The New York Times - Recommended
"...Anna is only slightly startled by the arrival of genuine eroticism. As played by Ms. O'Hara, she's a smart, scrappy, willful pragmatist who also happens to know that love is often as strange as it is undeniable. That knowledge infuses every note Ms. O'Hara sings, and it is something wonderful indeed."
NY Daily News - Highly Recommended
"Something wonderful happens quickly in 'The King and I'...This splendid revival emerges as majestic and intimate simultaneously...Grandeur and grace fill each scene and song...'The King and I' endures for its beauty and ambition."
Associated Press - Highly Recommended
"'The King and I' is getting an elegant, thoughtful revival courtesy of Lincoln Center Theater. There's an opulent, almost operatic feel to this production, and the music and dancing are richly presented...the production feels fresh and yet familiar, too."
Hollywood Reporter - Highly Recommended
"...Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II revolutionized the American musical in the 1940s with Oklahoma! and Carousel, and their classic shows are often unfairly consigned via over-familiarity to the vault of dusty relics. But what's so uplifting is that Sher approaches their work not as a nostalgia exercise. Perhaps even more than South Pacific, his production of The King and I - which has not a single false moment, either dramatically or musically - honors the composing team's legacy with a richly entertaining revival that takes the term literally by infusing the material with vibrant, soul-stirring life."
Vulture - Highly Recommended
" An astonishing achievement..too beautiful to miss...It does expand the concept of a love story to include relationships that are impossible. In exploring them, Sher's production is the frankest, and sexiest, I've ever seen. It is also the saddest. Our era allows him to show plainly what even its authors could only suggest."
NY1 - Recommended
"Sher's production deftly mines the many layers embedded within. Choreographer Christopher Gatelli's ballet for 'Small House of Uncle Thomas' seizes on the darkness and beauty of the culture. Everyone in this immense company performs to perfection."
Variety - Highly Recommended
""The production itself, with its operatic sweep and opulent aesthetic, is the star of its own show. ...The show's still pertinent theme: the dissonant dynamic when Western civilization tries to assert its values on Eastern cultures. That cultural dialogue is at the heart of this absolutely stunning show. "
USA Today - Highly Recommended
"There are moments in 'The King and I' that may leave you grinning so hard your face will hurt. Then suddenly, without warning, you'll be fighting off tears...'The King and I' still has much to tell us about our differences and shared interests — about all the beautiful and new things we can learn from each other."
New York Post - Highly Recommended
"You can't overstate how stunningly beautiful, how achingly well sung this new revival of 'The King and I' is...The music is simply divine. The cast appears to be just as transported as we are, their voices ringing with heartfelt emotion. So strong is the rest of this show that, even with a relatively weak performance by the king, you're still getting the royal treatment."
Entertainment Weekly - Highly Recommended
"If you're quite sure of the lengths that can be achieved on Lincoln Center's stage, you'll need to think again after witnessing Bartlett Sher's breathtakingly appointed take on 'The King and I'...Judiciously stops short of fetishizing Eastern culture...It has boosted the overall theme of intersocietal behavior and respect...Sher's intents seem to sway the story back to a uniquely feminist state of mind."
Newsday - Highly Recommended
"Director Bartlett Sher's sweepingly romantic production aches with deep, unforced understanding of the story's East/West cultural divide while luxuriating in the sumptuous pleasures of the classic...Nothing overshadows the staggering wealth of the songs...How good to be getting to know the show all over again."
amNY - Recommended
"'The King and I' holds up incredibly well as a piece of drama. The songs are beautiful, the characters are complex and its themes of democratization, cultural miscommunication and gender inequality are timely. Sher's production is generally impressive and satisfying."
Wall Street Journal - Highly Recommended
"'The King and I' presents three major problems: the scenic requirements, Yul Brynner's legendary star turn, and the writer portrayed the King of Siam as a spoiled man-child. Director Bartlett Sher's solution: cast an Asian actor in Brynner's role while simultaneously underlining the show's proto-feminist aspect...The results: I doubt I'll see a better production of 'The King and I' in my lifetime."
