The musical is based on Patrick's 1953 play and screenplay The Teahouse of the August Moon. It focuses on Capt. Fisby who, assigned to Americanize the village of Tobiki on Okinawa following World War II, encourages the residents to build a school. They would prefer a traditional teahouse instead, and when Fisby discovers the potent alcoholic beverage they brew is popular with the American GIs and a big money-maker, he falls in with their plans. Helping him become assimilated to the local mores are local interpreter Sakini and geisha Lotus Blossom.
Production
The musical opened in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at the Shubert Theatre on August 19, 1970 in its out of town tryout and then had tryout performances in Los Angeles (Civic Light Opera) and San Francisco.[1] The latter production's opening night performance was greeted by roughly 250 to 300 picketers—some carrying signs reading, "Sakini Dyed for Our Sins"—whose spokesperson stated:
Asians should be given the right to audition ... and to refuse to take such roles in a racist play.[2]
Burns was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical, and Freddy Wittop was nominated for Best Costume Design.
Song list
Act I
With a Snap of My Finger
Right Hand Man
Find Your Own Cricket
One Side of the World
Geisha
You Say-They Say
This Time
Simple Word
Garden Guaracha
It's Good Enough for Lady Astor
Act II
Chaya
Call Me Back
Lovely Ladies, Kind Gentlemen
You've Broken a Fine Woman's Heart
One More for the Last One
Critical response
Critic Clive Barnes, in his review for The New York Times wrote: "Oh, dear! I come to bury Lovely Ladies, Kind Gentle man, [sic] not to praise it, but there were one or two decent things, and three or four half decent things, about this strangely dated musical that modestly opened last night at the Majestic Theater."[4]
Douglas Watt, reviewing for the News, wrote "It is lively, colorful and generally engaging entertainment. The songs... are tuneful."[5]
The group Oriental Actors of America picketed the Majestic Theatre on opening night because of the production's use of "yellowface."[6]
^Suskin, Steven. Lovely Ladies, Kind GentlemenThe Sound of Broadway Music: A Book of Orchestrators and Orchestrations, Oxford University Press, 2011, ISBN0199790841, page number unknown