Carbonell Award-winning director-choreographer Marcia Milgrom Dodge never shrinks from a challenge.
In fact, she is drawn to the risks of re-conceiving the musicals of the great stagers, like her acclaimed take on Gower Champion’s Hello, Dolly! at the Maltz Jupiter Theatre two years ago and her current look at Jerome Robbins’ work on Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The King and I, continuing at the Maltz through April 6.
Why is she drawn to Robbins?
“I love his dramaturgy in dance. Nobody tells stories better than the he did in the great classic musicals he worked on,” Dodge says. “So I feel I have to honor him without copying him. That’s my mantra, to honor without stealing.”
In search of a novel way to tell the familiar tale of British schoolteacher Anna Leonowens and her sexually charged clash with Siamese King Mongkut, Dodge focused on the second-act ballet, “The Small House of Uncle Thomas.” The dance exemplifies the cultural gulf between East and West through the Harriet Beecher Stowe saga of slaves and masters.
“Part of my way into the piece was to find a way to tell the story of ‘The Small House of Uncle Thomas,’ inspired as authentically from a Thai art form sensibility,” explains Dodge. “As I started doing my research, Thai shadow puppetry sort of smacked me in the face, calling me. So we are doing the ballet as Thai shadow puppet theater.
“I think a lot of people want to see what they’ve always seen, like recreating the Robbins ballet, and that’s not what I do.”
The notion of employing shadow puppets “ultimately inspired the whole production design. There are shadow elements throughout the piece,” she says. “It’s how I found myself leaning into the story, wanting it not to be about big pillars and architecture. We know we’re in a palace, but I’m trying to tell a story about two human beings — a stranger in a strange land and a man about to lose everything that he has been conditioned to believe in.”
For the two towering lead roles, Dodge cast Michele Ragusa, a Broadway veteran (Titanic, Ragtime) who appeared on the Jupiter Theatre stage a few times in the 1990s, and Wayne Hu, a musical theater performer with numerous opera credits, who has been in nine previous productions of The King and I.
“I like working with Michele because she’s a ferocious, full-bodied, risk-taking actress and a voice that just slays me,” comments Dodge. “Wayne has a beautiful, beautiful voice, but we’re not really calling on his operatic side. Still, when he barks, it fills the theater.”
“He may have done the role a bunch of times before, but this is the first time this pair is appearing together. And it’s definitely a tango; the relationship between these two people is quite a dance. They get to do a polka, but emotionally, it’s quite a sensual and deep relationship to be mined.”
The King and I is one of only a few major musicals that Ragusa had not been in before, but it was on her bucket list. “I’ve had the opportunity to play almost all of the classic roles. This one eluded me, probably, because when I was doing all those classic roles I was too young,” she explains. “But I knew I would get to it when I was a little bit older. It’s nice for me to get back to a role like this, a leading lady soprano.”
By now, Hu is used to going up against the shadow of Yul Brynner, who originated the part of the king and won a Tony Award and an Oscar playing him.
“I think people will always associate him with that character, because he made such a distinct impression with the role. And since so many people expect almost a carbon copy of ‘The King and I,’ the original choreography and Yul Brynner, I think it’s so refreshing to get a different take on it,” says Hu. “You have to remember there’s always different sides to each story and different ways of conveying the story.”
THE KING AND I, Maltz Jupiter Theatre, 1001 E. Indiantown Road, Jupiter. Continuing through Sunday, April 6. Tickets: From $52. Call: (561) 575-2223.