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Done Right

Michael K. Lee. Photo courtesy of M. Lee

By Gerrye Wong

In Palo Alto-based TheatreWorks’ production of Stephen Sondheim’s unforgettable musical, Pacific Overtures, Michael Kang-Sik Lee played Manjiro, the shipwrecked fisherman who returns to Japan with a warning of the impending American shoring. Based on true events of 1853, Pacific Overtures recounts the epic arrival of Commodore Matthew C. Perry and the USS Powhattan, which forced Japan to turn its back on ancient ways.

Other performers in this first-time ever all-Asian American cast included Scott Watanabe in the lead of Kayama, the Samurai appointed to deal with the Americans and Lawrence Thoo as the Lord Abe. Mikio Hirata, co-artistic director of the Theatre of Yugen, played the role of the Reciter who narrated the piece. Other cast members includes Erwin Urbi, Hisato Masuyama, Donny Honda, Don Masuda, Eva Shiro, David Lamm, Jacquelyn McSwanson, Audrey Lee, Linda Shiao-Ling Chuan, Dana Shew, Eryn Maybruck, Nicole Tung, Lawrence-Michael Arias, Michael Sanchez, Alex Hsu, Kevin Furuta, Sophie Oda, Romar DeClaro, Edmond Kwong and Tony Nam. AsianWeek spoke with lead actor, Michael Lee, about his thoughts on theater.

AsianWeek: The last three years have been busy ones for you on stage. Tell us about what you’ve been doing.

Michael Lee: In 1998, I was understudying the role of Angel in Rent for the National Touring Company and in 1999, for East West Players in Los Angeles I was in an original production called Beijing Spring, which was a kind of pop-opera dealing with the Tianamen incident. During this period, I also did another original show with fellow East West players for California’s Sesquicentennial celebration ... called Heading East. [It] told the story of three generations of a Chinese family who sent their son to America’s land of gold to send back riches to their poor family back in China. Then in 2000, I joined the Broadway cast for Jesus Christ Superstar. While there, a great opportunity came to me. So I took leave of that show and joined the Singapore Repertory Theater production of They’re Playing Our Song to go on tour in the Phillipines opposite Lea Salonga for a month. The response there was so great, I will always remember that as a marvelous experience.

AW: Speaking about cultural diversity on the entertainment stage, tell me a little about your own background?

ML: I was born in Brooklyn, New York of Korean immigrant parents who immigrated to the States in 1971 with my sister and brother. My father was a surgeon and my mom a housewife and we lived in Salamanca, New York. I joined the family in 1973 and we were lucky in that, although my father believed in retaining old-country values, he believed we must assimilate in the country we live in. So we grew up in a town with no other Korean families, and although I understood some Korean, never spoke it too much myself.

AW: How did you get in the music world?

ML: [My] mother encouraged us to enjoy music and take up instruments. I studied piano and violin. I found out I kind of liked performing early on, I played in various [school events] and plays. In my senior year, I was offered the role of Thuy in Miss Saigon for six months, an offer no one could refuse. I took a leave from high school to go all over the world. I actually finished all my courses while on the road and came back home for one day for graduation to graduate with all my friends.

AW: Why do you think it was an important step forward for this all-Asian cast to be selected?

ML: Asian Pacific Islander American actors have a limited area where we are chosen for roles, especially when we are only considered for Asian roles. Yet many times whites are given the roles and just made up to look Asian. This time TheatreWorks did the honest thing and cast all APIAs in those Asian roles. Pacific Overtures is an intriguing story based in Japan on actual facts done to music.