Yul Tide the King And

By RICHARD CORLISS

Alfred Drake, Zachary Scott, Herbert Lom, Farley Granger and Ricardo Montalban have all played the role, but for 34 years Yul Brynner has been the first and only King of Siam--an Oriental patriarch who is also a gigolo in jade. He is onstage perhaps half as much as the actress who plays Anna, the Englishwoman who educates the King's children; and of the half-dozen songs that still elate the memory (Hello, Young Lovers, Getting to Know You, I Whistle a Happy Tune, etc., etc., etc.), the King sings none. It matters not. By dint of dogged charisma, Brynner has identified himself with a role more than any other actor since Bela Lugosi hung up his fangs. Last week, when his "farewell" tour opened to packed, enthusiastic houses on Broadway, he was incarnating the King for the 4,434th time.

Since 1983 Brynner has been bravely and publicly fighting cancer. Knowledge of this battle gives added poignance to the King's credo: "Every day I try to live another day . . . Every day I do my best for one more day." But his strength as a performer, if not as a presence, seems sapped. The music in each line of dialogue has become a jingle, a sentiment not so much spoken as marketed; then comes a pause for laughter or applause or just mute admiration. In the show's wonderfully discreet mating ritual, Shall We Dance?, his new Anna (Mary Beth Peil) looks nearly to be carrying Brynner around the stage. They are working gamely to erase (or is it only to evoke?) the memory of some beloved ghosts: Gertrude Lawrence and Deborah Kerr as Anna, and the vital, young Yul Brynner. Long live that King.