Theatre review: Allegiance

Jay Kuo (book, music and lyrics,) Marc Acito & Lorenzo Thione's (book) Allegiance had a relatively brief Broadway run a few years ago, but its original star, the beloved queer elder and Star Trek icon George Takei, whose own family partly inspired the story, has remained a staunch supporter of the project. He's evidently been instrumental in its getting a London transfer - so much so it's been rebranded as George Takei's Allegiance for its run at Charing Cross Theatre. It's not surprising that the Japanese-American actor wants the story to be widely told, as it covers a chapter of its racist past America has been remarkably good at hushing up: I'm not sure when I first heard about the internment camps for Japanese-Americans but it must have been a couple of decades after I first learnt about the Second World War. I guess having American movies control much of the way that story's told makes it easy to leave out inconvenient facts.

Shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the family of Sammy Kimura (Telly Leung) is forced out of their California farm and into a camp in Wyoming, where they and hundreds of others have to endure the cold and dust storms with inadequate shelter and little to no medical care.

But before they were taken, Sammy had been keen to enlist in the Army, and this doesn't change once he's there: He firmly believes that the way for his people to be trusted is to show their allegiance to the US and its cause, and when the ban on him enlisting is lifted he's one of the first to do so, becoming a hero in the process. But it's not a position shared by all, even within his family. He's always felt his father resented him, and Tatsuo (Masashi Fujimoto) objects to him joining the army of a nation that's locked them all up. His sister Kei (Aynrand Feller*) has fallen for Frankie Suzuki (Patrick Munday,) a leading figure among those rebelling against their captors. Takei plays Sammy's grandfather, who encourages him to choose the path he believes honours him, not his father.

Allegiance is a textbook old-fashioned Broadway musical - perhaps so textbook as to explain why it didn't take Broadway by storm: If Mandela was surprisingly short on African musical influences, it's nothing to how little Kuo's songs would conjure anything Japanese out of context. But if there's nothing too unexpected about the music or story - right down to the doomed romance between Sammy and Megan Gardiner's white nurse Hannah - it is at least a very good example of the genre. The songs are largely big ballads but balanced with a few more upbeat numbers, as well as some humour and peril in the dialogue scenes between them.

Billed as an "uplifting" musical, and focused on one of the Japanese-Americans who fought in the US Army, it does aim more for the patriotic angle than the bitterness over their mistreatment, but considering how effectively buried by history the subject has been, Allegiance proves informative: We see the recurring character of real-life Washington lobbyist Mike Masaoka (Iverson Yabut,) whose efforts to have his people released come with a ruthlessly cynical side: He suggests a Japanese-American suicide squad whose sacrifice would show the nation the rest can be trusted, which ends up sacrificing the life of his own brother (Sario Solomon.) And by focusing on the subject of allegiance, to their country or to their families that are being discriminated against, the show highlights the family divisions that in some cases would have lasted a lifetime - in a framing device Takei also plays the older Sammy, whose family rift was never healed.

Director/choreographer Tara Overfield Wilkinson's production looks great, with Mayou Trikerioti's dusty designs adding some of the grunginess that might be missing elsewhere. Although I can't see a fight director listed on the website, which tracks with the fact that the more violent sequences have an unfortunate tendency to end up camp. (Invest in fight directors, people! They also often double as intimacy coordinators so you're basically getting a BOGOF deal.) But otherwise it's also very well-cast; Feller provides the biggest vocal fireworks, while Leung gives Sammy a gung-ho energy that suits the way he dives into the war without thinking too hard about the consequences for his relationship with his family. Ian made the mistake of googling Leung's age in the interval, so had to spend the second act distracted by the fact that the twink bouncing around the stage is actually FORTY-THREE.

Takei himself brings some contrasting energy to his roles, an exhausted gravitas to the older Sammy, a twinkle-eyed energy to Ojii-Chan. Allegiance doesn't reinvent the wheel, and in some ways it's to its detriment - I don't think the show as a whole will end up hugely memorable any more than the songs will. But those songs serve their purpose, both in the storytelling and entertainment stakes, as does most of the show. It's consistently entertaining, as well as giving a bit of depth to a corner of history that rarely gets mentioned at all in popular culture.

Allegiance by Marc Acito, Jay Kuo & Lorenzo Thione is booking until the 8th of April at Charing Cross Theatre.

Running time: 2 hours 20 minutes including interval.

Photo credit: Danny Kaan / Tristram Kenton.

*I mean, there's some fractious family relationships in the show, but I don't think there's anything that can compare to knowing your parents took one look at you when you were born, and disliked what they saw so much they named you that