Pacific Overtures

Pacific Overtures
Music	Stephen Sondheim
Lyrics	Stephen Sondheim
Book	John Weidman, additional material by Hugh Wheeler
Productions	1976 Broadway 1984 Off-Broadway revival 1987 English National Opera 2003 West End 2004 Broadway revival

Pacific Overtures is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, a libretto by John Weidman, and additional material by Hugh Wheeler. The musical is set in 1853 Japan and follows the difficult Westernization of Japan, through the lives of two friends caught in the change. The title of the work is ironic, nodding toward "overture" as a musical form, noting that the initiatives of the Western powers for commercial exploitation of the Pacific nation were anything but "pacific" (or peaceable) overtures. Built around a quasi-Japanese pentatonic scale, the music contrasts Japanese contemplation ("There is No Other Way") with Western ingeniousness ("Please Hello," "Pretty Lady").

The original Broadway production of Pacific Overtures in 1976 was presented in Kabuki style, with men playing women's parts and set changes made in full view of the audience by people dressed in black. It opened to mixed reviews and closed after six months, nevertheless being nominated for ten Tony Awards. According to Steven Suskin, the score is "uniformly interesting" and contains "some of Sondheim's finest writing".^[1]

The show is sometimes put on by opera companies.

Productions

Pacific Overtures opened on Broadway at the Winter Garden Theatre on January 11, 1976, and closed after 193 performances on June 27, 1976. The original cast recording was released originally by RCA Records and later on CD. This production was nominated for 10 Tony Awards, and won Best Scenic Design (Boris Aronson) and Best Costume Design (Florence Klotz).

An off-Broadway production ran at the Promenade Theatre from October 25, 1984 for 109 performances, transferring from an earlier production at the York Theatre Company. Direcetd by Fran Soeder with choreography by Janet Watson, the cast featured Ernest Abuba and Kevin Gray.^[2]

The European premiere was directed by Howard Lloyd-Lewis (Library Theatre, Manchester) at Wythenshawe Forum in 1986 with choreography by Paul Kerryson who subsequently directed productions in 1993 and 2006 at Leicester Haymarket Theatre.

A major production of the show was mounted by the English National Opera in 1987. The production was recorded in its entirety, preserving nearly the entire libretto as well as the score.^[3]

A critically acclaimed 2001 Chicago Shakespeare Theater production, directed by Gary Griffin,^[4] transferred to the West End Donmar Warehouse, where it ran from June 30, 2003 until September 6, 2003 and received the 2003 Olivier Award for Best Musical Production.

In 2002 the New National Theatre of Tokyo presented two limited engagements of their production, which was performed in Japanese with English supertitles. The production ran at Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center from July 9, 2002 through July 13, and then at the Eisenhower Theater, Kennedy Center, from September 3, 2002 through September 8.^[5][6]

A Broadway revival ran at Studio 54 from December 2, 2004 to January 30, 2005, starring B.D. Wong as the Narrator and several members of the original cast. A new Broadway recording, with new (reduced) orchestrations by orchestrator Jonathan Tunick was released by PS Classics, with additional material not included on the original cast album.^[3] The production was nominated for four Tony Awards, including Best Revival of a Musical.

Synopsis

This section requires expansion.

The story is told from the points of view of two Japanese men, a samurai and a fisherman. Four Western ships arrive ominously, opening the feudal country to foreign trade and visitors for the first time in 250 years. Some of the Japanese resist the outside invasion, persisting in their ancient feudal tradition, while others embrace the Westerners and assimiliate. Commodore Perry arrives, and the Convention of Kanagawa is negotiated. Years pass, and in the end, Japan's shoguns and emperors have been replaced by businessmen in three-piece suits. The finale ("Next") shifts abruptly to the (1976) present.

Original Broadway cast

• Mako -- Reciter, Shogun, Jonathan Goble
• Soon-Teck Oh -- Tamate, Kayama's Wife, Samurai, Storyteller, Swordsman
• Isao Sato-- Kayama
• Yuki Shimoda -- Abe, First Councillor
• Sab Shimono -- Manjiro
• Ernest Abuba -- Samurai, Adams, Noble
• James Dybas -- Second Councillor, Old Man, French Admiral
• Timm Fujii—Son, Priest, Girl, Noble, British Sailor,
• Haruki Fujimoto -- Servant, Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry
• Larry Hama-- Williams, Lord of the South
• Ernest Harada -- Physician, Madam, British Admiral
• Alvin Ing -- Shogun's Mother, Observer, Merchant, American Admiral
• Patrick Kinser-Lau—Shogun's Companion
• Jae Woo Lee—Fisherman, Sumo Wrestler, Lord of the South
• Freddy Mao—Third Councillor, Samurai's Daughter
• Tom Matsusaka—Imperial Priest
• Freda Foh Shen -- Shogun's Wife
• Mark Hsu Syers -- Samurai, Thief, Soothsayer, Warrior, Russian Admiral, British Sailor
• Ricardo Tobia—Observer
• Gedde Watanabe-- Priest
• Conrad Yama -- Grandmother, Sumo Wrestler, Japanese Merchant
• Fusako Yoshida—Musician, Shamisen

