PLEASE HELLO!
How’s this for an overture: Go see it. Signature Theatre has mounted a very good production of an experimental, rarely performed musical by the late composer Stephen Sondheim. It is both spotty and highly recommended.
Pacific Overtures tells the story of the Westernization of Japan through the lens of Commodore Perry’s 1853 forcible opening of isolationist Japan to Western diplomacy. The musical offers a kaleidoscope of Japanese perspectives on Perry’s gunboats waiting in the mouth of Edo Bay with their cannons aimed at Uraga; Perry’s first step onto Japanese land; the signing of the Convention of Kanagawa; and the aftermath. About half of the show follows the bureaucratic ascension of Kayama (an excellent Daniel May), a samurai tasked with managing Perry, who in turn taps John Manjiro (a charming, brooding Johnny Lee Jr.), a recent repatriate by way of Boston, as his right-hand man. The other half is vignettes of class stratifications reacting to Western incursion.
The Cast
This 1976 musical is fundamentally about history as a matter of perspective. Looking through the lens of today’s wokeness, it has aged curiously well for having been written from the perspective of mid-nineteenth-century Japanese locals by two white men. When Sondheim and bookwriter John Weidman, both Americans, set out to write Pacific Overtures, they imagined what a Japanese composer who came to America — and fell in love with American musicals — would write upon returning to Japan. It’s likely not a project we’d entrust to the same team today.
Jonny Lee Jr. (Manjiro) and Daniel May (Kayama)
It helps that Sondheim and Weidman are deeply detailed in establishing Japanese mindsets. For example, the arrival of Perry’s ships is described in song as “Four Black Dragons” by both a local fisherman on Oshima spreading nets on the beach (a honey-voiced Christopher Mueller) and a local thief in Uraga as she is actively robbing priests (a consistently glorious Chani Werely). Later, “Someone in a Tree” describes the meeting between local officials and Perry from the perspective of both a small tree-climbing boy and a warrior hidden underneath the floor. Their Rashomon recall of the treaty signing is accompanied by actual first-hand accounts. It’s a feast of perspectivist portraiture — and Sondheim’s favorite song from his oeuvre.
Chani Wereley (Madam) and Jason Ma (Reciter)
with Quynh-My Luu, Albert Hsueh, Andrew Cristi, and Christopher Mueller
What’s more, Ethan Heard’s goddamned superb cast and creative team breathe new life into the piece and anchor it in a real, rather than imagined, Japanese-American context. Details that elevate this production at every turn are the 6-foot-tall Odaiko drum that punctuates each scene (Taiko consultant: Mark H. Rooney); Yoshi Amao’s pulsing fight choreography; Chika Shimizu’s sleek set complete with a Zen garden; and Helen Q. Huang’s intricate puppets.
Perhaps taking some cues from the 2017 John Doyle revival, which cut the cast from 30 to 14, Heard and his team have pared back original director Harold Prince’s hyper-stylized Kabuki Theater version to allow more emotional access to the work. It’s a thoroughly realized and well-executed choice that serves the show well in some places and less well in others.
Nicholas Yenson (Perry)
This production’s pared-back approach creates opportunities for the cast to find fresh comedy in an old text. I can’t get further into this review without mentioning Andrew Cristi as the shogun’s mother in “Chrysanthemum Tea,” a vignette about the mysteriously lethargic shogun’s failure to react to Perry’s ships in the harbor as their deadline to respond approaches. The impatient Cristi captures every dark-comic beat as the shogun’s mother realizes the situation can no longer afford a passive façade over her aggression. It’s one of Sondheim’s most snide songs, and Cristi rises to the task. Cristi is assisted by Quynh-My Luu, who sings deliciously badly as only a great singer could. This song is enough to justify the ticket. (Risking impropriety, I humbly note that Cristi’s performance serves as an excellent audition for Mrs. Lovett in Signature’s forthcoming production of Sweeney Todd.)
Quynh-My Luu
Also great is “Please Hello,” the sharpest satire of the show, in which the ensemble, dressed as diplomats from a variety of Western forces, converge on Japan and conduct gunboat diplomacy in real-time. The exaggerated characteristics of this number, including Huang’s costumes, pop with absurdity in comparison to the rest, making this song a highlight. The number directly rebukes the portrayal of the Japanese in Western productions of The Mikado (and other similar racist portrayals of the Japanese in American Theatre) by presenting each Western diplomat as a pale stereotype in a bulky-nosed mask. The French get a cancan, the English get a deflated Gilbert and Sullivan-style verse, the Dutch get a clog number, the Americans get John Phillip Sousa. Under Alexander Tom’s exquisite music direction, the ensemble goes full bore on this number to superb effect.
Eymard Meneses Cabling (Lord Abe) and the cast
On the other hand, without heightened style, the musical’s opener, “The Advantages of Floating in the Middle of the Sea,” sinks. The song is helmed by the Reciter (played by a highly charismatic Jason Ma), who describes various customs and processes of Japanese society as the cast performs them. The Reciter was originally a sort of ceremonial commander through the show, but in Heard’s approach, errs on the side of gentle expositor. Despite Ma’s excellent performance, the opener feels less like a celebration of tradition and more like a social studies textbook. It is elevated somewhat by Heard’s artful and intricate musical staging..
The Cast
Because the opener is weak, so is the closer. That’s partially due to a structural issue: as the locals are exposed to Western influence, the music and orchestrations shift from traditional Japanese to brash Broadway. “Next” is a frenetic 1970s American-type dance number marked by ambivalence as Japan, in turn, Westernizes other nations and races the West in economic advancement and pollution. But because a sense of ceremony is lacking at the start, the finale doesn’t read as a stylistic departure. It’s not an issue isolated to these two songs: this musical’s core energy runs on a clash between East and West.
Where does that leave us? Some lateral south of perfection but well-north of merely good. Signature’s Pacific Overtures is odd, imperfect, upsetting, funny, consistently fascinating, and absolutely worth your time.
Eymard Meneses Cabling (Old Man) with Christopher Mueller (Warrior),
Chani Wereley, Albert Hsueh (Boy), and Jason Ma (Reciter)
photos by Daniel Rader
Pacific Overtures
Signature Theatre, 4200 Campbell Ave in Arlington, VA
ends on April 9, 2023
for tickets, call 703-820-9771 or visit Signature