Word: flowering
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Schama, narrating in a scruffy leather jacket, is a popularizer in the best sense. He can be snarky, poetic or both, as when he describes Queen Victoria's funeral procession, the monarch dressed in white: "There was a touch of Miss Havisham about this--the 80-year-old, flower-bedecked virgin bride." He's an enlightening, entertaining guide to a history that isn't ours, except that it really is. --By James Poniewozik
...source of mystery and refuge in the urban wilderness. Look out for digital renderings of Jean Nouvel's Hotel Broadway in New York, and of Dubai's Burj al-Arab, the world's tallest hotel. - L.G Treasure Trove An ethereal glow emanates from a jeweled menagerie of flowers and animals ensconced inside long cabinets in a darkened room. Visitors wield flashlights handed out at the entrance to "The Jewels of JAR," a homage to the innovative designer Joel Arthur Rosenthal at London's Somerset House. The shadowed display is modeled on his exclusive shop near Place Vendôme, Paris...
...dancing together again in a Broadway revival of Oklahoma! The King and I and Carousel have each got a fresh coat of paint in recent years. Even that postwar war-horse South Pacific is on a national tour and was revived a short time ago in London. But Flower Drum Song has long been the one Rodgers and Hammerstein hit that no one wants to revive, tucked away in the drawer where dated ethnic stereotypes are sent...
...which a theatergoer can only respond with a nervous gulp. The good news is that despite the show's occasional pretensions (and a gauntlet of critics suddenly quite protective of a musical they never much liked in the first place), Hwang has succeeded. Flower Drum Song has been rescued from the dustbin of theater history and made relevant again without getting weighed down by political correctness. This new Broadway revival is a work of bravery and intelligence and real faith in the possibilities of musical theater...
Finally, the show works because it doesn't condescend. Hwang confesses that Flower Drum Song was always a guilty pleasure: for all its stereotypes, it portrayed the Asian experience as no show had before and few have since. "Many things about it remain revolutionary today," says Hwang. "You don't see on TV or movie screens in American pop culture a romance between an Asian man and an Asian woman. I'm still amazed by the fact that there was a Flower Drum Song." And we should be amazed that this Song is back in tune. --With reporting by AmyLennard...