‘Allegiance’ with George Takei portrays Japanese-American internment on Broadway

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• MORI ROTHMAN:

  George Takei believes a musical is the perfect format to retell the history of the Japanese-American internment during World War Two.

• GEORGE TAKEI:

  Music has the power to hit people right here in the heart, emotionally, as well as intellectually.

• MORI ROTHMAN:

  In early 1942 the U-S ordered 110-thousand Japanese-Americans living on the west coast to internment camps. Five year old Takei and his family were sent to camps in Arkansas and Utah for nearly four years. The musical "Allegiance" is loosely based on their experience.

  Takei's family had lived in Los Angeles. His father, who emigrated as a child ran a dry cleaner. His mother raised the three kids.

  Takei's parents couldn't understand why their country made them live behind barbed wire fences.

• GEORGE TAKEI:

  I couldn't reconcile what I read in civics books and history books about the shining ideals of our democracy with what I knew to be my childhood imprisonment. And to be suspected of being the enemy when we were Americans.

• MORI ROTHMAN:

  In Allegiance, Takei plays the grandfather of the main character, Sammy, who struggles to reconcile his pride in being American with his family's suffering in the camp…where they lived in cold barracks without plumbing or privacy.

• SAMMY:

  They're treating us like animals!

• TAKEI:

  Isamu… gaman.

• SAMMY:

  Gaman?

• KEI:

  It means to carry on.

• TAKEI:

  Hold head high.

• MORI ROTHMAN:

  The musical focuses on Sammy and his sister, Kei- siblings driven apart after internment by conflicting ideas about loyalty and patriotism.

• GEORGE TAKEI:

  We wanted to humanize the internment experience. We wanted to make them people who were resilient, part of resilience is the ability to find joy even under those harsh circumstances and love.

• MORI ROTHMAN:

  For Takei, reliving the painful events of 70 years ago is a chance to make amends with his own family.

• GEORGE TAKEI:

  In one heated discussion with my father, I said 'Daddy, you led us like sheep[s] to slaughter into the internment camps,' and then he looked at me and said, 'Well, maybe you're right,' and he got up, went into his bedroom and closed the door. And I felt terrible. And I never apologized. I'm apologizing to my dad every night.

• MORI ROTHMAN:

  The cast of "Allegiance" is the first to be led by Asian actors on Broadway since the revival of the musical "Flower Drum Song" thirteen years ago. But Takei is used to breaking barriers: when "Star Trek" began in 1966, he was one of the first Asians to star on American TV.

  For years, Takei spoke publicly about his internment but the idea for "Allegiance" did not occur until he discussed it with composer Jay Kuo in 2008.

• MORI ROTHMAN:

  You yourself have been very outspoken, going around the country to speak about the internment, why is that?

• GEORGE TAKEI:

  People who I consider well informed people are shocked when I tell them about my childhood. It's a vital part of American history. And Americans don't know it. And we have to know our history to learn from it.

• MORI ROTHMAN:

  And Takei says the internment needs to be remembered so it is never repeated.