The King and I. Now that TV screens are growing bigger and brighter, it’s becoming possible–just–to appreciate the glories of wide-screen musicals without seeing them in a theater. Even if you don’t much care for Rodgers and Hammerstein, the 1956 CinemaScope film of their musical version of Anna and the King of Siam is of the first importance because of Jerome Robbins’ dances–especially since Robbins personally supervised their filming. “The Small House of Uncle Thomas,” his Asian-flavored retelling of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, looks cramped and illegible on a conventional TV, but to watch it on a HDTV-friendly screen is to be astonished anew by the endless ingenuity and unaffected freshness of Robbins’ choreographic storytelling (TT).
Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City
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