Flower Drum Song

Flower Drum Song (1958), a musical comedy by Joseph Fields (book), Oscar Hammerstein (book, lyrics), Richard Rodgers (music). [St. James Theatre, 600 perf.] In the Chinatown section of San Francisco, nightclub owner Sammy Fong ( Larry Blyden) loves the sassy, all‐American Linda Low ( Pat Suzuki), but he is betrothed to his “picture bride” Mei Li ( Miyoshi Umeki), who has just arrived from China with her father. The Chinese‐American youth Wang Ta ( Ed Kenney) falls for Mei Li, and Sammy manipulates matters so that two weddings take place. Notable songs: You Are Beautiful; I Enjoy Being a Girl; Love, Look Away; A Hundred Million Miracles. The only Rodgers and Hammerstein work clearly in the musical comedy genre, the tale (based on a book by C. Y. Lee) took a lighthearted look at East‐West differences and the generation gap in Asian‐American families. A 2002 revival, which originated at the Mark Taper Forum and transferred to Broadway, used a much‐changed libretto by David Henry Hwang that kept the story in the early 1960s but updated some of the sentiments of the musical, dropped and added characters, and even satirized Chinese clichés.