For Asian-American theater troupe Mu Performing Arts, the revival of "Flower Drum Song" that previews Friday in St. Paul marks a milestone.
The 1958 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, with an updated book by Tony-winning playwright David Henry Hwang, is the signal production in Mu's 25th anniversary season. Its $200,000 budget also is Mu's biggest ever — more than twice the cost of the biggest shows it has done.
The company's artistic director, Randy Reyes, acted in Mu's 2009 staging of this show, and now is directing this one.
"As we were planning our 25th season, we wanted to bring back something from the repertory," Reyes said. "When we did it in 2009, it was a very strong production by [Mu co-founder] Rick Shiomi, but it opened on Fourth of July weekend, so we didn't get much of an audience.
"This is a re-envisioning of the staging, made possible because it's a coproduction with Park Square, so the budget is big. I don't want to denigrate the magic that we do as a theater, but this show is special because we've had the resources to fully realize our vision."
Before a rehearsal last week, Reyes talked about the tensions — and the jubilation — in this landmark production.
With the blessing of the Rodgers and Hammerstein estate, Hwang kept their music but rewrote the story for a reboot of "Flower Drum Song" that played Broadway in 2002.
"The old story was terrible and full of lazy stereotypes," said Reyes. "What David has done is set the show in 1950s Chinatown in San Francisco at a nightclub owned by a Chinese-American family. As the older generation struggles with the newer generation, as the world of the Peking Opera gives way to the world of the nightclub, we see the full struggle of what it means to be Asian in America, to be Asian-American — what is lost, what is gained.