Word: flower
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...picture bride," has traveled far to greet her future father-in-law in the stubbornly Oriental parlor of his San Francisco home. And she has arrived on time. Until now, Flower Drum Song has been nothing but the newest Rodgers and Hammerstein hit musical-brisk, bright, opulently staged, professional. When Miyoshi Umeki glides onstage to star in her first Broadway show, her first four words capture the house. The warmth of her art works a kind of tranquil magic, and the whole theater relaxes...
...Flower Drum Song (music and lyrics by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II; book by Mr. Hammerstein and Joseph Fields) proves to be thoroughly professional, has Miyoshi Umeki, Pat Suzuki and other nice performers, has some agreeable dancing, some gorgeous costumes, here proof of a jolly Rodgers and there of a dreamy one. As purely popular musical fare, the show should fare handsomely. But as Rodgers and Hammerstein, it not only lacks the talent of their top-drawer work, it seldom has the touch. Flower Drum Song is passably pleasant in its way, but its way is strictly routine...
...customs and picturesque ceremonies. Doubtless Rodgers and Hammerstein were properly determined that never their twain should meet; in any case, they operate at such different levels that they cannot. Where, in musicomedy terms, The King and I seemed truly exotic and aromatically blended fable, score and choreography into one. Flower Drum Song has no distinctive elements to blend and is never really exotic because it makes Chinatown almost indistinguishable from Broadway...
...gets few assists from the lyrics, and the libretto gains nothing from its Joseph Fields brand of gag. Perhaps the right comparison for the show is not with first-flight Rodgers and Hammerstein but with second-best Rodgers and Hart. Such work might well be less smoothly professional than Flower Drum Song, but it was more individualized. If it sagged, it would suddenly soar; if there was nothing notable for the nightingale, there was something delightful for the mockingbird. The Hart wit waltzed to a Rodgers tune; the Hart irreverence punctured what, on more than one occasion, Flower Drum Song...
...inherited a fortune at 30, made several more from his art, and spent them all before his death at 58. He was a philosopher in love with life, knowing and glorying in its evanescence. Once, to dramatize his feeling, he brought plain rice balls, wrapped in bamboo, to a flower-viewing party. After eating, he unrolled the bamboo wrapping upon the air. It was overlaid with gold leaf and painted by himself with mountains, birds and flowers. Casually, he tossed it into the stream...