Musical numbers

Critical response and analysis

"Someone in a Tree," where two witnesses describe negotiations between the Japanese and Americans, is one of Sondheim's favorite theatre songs.^[7][8] "A Bowler Hat" presents the show's theme, as a samurai gradually becomes more modernized as he sells out to the Westerners.^[9]

The New York Times review of the original 1976 production said "The lyrics are totally Western and—as is the custom with Mr. Sondheim—devilish, wittily and delightfully clever. Mr. Sondheim is the most remarkable man in the Broadway musical today—and here he shows it victoriously...Mr. Prince's staging uses all the familiar Kabuki tricks—often with voices screeching in the air like lonely sea birds—and stylizations with screens and things, and stagehands all masked in black to make them invisible to the audience. Like choreography, the direction is designed to meld Kabuki with Western forms...the attempt is so bold and the achievement so fascinating, that its obvious faults demand to be overlooked. It tries to soar—sometimes it only floats, sometimes it actually sinks—but it tries to soar. And the music and lyrics are as pretty and as well-formed as a bonsai tree. "Pacific Overtures" is very, very different."^[10]

Walter Kerr's article in the New York Times on the original 1976 production said "But no amount of performing, or of incidental charm, can salvage "Pacific Overtures." The occasion is essentially dull and immobile because we are never properly placed in it, drawn neither East nor West, given no specific emotional or cultural bearings."^[11]

The New York Times review of the 1984 revival stated that "the show attempts an ironic marriage of Broadway and Oriental idioms in its staging, its storytelling techniques and, most of all, in its haunting Stephen Sondheim songs. It's a shotgun marriage, to be sure - with results that are variously sophisticated and simplistic, beautiful and vulgar. But if Pacific Overtures is never going to be anyone's favorite Sondheim musical, it is a far more forceful and enjoyable evening at the Promenade than it was eight years ago at the Winter Garden...Many of the songs are brilliant, self-contained playlets. In Four Black Dragons various peasants describe the arrival of the American ships with escalating panic, until finally the nightmarish event does seem to be, as claimed, the end of the world....Someone in a Tree, is a compact Rashomon - and as fine as anything Mr. Sondheim has written...The single Act II triumph, Bowler Hat, could well be a V. S. Naipaul tale set to music and illustrated with spare Japanese brushstrokes...Bowler Hat delivers the point of Pacific Overtures so artfully that the rest of Act II seems superflous."^[12]

Awards and nominations

Original 1976 Broadway

• Tony Awards
• Best Costume Design (Florence Klotz) (WINNER)
• Best Scenic Design (Boris Aronson) (WINNER)
• Best Musical (nominee)
• Best Director (Harold Prince) (nominee)
• Best Score (nominee)
• Best Book (John Weidman) (nominee)
• Best Actor (Mako) (nominee)
• Best Featured Actor (Isao Sato) (nominee)
• Best Choreography (Patricia Birch) (nominee)
• Best Lighting Design (Tharon Musser) (nominee)

Drama Desk Awards

• Outstanding Musical/Book (nominee)
• Outstanding Music and Lyrics (nominee)
• Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical (Haruki Fujimoto) nominee)
• Outstanding Choreography (nominee)
• Outstanding Director of a Musical (nominee)
• Outstanding Costume Design (WINNER)
• Outstanding Set Design (WINNER)

2004 Broadway Revival

• Best Revival of a Musical (nominee)
• Best Orchestrations (Jonathan Tunick) (nominee)
• Best Scenic Design of a Musical (Set and Mask Design—Rumi Matsui) (nominee)
• Best Costume Design of a Musical (Junko Koshino) (nominee)

Notes

References

• Rich, Frank The Theatre Art of Boris Aronson, 1987, Publisher: Knopf. ISBN 0394529138
• Hirsch, Foster Harold Prince and the American Musical Theatre, 1989, revised 2005, Publisher: Applause Books, (with Prince providing extensive interviews and the foreword.)
• Ilson, Carol, Harold Prince: From Pajama Game To Phantom of the Opera And Beyond, 1989, published by Cambridge University Press ISBN 0835719618
• Ilson, Carol, Harold Prince: A Director's Journey, 2000, New York: Limelight Editions ISBN 0879102969

External links

• Pacific Overtures (1976) at the Internet Broadway Database
• Pacific Overtures (2004 at the Internet Broadway Database
• Pacific Overtures on Sondheim.com
• Pacific Overtures on The Stephen Sondheim Reference Guide
• Pacific Overtures synopsis and production information at MTI Shows
• A 1998 Interview with 3 Original Cast members