, walked out, but eventually returned. The November 1966 tryout at the New Locust Theatre in Philadelphia was plagued by constant revisions to the script and score, and an unhappy Picon quit permanently. At one point on opening night, her successor Henrietta Jacobson turned to the audience and announced, "There was a song here, but you'll be better off without it." The reviews were brutal, with one critic describing it "like
blintzA blintz, blintze, or blin is a thin pancake...
es and
soy sauceSoy sauce , soya sauce or is produced by fermenting soybeans with the molds Aspergillus oryzae and Aspergillus soyae along with roasted grain, water, and salt. Soy sauce was invented in China, where it has been used as a condiment for close to 2,500 years...
" and suggesting "a better title might be
The King and Oy." Co-producers Leigh and
Cheryl CrawfordCheryl Crawford was an American theatre producer and director.Born in Akron, Ohio, Crawford majored in drama at Smith College. Following graduation, she moved to New York City and enrolled at the Theatre Guild...
immediately cancelled the scheduled
BroadwayBroadway Theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, is the theatre associated with the 40 large professional theaters with 500 seats or more located in the Theatre District, New York in Manhattan, New York City...
opening at the George Abbott Theatre.
Unwilling to leave well enough alone, Allen and Leigh decided to revive the show twenty-two years later at the Jewish Repertory Theatre in
ManhattanManhattan is one of the five boroughs of New York City, located primarily on Manhattan Island at the mouth of the Hudson River.New York County, which has the same boundaries as the Borough of Manhattan , is the most densely populated county in the United States, with a 2008 population of 1,634,795...
. The greatly revamped version eliminated the play-within-a-play concept and the role of Rose, placed greater emphasis on the romance between Lotte and the prince, and revised the score. Encouraged by a favorable review
http://theater2.nytimes.com/mem/theater/treview.html?res=940DE6D71630F930A15751C1A96E948260 from the third-string
New York Times critic, the creative team decided to move it uptown.
The Broadway production, directed and choreographed by Albert Marre, opened on March 17 1989 at the
Ritz TheatreThe Walter Kerr Theatre is a legitimate Broadway theatre. Located at 218 West 48th Street, it is owned by the Jujamcyn Amusement Corporation. One of the smaller auditoriums in the theatre district, it seats 975....
where, hampered by a no-name cast (Emily Zacharias as Lotte, Mark Zeller as Chu Chem, and Thom Sesma as the prince) and poor-to-dreadful reviews, it ran for only 68 performances, continuing for two months at heavy losses in the hope it would garner some
Tony AwardThe Antoinette Perry Awards for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as the Tony Awards, recognize achievement in live American theatre and are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are for Broadway productions and...
nominations in a season beset by bad musicals (
Carrie,
Legs DiamondLegs Diamond is a musical with a book by Harvey Fierstein and Charles Suppon based on the Warner Brothers film "The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond" . Music and lyrics by Peter Allen....
). When it was shut out, the production closed, a two-time flop in musical theatre history.
Song list
Act I
- Orient Yourself
- What Happened, What?
- Welcome
- You'll Have to Change
- Love Is
- I'll Talk to Her
- Shame on You
- It Must Be Good for Me
- I'll Talk to Her (Reprise)
- You'll Have to Change (Reprise)
- The River
- We Dwell in Our Hearts
- Goodbye Love, Goodbye
Act II
- Re-Orient Yourself
- What Happened, What? (Reprise)
- I Once Believed
- It's Possible
- Our Kind of War
- Boom!