- Performances: 1,027
- Open / Close: October 15, 1953 – March 24, 1956
- Theater: Martin Beck (now the Al Hirschfeld)
- Tony Awards: Five, including Best Play and Best Producer of a Play.
- Fun Fact: Best Producer of a Play is another retired Tony Award: it was last given in 1971 to #85 on this list, “Sleuth.”
Podcast
An old show that prompts conversations about the related movie adaptation is the perfect reason to bring in old movie expert, Jesse Rabinowitz, Ph.D., so we can get our Brando on. Lots to talk about here related to how a progressive show at the time can retain some surprisingly progressive messages while also seeming pretty ridiculously dated today.
Man, what a difference a few years can make. “The Teahouse of the August Moon” was a big success on Broadway in 1954; it spawned a popular movie starring a huge star (Marlon Brando), and the script won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
- Fun Fact #2: Playwrights received $500 for the Pulitzer Prize in the 1950s, which is approximately $4800 in 2020 dollars. Today’s prize winners receive $15,000.
Even so, a musical based on the play was a spectacular failure just 14 years after the play closed. At the time, the New York Times said the original story was “[p]recisely geared for its time [and] is now out of joint,” resulting in “a strangely dated musical.” Modern reviewers watching the movie version tend to conclude it is “nearly unwatchable today.”
The change in perspective is not just a matter of flat out racism. Sure, David Wayne’s portrayal of a Japanese translator, the role Brando would take on for the movie, was “yellowface,” pure and simple. The depiction of “a Japanese version of Stepin Fetchit” definitely wouldn’t fly today.
- Fun Fact #3: Brando’s movie right before “Teahouse” was the musical “Guys and Dolls” (the stage version is #90 on this list). He received Best Actor Oscar nominations four years in a row up until then, winning in 1954 for “On the Waterfront.” His movie right after “Teahouse” would be “Sayonara,” a drama that seriously confronts issues of racism in post-war Japan. Brando would be nominated for his role in that film as well.
But do a little digging and you can fall down a rabbit hole of analysis related to “Teahouse” and its racial, cultural, and even diplomatic repercussions — and people argue there was a net positive effect. I didn’t read the entire paper, “Runaway Orientalism: MGM’s Teahouse and U.S.-Japanese Relations in the 1950s” by Hiroshi Kitamura, but I skimmed enough to know that the play, and then the movie, actually helped bridge some gaps between the United States and Japan. (The movie also co-starred Phil Ford from the only other play covered on this list so far, the hideous #118 “Never Too Late.”)
And apparently, most Japanese critics loved the movie when it came out. Quoting Kitamura: “Critic after critic expressed delight at Brando’s acting as ‘funny,’ ‘hilarious,’ and ‘filled with charm’—in spite of his blatant yellowface look. One might find it difficult to fathom this reaction, but Japanese critics appeared to have accepted Brando’s performance by seeing it as part of a fictitious ‘fairy tale’ or otogi banashi.”
The show won over several critics because it was written by an American who was making fun of the American military and government policy. As a review of the London production said, “Americans laughing at themselves is a welcome theme here.”
The plot involves an American soldier assigned to a town in Okinawa after World War II, tasked with starting a school there. However, through various misadventures, a teahouse is built instead that gains popularity by serving a very popular sweet-potato brandy. The success of the operation is threatened when higher-ups plan to present an award to the organizers for their efforts in successful “democratization.”
It all works out in the end, of course, and there are apparently plenty of charming mishaps along the way. Some comedy comes from the cultural misunderstanding of what a geisha is (NOT a prostitute) and some clever misdirection by the villagers, in ways that, at the time, seemed surprisingly culturally sensitive.
- Extended aside: Mariko Niki, the actress who played the geisha, Lotus Blossom, on Broadway wouldn’t work as an actress again, marrying an American US information agency officer and moving back to Japan. The following passage from the Eureka Humboldt Standard newspaper is telling in so many ways. Particularly note how she is given no agency in her life or career.
“Take a beautiful Japanese girl, bring her to the U.S., star her in a Broadway hit, make her a citizen and then send her back to her home country as the wife of an American official. If all the bureaucrats in Washington had tried to master-plan this daisy-chain of diplomacy, they couldn’t have done better for stunning Mariko Niki is turning her back on a brilliant stage career to help her American husband in the land of Nippon. This black-eyed Japanese beauty is the kind of wife diplomats dream about. [In 1952,] she met Georgia-born Bernard Dekle, a writer for the Voice of America, the two married and now she’s [preparing] to star in a new, full-time role as homemaker.”
The uncomfortable racial undercurrents in “Teahouse” may be the reason the movie isn’t available on any streaming platform, even though Brando’s reputation as one of the world’s best actors remains strong. Just judging from the YouTube clips, there is plenty of cringe-worthy material.
Earlier this week, I wrote about the revival of “South Pacific” in 2008 and how it addressed (somewhat) the ways the original material seems dated today. “South Pacific” will likely continue to be produced thanks to its incredible songs. Without similar highlights, though, it’s unlikely we’ll see “Teahouse” produced in anything but an ironic staging ever again.
Final grade: B-.