Some 120,000 Japanese-Americans were incarcerated a few months after Pearl Harbor, by order of President Roosevelt. George Takei and his family were among them. The actor best known as Sulu in Star Trek is the reason why the musical Allegiance is finally bringing this shameful chapter of American history to life on Broadway.
The creative team behind Allegiance has worked hard to make this important musical both entertaining and illuminating, and Takei is just one of the many splendid performers, including Lea Salonga and Telly Leung, who boost the enterprise with both lively and touching moments. But the hard work and the great cast can’t completely mask the ways the show falls short.
Full review on DC Theatre Scene
(Update December 12, 2015: George Takei has invited Donald Trump to see Allegiance, after Trump’s call to ban Muslims from the United States, and his comment in answer to a question in Time Magazine that he “would have had to be there” to know whether he might have supported the Japanese American wartime imprisonment.)
Please click on any of these photographs by Matthew Murphy to see them enlarged.
