The Broadway production of George Takei's Allegiance has been shown in cinemas for a couple of one-night events. I went to see it today. Short verdict -- the story is great, the execution okay. Not actively bad, but not that good either. It shows, pretty compellingly, a family being torn apart by their differing reactions to being interned. There are few outright villains and no outright heroes; mostly just people reacting in human ways to a terrible situation. On the other hand, it feels a little hackneyed at times. It doesn't get preachy, the way you might expect, but there are some emotional moments where the dialogue is just a little too over-the-top; it's particularly noticeable toward the end when Takei is the one with the lines, and he clearly has the acting chops to convey all the same emotions without the extra verbiage. And the music, while it's serviceable, is simply there. If you asked me to sing a line from any song in the show, I wouldn't be able to -- it just wasn't memorable. It was worth going to, and it's a story that deserves to be told on stage, but it could have been done better. Anyone else seen it?
