Out of Town is a new feature on EncoreMichigan. When the opportunity presents itself, we will review a Broadway show, or perhaps a show in Chicago that we have seen. Many of our readers regularly get to both cities, and it is our pleasure to give our take when we can.

A musical about the internment of Japanese-Americans in World War Two? If you reduce Allegiance to that overly simplistic summary, then it might not sound like a holiday season mood booster. But, what the musical Allegiance is really about is a family that endures through love, dignity, spirit, loyalty and forgiveness. What could be a better story to lift the heart?

Allegiance is based on the story of actor George Takei’s real-life experience during World War Two when his family was held in an internment camp set up by the Roosevelt administration to quarter Japanese-Americans after the attacks by Japan on Pearl Harbor. The rationale, in the aftermath of the attacks, was that the U.S. did not know and could not know which Japanese families were spies or otherwise in league with the Japanese government.

If only this story had relevance today. If only we had a present-day situation with which to compare and relate this story to?

The story does not track exactly with Takei’s specific biography. The actor, best known for playing Sulu on the original Star Trek and his 15 million Facebook followers, plays two roles in the story–an aging U.S. veteran, Sammy Kimura, who had volunteered to fight for America in an all-Japanese-American unit that took heavy casualties, as well as Sammy’s own grandfather when the story goes into flashback to 1941-1945.

While the subject material may, at first consideration, feel like it lends itself better to opera than musical theatre, the book by Marc Acito and score by Jay Kuo manage to lift what could be a dour story into one of love and triumph over dire and humiliating circumstances. Clearly, the writing team is influenced by the style, success and appeal of scores from Les Miserables, Newsies and Miss Saigon, for several key songs and numbers (“Our Time Now,” and “What makes A Man”) have the feel of those shows and songs. Given the mountain to climb to overcome the grim meta-data of this show, can we blame them for going for some crowd-pleasers?

Lea Salonga, who was incandescent in her role in Miss Saigon, plays Kei Kumura, the older sister of young Sammy Kimura (Telly Leung) who is a the first college graduate in his family. Sammy’s mother died in child birth, and so Kei is his surrogate mother. Ms. Salonga is radiant in the role, with strong and defining vocals, and in her at times sassy running of the family in her mother’s place. The family is led, though, by their father, Tatsuo Kimura (Christopheren Nomura) who is forced to sell his farm for a mere $2,000, a tenth of it’s worth, before being herded to the camp. Nomura is intentionally stiff and rock-ribbed as a man in his circumstances and of his background would be. Mr. Leung provides tremendous energy in the play, and depicts the torn, conflicted and passionate Sammy with much craft.

The story that unfolds is the tension between Sammy, who believes he must enlist to represent and defend all Japanese-Americans and Frankie Suzuki (Michael K. Lee), who refuses to enlist, and instead complains and protests about the unfair treatment of his people. A romance develops between Frankie and Kei while Sammy is off at war, which drives a wedge into the family. There are plot surprises in the show that keep it from being a mere morality play, and lift it to powerful emotion and passions.

Takei’s personality as grandfather Ojii-Chan infuses Allegiance with its best ingredient–a reminder that the best way to triumph over the most difficult circumstances is through dignity, faith and humor. Indeed, there are sweet dashes of humor sprinkled throughout the play that provide balance for the tragic moments and allow Takei to shine.

To point out that Allegiance has such obvious connections to current events seems a bit ham-fisted to point out. But it suffices to say that Takei, whose passion for this story is never so evident as when one watches him in the Act-1 finale practically coming out of his 78-year old skin as he sings and moves with the company, has taken on certain nativist political candidates on his Facebook page.

And that brings up an interesting point when it comes to seeing this show. Allegiance is a project of passion for Takei. Not every patron will bother to delve into Takei’s own story, and his reasons for wanting to bring it to the stage. The show does have to stand on its own without necessarily knowing the back story. And it does.

At the same time I was thinking of the connectivity between the internment of Japanese-Americans to today’s headlines, I was also thinking of how chillingly similar the situation seemed to the Nazis sending non-Arians to camps so similar to the one the Kimura family was to. The camp guards–American soldiers–seemed all to similar to brown-shirted Nazis. And in 1941, the U.S. government did have knowledge of the concentration camps being built and populated by the Germans with its victims.

There are a few moments when Allegiance feels a little heavy-handed, though that comes when the book is working to inform the audience about the events and history. The choreography, by Andrew Palermo, does a splendid job of helping to keep the show upbeat, and he deals with the bombing of Hiroshima at the end of the show with great artistic sensitivity. The set design, by Donyale Werle, likewise captures the spareness of the camp as well as picking up the scenes outside the camp with color and optimism for excellent balance of moods in the 2-hour-plus show.

Director Stafford Arima had his hands full–taking a big story rooted in not-so-distant history and lifting it to hopefulness and optimism. Indeed, the show is anything but a downer.

Make no mistake: While a good chunk of Allegiance is set in an internment camp, it is a story of fathers, sons, daughters, mothers, with all the moments of tragedy, humor, pride, endurance, grudges, forgiveness and an absolute triumph of spirit and heart that is the blood that runs through any family of loved ones.