Conrad Ricamora (standing) as Xue Xing with the company of Soft Power.
Soft Power, the thrilling new musical by David Henry Hwang and Jeanine Tesori at the Public Theatre, wears many hats: it’s a funny and touching East-meets-West love story, a postmodern Rodgers and Hammerstein–style book musical with multiple narratives and commentary, and a dazzling celebration of the rhapsodic power of Broadway song-and-dance. But its most potent identity is as a cri de coeur from playwright Hwang on the violence he suffered before the election of Donald Trump and the palpable fear that Trump’s white-supremacist presidency has instilled in non-white Americans.
The play begins with Hwang (Francis Jue) in a meeting with Chinese producer Xue Xing (Conrad Ricamora). Xing wants Hwang to come to Shanghai to help create Chinese megahit musicals in the Broadway style. While Hwang has always felt like an outsider in the United States, returning to his father’s homeland feels regressive. Worse, Xing wants to do a decidedly un-American story in which a married couple having extramarital affairs decides to stay married for the sake of the family.
Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton is running for President, and Hwang invites Xing to a benefit performance of The King and I in her honor. Xing gets to meet Hillary offstage and take a selfie with her, but she ends up losing the election. Shortly afterward, Hwang is stabbed in the neck by an anonymous attacker. As the playwright bleeds in the street, he hallucinates his own version of The King and I told from a Chinese perspective, starring Hillary Clinton (Alyse Alan Louis) as a would-be American “king” and Xue Xing as the “I.”
Ricamora as Xing with Alyse Alan Louis as Hillary Clinton in the musical by David Henry Hwang and Jeanine Tesori.
The musical takes off as a cross-cultural fantasia, an explosion of color and light and ideas told through kaleidoscopic narratives and flights of song-and-dance fancy. The experience is intellectually dazzling and viscerally spectacular, even hallucinatory. It’s what Broadway does best when Broadway uses its full arsenal of effects to tell a story.
As with M. Butterfly, Hwang writes iconic characters who speak in big ideas, often with snappy humor. This works well for a book musical where the music does most of the emotional heavy lifting. Tesori’s score is nuanced and quirky, full of passionate pastiches and full-throated homages to big show-biz emotions. There are string legatos and jazzy staccatos, with enough surprising rhythms and melodies to warrant repeated listening.
Director Leigh Silverman keeps the drama fast-paced and focused through multiple jumps in time. Clint Ramos’s scenic design uses neon signs, mylar curtains, and single lampposts to evoke place, along with computer generated graphic art on a large LED backdrop showing panoramas of intentionally anachronistic U.S. landmarks. Choreographer Sam Pinkleton sends up Broadway dance styles with chorus boys roller skating or sashaying across the stage. When Hillary and Xing break into the “Shall We Dance” polka, the audience laughs approvingly.
All three leads are triple-threat performers. Jue as Hwang is wiry, passionate and intense; his angst forms the emotional core of the show. Ricamora is a welcome leading man, with a sexy baritone voice, sure-footed dance moves, and vulnerability beneath his cool charisma. Louis as Hillary Clinton radiates perky blonde All-American Ivy League smarts. Whether tap dancing and twerking at a McDonald’s campaign fundraiser or eating pizza and ice cream while holed up at home after losing the election, she creates an intriguingly buoyant and sincere Hillary that prompts Xing to ask her, “How come we never get to see this side of you?” Tesori’s score, however, is rangy and a challenge to sing, and the leads show occasional signs of vocal strain.
Francis Jue as David Henry Hwang in Soft Power. Photographs by Joan Marcus.
The rest of the cast is first-rate. In multiple supporting roles, Jon Hoche stands out for his delightful comic timing and dynamic physical presence. Raymond J. Lee also provides expert vocals and character acting.
One quibble: The Act II song “Democracy” appears as a gospel aria in which Little Hillary tries to fill Big Aretha’s shoes. But anyone familiar with the 2016 Democratic primaries and the DNC’s strong-arm shenanigans might find it odd that Hillary Clinton should sing a paean to democracy. When the number is reprised at the show’s end, the intention is sincere, but it plays a bit like that awkward moment at Democratic conventions when the neoliberal party leaders concede the stage to a patronizing gospel finale.
But that’s a minor caveat. Watching the all-Asian cast in blonde wigs and MAGA hats holding AK-47s in comic or angry chorales serves as a chilling reminder of just how painfully far We the People have fallen in humanity’s esteem. Soft Power holds a funhouse mirror up to today’s America and reflects back our distorted and antagonized present.
Soft Power plays through Nov. 17 at the Public Theater’s Newman Theater (425 Lafayette St.). Evening performances are at 8 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday; matinees are at 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. For more information, visit publictheater.org.
