The Broadway revival of Pacific Overtures, with songs by Stephen Sondheim and a book by Jerome Weidman, is a mish-mash. Its sort of a "The Americans Are Coming! The Americans Are Coming!" in 1853 Japan, and the production is in several styles. It doesn't seem to know if it's a farce or a drama; real so that we can identify with someone or spectacle that we can watch without emotional involvement. It's like the director/choreographer, Amon Miyamoto, didn't trust the material to just say the words and sing the songs (and do the movements). Trying to be funny (as in part one) isn't funny. Much of the dialogue is like a bad children's book, and with a miscast B.D. Wong as the strong, cohesive central figure, the show flounders. There is an alien feeling in terms of choreography, set (Rumi Matsui), music and action. It's mostly a slapstick rendering in Act One: they seem to be mocking the event of the first incursion of American trading missions to Japan, with great, grotesque, fun masks for the Americans. But it all feels stilted in language and action. Sondheim's lyrics, however, with his personal approach to musical theater, are interesting and do engage your mind. But the show seems to have separate scenes and styles, with nothing followed through, such as a suicide followed by an unrelated musical number, and the intrusion of an unnecessary King story, enacted sort of like their version of a "Little House of Uncle Thomas."
Act Two has a good sword fight, and segues into an interesting real section with the influx of Western clothing and articles, and ultimately, with the flash of The Bomb, it turns into a Broadway Musical with a big dance number in the contemporary world.
An interesting hodge-podge, with creative costumes by Junko Koshio, and scattered direction and choreography. And since Cabaret has finished its run at this theater. Why not take out the tables and hard chairs that make up much of the orchestra and put in theater seats so one can sit comfortably for three hours? As it is, it's a tough sit, and, I believe, a fire hazard.
