Pacific Overtures
July 25, 2021 7:13 PM Subscribe
Stephen Sondheim's least-performed (and perhaps most ambitious) musical Pacific Overtures [Wikipedia] premiered on Broadway in 1976 and ran for 109 performance and won two of the two Tony awards it was nominated for. The original production and cast was filmed and shown on Japanese television. It is also on YouTube [2h20m]
As a white Westerner posting this, I did google around to see if there had been any denunciations of it as problematic. It seems it's always been performed by Asian actors (although men play women's roles because it's based on Kabuki), and Mako, B. D. Wong, and George Takei have all done productions of it, which tells me it isn't offensive enough to shun.
It's an American's vision of a Japanese envisioning an American musical about the Western contact with Japan in 1853. It's very stylized, and it's perhaps the only musical I know which uses "whiteface" to portray Americans and Europeans. Sondheim based the music on open fourths (but found the pentatonic scale too limiting), and as the musical progresses more Western musical themes come to dominate. The only women in the production are brought in for the last musical number which depicts what comes "Next" for Japan as it opens up and industrializes.
It's a really fascinating piece, and I didn't even know this document existed. It's a lot to take in, really.
posted by hippybear at 9:21 PM on July 25, 2021 [4 favorites]
It's an American's vision of a Japanese envisioning an American musical about the Western contact with Japan in 1853. It's very stylized, and it's perhaps the only musical I know which uses "whiteface" to portray Americans and Europeans. Sondheim based the music on open fourths (but found the pentatonic scale too limiting), and as the musical progresses more Western musical themes come to dominate. The only women in the production are brought in for the last musical number which depicts what comes "Next" for Japan as it opens up and industrializes.
It's a really fascinating piece, and I didn't even know this document existed. It's a lot to take in, really.
posted by hippybear at 9:21 PM on July 25, 2021 [4 favorites]
I love this musical.
Here's Ann Harada, Thom Sesma, Kelvin Moon Loh and Austin Ku performing "Someone in a Tree" from last year's 90th birthday celebration for Stephen Sondheim. The song depicts the treaty negotiations from the perspective of a tree-climbing boy, who can see the proceedings but hear nothing, and a samurai the Japanese delegation hid under the floorboards, who could hear but not see.
posted by Gelatin at 5:55 AM on July 26, 2021 [5 favorites]
Here's Ann Harada, Thom Sesma, Kelvin Moon Loh and Austin Ku performing "Someone in a Tree" from last year's 90th birthday celebration for Stephen Sondheim. The song depicts the treaty negotiations from the perspective of a tree-climbing boy, who can see the proceedings but hear nothing, and a samurai the Japanese delegation hid under the floorboards, who could hear but not see.
posted by Gelatin at 5:55 AM on July 26, 2021 [5 favorites]
I mostly know this musical through spending years in the Georgetown Gilbert & Sullivan Society, where my favorite of our pre-show group vocal warm-up exercises came from this. Specifically:
posted by Navelgazer at 7:03 AM on July 26, 2021 [10 favorites]
Hello, I come with letters from Her Majesty, Victoria,Which might not technically be G&S but is certainly Sondheim doing his best possible impression of it.
Who, learning how you're trading now, sings "Hallelujah Gloria!"
And sent me to convey to you her positive euphoria,
As well as little gifts from Britain's various emporia.
Her Majesty considers the arrangement to be tentative,
Until we ship a proper diplomatic representative.
We don't foresee that you will be the least bit argumentative,
So please ignore the Man-o-War we brought as a preventative.
posted by Navelgazer at 7:03 AM on July 26, 2021 [10 favorites]
Sondheim has said that of all the songs he's written, "Someone in a Tree" is his favorite. Previously!
posted by How the runs scored at 7:14 AM on July 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by How the runs scored at 7:14 AM on July 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
Navalgazer, if singing that to "Modern Major-General" is wrong I don't want to be right
posted by nicwolff at 7:15 AM on July 26, 2021 [11 favorites]
posted by nicwolff at 7:15 AM on July 26, 2021 [11 favorites]
“Oui, detente, detente, that’s the only thing we want…”
A longtime favorite of mine, rarely if ever staged.
Thanks to this post, I learned of Anon Miyamoto’s 2000 version, translated into Japanese, effectively a Japanese view of an American’s view of Japan’s reaction to America’s invasion of Japan.(NYTimes, paywalled) (LATimes)
posted by panglos at 8:41 AM on July 26, 2021
A longtime favorite of mine, rarely if ever staged.
