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| Jens Rasmussen in The King and I |
Quick! What's the first thing you think of when someone says "The King and I"?
A bald-headed, bare-chested Yul Brynner in M.C. Hammer pants? You wouldn't be alone.
That's what Steve Valentini has to face at every performance of the Springer Opera House's production of the beloved Rodgers & Hammerstein musical.
He's shaved his head, but that's about it.
Valentini has done this show once before at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta in 1984, but this is the first time he's playing King Mongkut.
"I'm going to try not to be Yul Brynner," he said. "I'm doing the shaved head and all that because I'm bald."
Musical theater fans likely associate Brynner, who portrayed the king on Broadway and in the 1956 film, with King Mongkut.
So much so that Debbie Anderson, who is playing Anna Leonowens, says people come up to her all time asking, "Who's playing Yul Brynner?"
Director Paul Pierce says the image of Brynner is so strong that he could not ignore it. But he told Valentini not to mimic it, either.
A strong woman
To get ready for the role of Anna, Anderson read the book, "Anna and the King of Siam," the book written from Anna Leonowens' diaries and published in 1944.
"She was a much stronger woman in the play," Anderson said. "In the book, she gains strength. I was happy I read the book."
Anderson also did online research and discovered that Leonowens moved to Canada after she left Thailand and did women's suffrage work. Her son later moved to Australia and then back to Thailand because he was friends with Chululongkorn, the King's son.
"I like Anna," Anderson said. "She was a strong woman in a time when women were not taught to be strong." Anderson said she stood up to her father, who wanted her to marry a diplomat. Instead, she married an Army captain.
Growing up in India, Leonowens found out first-hand about slavery and why she thought it was so wrong.
"The King and I" deals with a lot of issues that are not the usual topics of musical comedies written in the 1950s, including slavery, women's rights, race, class and death.
Laughing because she's played such diverse characters as Mona in "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas" and this one, Anderson said, "Mona's a fighter and so is Anna."
Jens Rasmussen studied Asian theater and says that came in handy in his role as Kralahome.
Rasmussen says this is not a historical piece, but rather inspired by historic events.
This is the second play that Rasmussen has done with a lot of children in the cast. He was in "A Christmas Carol" last year.
"The kids are great," he said. "I'm very impressed with the kids."
All the children are students in the Springer Theater Academy. All of them were double-cast because of the daytime school performances.
A 'fiery' role
Theresa Garcia, a freshman at LaGrange College, is taking a break from school to play Tuptim, one of the King's wives, in her first major Mainstage role at the Springer.
"It's a love story and it's interesting in that it's so desperate," she said. "I guess the thing about Tuptim is that she's very fiery, extremely passionate and stands up to the King."
Drew Stark is making his Springer debut, and plays Tuptim's love interest, Lun Tha.
Pierce said the King had more than 100 wives and 67 children.
"What I remember is that besides the wives, there are 3,000 other women in the household to support the lives of the harem."
And all the workers -- the carpenters, masons, guards, chefs -- were all women.
Stark wrote his thesis on Richard Rodgers while at William & Mary.
In this play, a lot of controversial issues were addressed, and along with "Oklahoma!" and "Carousel," "The King and I" changed the face of Broadway, Stark said.
Capturing an era
Springer costumer Sandra London made costumes that are not historically based, she said. Instead, she went with a color palette that will recall the look of Siamese clothing of that era.
BY SANDRA OKAMOTO
