Sondheim Festival VII: Pacific Overtures

I attended a whole sheaf of productions of Sondheim shows in the first half of last year; here's a supplement. It was Pacific Overtures, a show rarely done, perhaps because it requires a cast of Asian ethnicities, and all-Asian theater companies are not thick on the ground, perhaps? I don't know. But the East West Players in Los Angeles is such a troupe, and I caught the first preview performance of their new production - it runs through December 1 - on my current trip to LA. I'd encourage anyone in LA who's interested in this kind of theater to go; it's one of the best Sondheim productions I've seen.

So Pacific Overtures - with "Pacific" meaning peaceful, not the ocean, and "Overtures" meaning introductory offers, not what comes before an opera, phrase taken from a letter by Commodore Perry, tells the story of the 1850s opening of Japan to Western contact, almost entirely from the Japanese point of view, with the rest being what the Japanese might imagine the Americans and other Westerners are like. Despite some tragic events, it's mostly comic, even silly, almost slapstick, and I'm almost surprised that the Japanese don't object to this Western portrait of their ancestors.

For most of the plot, the Japanese are just trying to make the Westerners go away, Perry and his ships in the first act and various others following in his wake in the second act. Things get hairy - there's a nasty scene, reminiscent of something from Sweeney Todd, where three British sailors - played, like all the Westerners, by regular cast members in masks - menace a high-ranking Japanese woman pursuant to her rape, but at the end the Emperor takes charge, officially bans rejection of the visitors and the scene segues into a quick closing account of all that Japan and Japanese people have accomplished since adopting Western ways, though the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere doesn't get a reference.

The music is perhaps vaguely Japanese in style without being pentatonic, with interjections of what I guess was authentic Japanese folk music, but what struck me was the lyrics with echoes of the Sondheim writing style from shows like Into the Woods (especially the ensemble opening number) and Sunday in the Park with George.

But oh, the production! Brilliantly colorful costumes, ingenious staging of characters sometimes speaking for each other, and the most fervent and dedicated acting and singing. The song that struck me as the best in the show depicted the shogun's advisors considering how to react to Perry's arrival. I thought about posting a link to a recording, but none of the performers of the principal part I found online were even close to a match for the delight of hearing and seeing Gedde Watanabe (who was actually in a small part in the show's original production in 1976) perform it onstage last night. And they were all like that, with special marks to Jon Jon Briones as the Reciter, the principal character.

This was a winner. Go see it if you're anywhere in the area. Through December 1. Ticket info at the company web site.