Thanks to this post, I learned of Anon Miyamoto’s 2000 version, translated into Japanese, effectively a Japanese view of an American’s view of Japan’s reaction to America’s invasion of Japan.(NYTimes, paywalled) (LATimes)
posted by panglos at 8:41 AM on July 26, 2021
"Pretty Lady" is amazingly gorgeous as well... I am sure there are multiple videos out there but I fell in love with, and am therefore partial to, the OBC recording from "Side by Side by Sondheim.
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 9:15 AM on July 26, 2021
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 9:15 AM on July 26, 2021
Thanks so much for this. I've always been curious, since encountering a poster for the show somewhere on Market Street during a 1976 SF vacation, one of my first West Coast explorations preliminary to my California migration from the East Coast. There I was, such an Atlantic guy (I'd lived on the Outer Banks the year previously) now so close to the Pacific and intriguing Asia. But even though the show was then being staged in DC at the Kennedy Center and I could have easily, I didn't go. A good thing, probably, because like Kabuki and No theater, and Chinese opera, the 'music' of Steven Sondheim after just a couple songs would have driven me (a big fan of classic Broadway musicals) away from the Opera House. But with this YouTube I can cherry-pick my way through, and get an idea of what it was all about.
posted by Rash at 9:19 AM on July 26, 2021
posted by Rash at 9:19 AM on July 26, 2021
Oooh, I can't wait to watch this! As far as I know there has never been a production in the UK and I've always wanted to see the whole thing. The only song from it I know is "Someone in a Tree", which is extraordinary
It's an American's vision of a Japanese envisioning an American musical about the Western contact with Japan in 1853 This made me think of the way Western artists like Van Gogh were so strongly influenced by Japanese prints whwn they first saw them, and then how the next generation of Japanese artists (many studying in Europe or America) brought these influences back to Japan in a slightly different shape.
posted by Fuchsoid at 9:51 AM on July 26, 2021
It's an American's vision of a Japanese envisioning an American musical about the Western contact with Japan in 1853 This made me think of the way Western artists like Van Gogh were so strongly influenced by Japanese prints whwn they first saw them, and then how the next generation of Japanese artists (many studying in Europe or America) brought these influences back to Japan in a slightly different shape.
posted by Fuchsoid at 9:51 AM on July 26, 2021
I have repeatedly tried and failed to "get" Sondheim, but that "Someone in a tree" is so magnificent it might just be the thing. What a beautiful performance! Thanks Gelatin.
posted by YoungStencil at 10:52 AM on July 26, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by YoungStencil at 10:52 AM on July 26, 2021 [2 favorites]
Mandy Patinkin's rendition of Pretty Lady has been a fave of mine (he sings all the parts, naturally)
posted by tzikeh at 4:46 PM on July 26, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by tzikeh at 4:46 PM on July 26, 2021 [2 favorites]
Oh, goodness, Thom Sesma in the abovelinked rendition! Just a delight. After I saw this for the first time I had to go find every bit and pixel of Sesma performing that I could.
posted by humbug at 5:57 PM on July 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by humbug at 5:57 PM on July 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
I have repeatedly tried and failed to "get" Sondheim, but that "Someone in a tree" is so magnificent it might just be the thing.
As someone who "gets" Sondheim but also doesn't understand where there is in there that someone might not "get"... I'm curious what it is about this number and performance which perks your interest in a way which other encounters with Sondheim has not done?
posted by hippybear at 10:17 PM on July 26, 2021
As someone who "gets" Sondheim but also doesn't understand where there is in there that someone might not "get"... I'm curious what it is about this number and performance which perks your interest in a way which other encounters with Sondheim has not done?
posted by hippybear at 10:17 PM on July 26, 2021
hippybear - that's a good question. When I was younger someone tried to get me into Sondheim and I just wasn't in the mood, and an experience like that can have an inoculating effect against any style of music. Having all this stuff thrown at me without context felt a lot like this. There's so much other music I love that I never made the time for this. I don't regret that, but this post has convinced me to give it a good go.
