Allegiance
Opening Night: November 8, 2015
Closing: February 14, 2016
Theater: Longacre Theatre
“Allegiance” is a story of family, love and patriotism set during the Japanese-American internment of World War II and beyond, the show follows WWII veteran Sam Otsuka and his sister Kei as they find themselves torn between loyalty to their family and allegiance to their country.
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November 8, 2015
“Allegiance,” a new musical about the internment of Japanese-Americans in camps during World War II, could be said to suffer from a problem of divided loyalties, and I’m not referring to its characters. The show wants to illuminate a dark passage in American history with complexity and honesty, but the first requirement of any Broadway musical is to entertain. While well-intentioned and polished, “Allegiance” struggles to balance both ambitions, and doesn’t always find an equilibrium. Following a brief prologue set many years after the central events, the musical, which opened at the Longacre Theater on Sunday and stars George Takei (of “Star Trek” immortality) and Lea Salonga (the Tony-winning star of “Miss Saigon”), begins just as the clouds of war are beginning to gather. The Kimura family, artichoke farmers in California, find their lives upended when the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor (we hear in voice-over the famous “date which will live in infamy” speech) and the United States enters the war.
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November 8, 2015
Internment camps, racial discrimination and an atomic bomb blast are challenging topics to incorporate into a satisfying night of theater. The heavy-handed, cliche-driven “Allegiance” which opened Sunday at the Longacre Theatre tries to take on all three — but does so unsuccessfully in a bombastic and generic Broadway musical. The production was inspired by the childhood of “Star Trek” icon George Takei, who had family members among the 120,000 Japanese-Americans incarcerated during World War II.
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November 8, 2015
“Allegiance” is the new Broadway musical inspired by “Star Trek” alum George Takei’s experience in Japanese internment camps during World War II. It’s a poignant and well-crafted story, with a title that operates on multiple levels. Here, allegiance refers to the loyalty we feel for country. And, obligations we have to family and friends. And finally, truths we live by as individuals—the determination to stand our ground when life sours. All these ideas are woven smartly into the often-stirring drama now at the Longacre Theatre.
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November 8, 2015
There’s a tremendously affecting scene at the end of “Allegiance” in which George Takei’s character, his eyes glistening with tears, reconciles with his conflicted past and finds a promise of comfort that has eluded him for more than 50 years. The knowledge that the story was inspired by Takei’s childhood hardships in the Japanese-American “relocation centers” of World War II adds significantly to the emotional impact. But the powerful sentiments involved are too often flattened by the pedestrian lyrics and unmemorable melodies of Jay Kuo’s score, making an unconvincing case for this material’s suitability to be a musical.
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November 8, 2015
George Takei, who would grow up to play Lt. Hikaru Sulu on “Star Trek,” was five years old in 1942 when his family and some 120,000 other Japanese-Americans living on the West Coast were forcibly relocated to internment camps in California and more distant places. His memory of those years of humiliation, deprivation and determination have been filtered through the prism of a creative trio of musical-theater novices. The result is “Allegiance,” a somewhat ungainly musical that has moments of beauty and passion, as well as a complexity of themes that are not the usual stuff of Broadway shows. Not coincidentally, “Allegiance” offers an opportunity to see Sulu in the flesh, along with a fine cast led by Lea Salonga more than two decades after she won the Tony Award in the title role of “Miss Saigon.”
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