NBC New York - Recommended
"...Anna is summoned by the king to help modernize Siam. Her impact ends up being more personal than expected -- that's a notion the musical presents eloquently with the ascension of the crown prince, who decrees that although he is still to be respected, there will be "no bowing like toad. "The King and I" requires a regal, charismatic leading lady, and in O'Hara, it has one who's just about perfect."
Time Out New York - Highly Recommended
"...O'Hara sounds angelic as ever in "Getting to Know You," "Hello, Young Lovers," "Shall We Dance?" and other numbers-her silky, shimmering soprano a treasure-and the role plays to her strengths: wryness, warmth and quiet dignity. Sher directs her and the rest of an exceptionally good cast-Ruthie Ann Miles as Lady Thiang, Ashley Park as unhappy wife Tuptim and Conrad Ricamora as her clandestine lover, Lun Tha-with palpable respect for the material and a care to avoid orientalist humbug. By the time we get the second-act ballet, "The Small House of Uncle Thomas," the Siamese version of Uncle Tom's Cabin, you marvel at the sophistication (and welcome strangeness) of Rodgers and Hammerstein's theme: intercultural change and evolution. Nothing is lost in translation; this King and I speaks a universal language of love."
The Wrap - Recommended
"Sher once again reveals the musical's own enormous qualities without imposing an arbitrary interpretation..Seven years, it's too long to wait for another reunion of Rodgers and Hammerstein, LTC, and Sher."
Deadline - Recommended
"Now comes 'The King And I', in one of the most elegantly beautiful and beautifully sung productions I've ever seen, and the Beaumont looks like a living treasure chest for a director with the right vision and a company that can command a vast space and make it feel like your living room...This production exudes class. It's all a feast for the eyes as much as for the ears."
TheaterMania - Highly Recommended
"Director Bartlett Sher has brought 'The King and I' thrillingly to life for a new generation. With outstanding performances from his cast, Sher brings the grandeur of opera to this mounting...Those looking for a time-honored Broadway musical realized on a grand scale could do no better."
Huffington Post - Highly Recommended
"...The results, at the Beaumont, leave us shaking our heads in wonderment at just how good this "Something Wonderful" musical is -- although first time viewers are more likely to simply be swept away by the saga of Anna and the King of Siam. This King and I is excellent, although it does not soar quite so much as South Pacific. No matter; full value is given, and it's a treasure to have the show back on the Broadway boards after a seventeen-year absence."
Stu on Broadway - Highly Recommended
"Lincoln Center has done it again. The organization has revived 'The King and I,' and it is a sumptuous and majestic production. Everything about the show is grand, from the musical's opening to the enormous cast to the towering sets. This is how to experience a Rodgers and Hammerstein production."
WNBC - Recommended
"Anna is summoned by the king to help modernize Siam. Her impact ends up being more personal than expected -- that's a notion the musical presents eloquently...'The King and I' requires a regal, charismatic leading lady, and it has one who's just about perfect."
On Stage Blog - Highly Recommended
"This production is beautiful. It's a piece of classic musical theatre done in a stunningly simple and simply stunning way...Go see 'The King and I' for the exquisitely staged and performed 'Shall We Dance' that will bring tears to the eyes of even the most hardened critics."
Columbus Dispatch - Highly Recommended
"This 'King and I' isn't revelatory. It merely fulfills virtually every reasonable expectation of Rodgers and Hammerstein fans who hope to be delighted anew with a familiar classic on Broadway. And that's something wonderful."
Off Script with Dan Dwyer - Somewhat Recommended
"Magic has not struck at the Vivian Beaumont...Ken Wantanabe gives a highly externalized performance. O'Hara internalizes much of her role. The contrast could work, if there were sparks flying that could kindle some flame of romance between the two. Not here...The set designer has opted for an interpretive set that leaves a lot of negative space, which absent real energy between the two leads makes the stage loom static at best, and sometimes even vacant."