But to answer the other half: what got me about Someone in a tree is how it uses quite simple musical and lyrical blocks to build something really very complex yet satisfying. It reminds me a bit of some of the minimalists I like, and is very pleasant while keeping you on your toes. But lyrically the idea of "the pebble not the stream" really hit home, maybe in a way that wouldn't have when I was younger. Also Thom Sesma, but really all of them are great.
posted by YoungStencil at 4:29 AM on July 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
But to answer the other half: what got me about Someone in a tree is how it uses quite simple musical and lyrical blocks to build something really very complex yet satisfying. It reminds me a bit of some of the minimalists I like, and is very pleasant while keeping you on your toes. But lyrically the idea of "the pebble not the stream" really hit home, maybe in a way that wouldn't have when I was younger. Also Thom Sesma, but really all of them are great.
posted by YoungStencil at 4:29 AM on July 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
Note the internal rhyming and how the words flow without strain.
Hello, I come with letters from Her Majesty, Victoria,
Who, learning how you're trading now, sings "Hallelujah Gloria!"
And sent me to convey to you her positive euphoria,
As well as little gifts from Britain's various emporia.
Her Majesty considers the arrangement to be tentative,
Until we ship a proper diplomatic representative.
We don't foresee that you will be the least bit argumentative,
So please ignore the Man-o-War we brought as a preventative.
Sondheim taught me to love the English language. From, You Must Meet My Wife, a song with multiple levels of tensions between the two characters:
(Fredrik)
She loves my voice, my walk, my mustache
The cigar, in fact, that I'm smoking
She'll watch me puff until it's just ash
Then she'll save the cigar butt
(Desiree)
Bizarre, but
You're joking
mustache, just ash, smoking, joking, cigar butt, bizarre butt, and all in the natural voices of two characters.
He does play with stereotypes, but damn it, he does it so well. In the diplomatic song above, he parodies the British, the French, the Americans, and the Russians (Don't touch the coat!), along with diplomacy, trade, world aggression, and colonialism.
In a song, This Week Americans:
You should see the English.
All that tea, the English.
Thirsty, I suppose.
Good eggs, the English.
Rotten legs, the English.
All those teeth, the English
Rows and rows and rows!
and. . .
No narcissistic Greeks,
They’re worse than the Italians.
With over blown physiques
And Saint Christopher mendalions.
No millionaire Brazilians
Who somehow never pay.
I much prefer the millions from the
U. S. A…
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 6:04 AM on July 27, 2021 [3 favorites]
Hello, I come with letters from Her Majesty, Victoria,
Who, learning how you're trading now, sings "Hallelujah Gloria!"
And sent me to convey to you her positive euphoria,
As well as little gifts from Britain's various emporia.
Her Majesty considers the arrangement to be tentative,
Until we ship a proper diplomatic representative.
We don't foresee that you will be the least bit argumentative,
So please ignore the Man-o-War we brought as a preventative.
Sondheim taught me to love the English language. From, You Must Meet My Wife, a song with multiple levels of tensions between the two characters:
(Fredrik)
She loves my voice, my walk, my mustache
The cigar, in fact, that I'm smoking
She'll watch me puff until it's just ash
Then she'll save the cigar butt
(Desiree)
Bizarre, but
You're joking
mustache, just ash, smoking, joking, cigar butt, bizarre butt, and all in the natural voices of two characters.
He does play with stereotypes, but damn it, he does it so well. In the diplomatic song above, he parodies the British, the French, the Americans, and the Russians (Don't touch the coat!), along with diplomacy, trade, world aggression, and colonialism.
In a song, This Week Americans:
You should see the English.
All that tea, the English.
Thirsty, I suppose.
Good eggs, the English.
Rotten legs, the English.
All those teeth, the English
Rows and rows and rows!
and. . .
No narcissistic Greeks,
They’re worse than the Italians.
With over blown physiques
And Saint Christopher mendalions.
No millionaire Brazilians
Who somehow never pay.
I much prefer the millions from the
U. S. A…
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 6:04 AM on July 27, 2021 [3 favorites]
YoungStencil: Thanks for your thoughtful answer! I appreciate the insight into what pulled you in about this piece. I do think it's one of the best Sondheim has written, and is perhaps one of the best pieces written for musical theater, ever.
For those interested, this is the point in the play where that song is used. If you want to see how it was originally presented on stage.
posted by hippybear at 5:49 PM on July 29, 2021 [1 favorite]
For those interested, this is the point in the play where that song is used. If you want to see how it was originally presented on stage.
posted by hippybear at 5:49 PM on July 29, 2021 [1 favorite]
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