Abstract:

In Soft Power (2019), David Henry Hwang and Jeanine Tesori deconstruct and demonstrate the affective power of American musicals by reversing The King and I (1951). Soft Power satirizes democracy, white supremacy, and gun violence with whiteface, meta-propaganda, and a sweeping Broadway-style score. In the torch song “Democracy” and its reprise, the artists articulate Asian American ambivalence about US democracy: hope in its promise to lift everyone, despair in its rootedness in racism, and cognizance of musical theatre as a delivery system for ideology. This article uses repetition, interviews, reviews, and dramaturgy to consider Soft Power, soft power, and democracy.

 抽象的：

在《软实力》（2019）中，黄哲伦和珍妮·特索里通过逆转《国王与我》（1951）来解构和展示美国音乐剧的情感力量。 《软实力》用白脸、元宣传和全面的百老汇风格配乐来讽刺民主、白人至上和枪支暴力。在火炬歌曲《民主》及其重唱中，艺术家们表达了亚裔美国人对美国民主的矛盾心理：对它能够提升所有人的承诺抱有希望，对它根植于种族主义的绝望，以及认识到音乐剧作为意识形态的传递系统。本文使用重复、访谈、评论和戏剧来思考软实力、软实力和民主。