Musical is beautiful, but uninvolving Musical is beautiful, but uninvolving (September 12, 2001)

By Bryan Wiggin

Almanac Staff Writer

Aristotle placed spectacle last among the six elements of drama, following plot, character, thought, speech, and music. "Pacific Overtures," a tuneless musical by Stephen Sondheim, with book by John Weidman and additional material by Hugh Wheeler, puts it first, with music second, and everything else a very distant third.

What this causes, in the beautiful and skillful TheatreWorks production at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, is an initial bedazzlement at the beauty of the sets, followed by an increasing ennui as we wait for something to happen and someone to care about.

Actually, a few things do happen, and they are even things of historical moment. But they happen so abstractly, and are presented with such distancing artifice, that instead of involvement we feel detachment.

The year is 1853, when Commodore Matthew Perry, commanding four American warships, visits Japan. The island empire has been closed to foreigners for 250 years, and the Japanese want to keep it closed, believing that the tread of any foreign barbarian on their soil will defile the nation and the emperor.

Kayama Yesaemon (Scott Watanabe) is a low-level samurai, less a warrior than a civil servant. He is plucked from obscurity by Lord Abe (Lawrence Thoo), who is first councilor to the shogun, the military ruler of Japan. What is needed is a scapegoat, someone who will deny the Americans entry, and then pay with his life when they enter anyway.

But Kayama has an idea. Mats will be placed on the ground and a temporary building erected in which negotiations may take place, thus protecting Japanese earth from the actual touch of any defiling foot. And when the Americans depart, mats and building will be destroyed. For this inspiration, Kayama is made governor of his city.

But before long, the Americans are back, and so are the English, French, Dutch, and Russians. This leads to the liveliest moment of the show, in which representative admirals of these nations, after doing songs characteristic of their own country _ including a Gilbert & Sullivan-style patter song _ form a chorus line to sing and dance "Please Hello." This is the only number in the show that gets the audience involved and draws vigorous applause.

Kayama soon succumbs to the corrupting foreign influence, becoming wealthy, and increasingly Western in his manner. There are some violent incidents between various foreign nationals and the natives _ adumbrations, by hindsight, of today _ until the shogun is overthrown by samurai forces loyal to the emperor.

Among these is John Manjiro (Michael K. Lee), a poor fisherman made the protege of Kayama and who now slays his former master.

Binding everything together is the Reciter (Mikio Hirata), who introduces, explains, and offers occasional haiku and parables.

Summarized, the show sounds pretty eventful. But in performance, it's slow, and the dramatic events are either given obliquely or are over too quickly, while too many of the songs go on too long. And the songs are marked by that utter lack of memorable melody that is so distinctive of Sondheim.

Those aforementioned sets are by Joe Ragey, and they are, indeed, beautiful, even gorgeous. So are the costumes from Fumiko Bielefeldt. Enhancing everything is the lighting of Steven B. Mannshardt and the sound design of Cliff Caruthers.

As directed by Robert Kelley, the production moves with precision and grace, and one cannot fail to be impressed. Everything, in fact, is up to the high standard we expect from a musical done by TheatreWorks. The problem is the show itself, principally the remote and etiolated telling of its story. So while it beguiles the eye, "Pacific Overtures" fails to touch the heart.
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"Pacific Overtures," by Stephen Sondheim, John Weidman, and Hugh Wheeler, is being presented by TheatreWorks at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts through September 23. For information, call 903-6000, or visit www.theatreworks.org.