Here's An Entire Video of The Original PACIFIC OVERTURES On Broadway- Page 2
Here's An Entire Video of The Original PACIFIC OVERTURES On Broadway
#25Here's An Entire Video of The Original PACIFIC OVERTURES On Broadway
Posted: 9/14/13 at 1:32pmOhhh, thank you!
#26Here's An Entire Video of The Original PACIFIC OVERTURES On Broadway
Posted: 9/15/13 at 12:50am
Yes, Thank you!
I have a copy of a copy of a copy of Dior...I have it on a video tape, but the person who copied it for me used the fastest tape speed for the best quality, so I only have the first two hours of it. I did get the last half hour of it tacked onto a video copy of "Evening Primrose" that I got from someone in a trade. So, I finally get to see it. But then I lent that tape so someone several years ago and have yet to get it back.
I got my first copy of the album from a used bin at my local library and I was floored by it from the first listen.
"A coherent existance after so many years of muddle" - Desiree' Armfelt, A Little Night Music
"Life keeps happening everyday, Say Yes" - 70, Girls, 70
"Life is what you do while you're waiting to die" - Zorba
#27Here's An Entire Video of The Original PACIFIC OVERTURES On Broadway
Posted: 9/15/13 at 2:27am
Well, my story around this show just got better.
I was telling a friend at my gym about it and how it was the first Broadway show I'd seen in my life, when my friend said, "Oh, Sab was in that."
Sab? You mean that nice guy who I've casually chatted with at the gym over the years is the Sab Shimono who played Manjiro in the first Broadway show I'd ever seen? COME ON. KNOCK IT OFF. GET OUTTA HERE.
I saw him at an event tonight and, of course, gushed all over him. I don't think that he understood how weak in the knees I went when he causally talked about sitting with Sondheim at a piano, learning his songs. He had originally been cast as Manjiro when the show was a straight play and noted that the role was more central to the story in the non musical version.
#28Here's An Entire Video of The Original PACIFIC OVERTURES On Broadway
Posted: 9/15/13 at 7:37amthis is do cool...i saw this production the week it lost the Tony to CHORUS LINE...
#29Here's An Entire Video of The Original PACIFIC OVERTURES On Broadway
Posted: 9/15/13 at 9:02amWill we ever again have a year where shows of the calibre of A Chorus Line, Chicago, Pacific Overtures (and Bubbling Brown Sugar) compete for Best Musical?
#30Here's An Entire Video of The Original PACIFIC OVERTURES On Broadway
Posted: 9/15/13 at 3:14pm
Knowing my avatar, of course I would have a deep love for this show, and for the sense of our own small part in making history that the show beautifully explores.
I saw Pacific Overtures in its Boston tryout in '75 when I was a sophomore at Brandeis. Howard Bay, our design teacher (and the great Broadway designer of Man of La Mancha) arranged for us design students to see the show and get a backstage tour. There in the Colonial alley were the discarded Steampunk contraptions designed for the gift-exchange sequence that are described in Frank Rich's gorgeous book on Boris Aronson. We heard the original out-of-town version of Chrysanthemum Tree (a throwaway compared to the brilliant final version). There was some insufferable business with bamboo trunks during the embarrassingly unfunny WELCOME TO KANAGAWA. (Has anyone made that comedy song work?) I was bored beyond belief through the long Act II monologue describing the battle with the Lords of the South. They didn't have the final black & white costumes ready for NEXT, so the ensemble was out there in bell bottom bluejeans.
But the magic of POEMS, PRETTY LADY, PLEASE HELLO, the arrival of Commodore Perry's dragon ship, and the magnificent SOMEONE IN A TREE were as great as anything I've ever experienced onstage. I'm ecstatic to know one more show for the ages won't be lost to us.
#31Here's An Entire Video of The Original PACIFIC OVERTURES On Broadway
Posted: 9/15/13 at 8:36pmI remember reading a book about "A Chorus Line" written by some of the original cast members. In the section about the Tony Awards, they wrote that the awards for best sets and costumes were won by "a flashier musical, long since closed." I remember thinking a) "You won everything else and it was 15 years ago. Let's not be bitchy about it!" b) That makes "Pacific Overtures" sound like "La Cage Aux Folles" and c) "You really think that your leotards deserved to win over a Florence Klotz kimono?!?!?!?"
"A coherent existance after so many years of muddle" - Desiree' Armfelt, A Little Night Music
"Life keeps happening everyday, Say Yes" - 70, Girls, 70
"Life is what you do while you're waiting to die" - Zorba
#32Here's An Entire Video of The Original PACIFIC OVERTURES On Broadway
Posted: 9/15/13 at 9:05pm
I think all of the people involved in the original CHORUS LINE are very talented, but some of those original cast members (and NOT the ones who went on to continue to work in the theater in other projects) thought they were Christ reincarnated or something.
And PACIFIC OVERTURES had not closed at the time of the Tony Awards in 1976, so factual error to boot.
#33Here's An Entire Video of The Original PACIFIC OVERTURES On Broadway
Posted: 9/19/13 at 5:44pmI took it as it wasn't running at the time this book was written.
"A coherent existance after so many years of muddle" - Desiree' Armfelt, A Little Night Music
"Life keeps happening everyday, Say Yes" - 70, Girls, 70
"Life is what you do while you're waiting to die" - Zorba
#34Here's An Entire Video of The Original PACIFIC OVERTURES On Broadway
Posted: 9/19/13 at 5:57pm
After seeing the full video of Pacific Overtures, I really do (almost) consider it a play with music, rather than a musical.
There are long stretches of the story told with no music at all. It's really an unusual piece of theatre, and I love it for that reason.
What an incredible year, to have A Chorus Line and Pacific Overtures competing against each other. I consider both to be landmark and highly unique pieces of theatre. An embarrassment of riches that year.
As for the Chorus Line cast, they were truly taken on a roller coaster ride of pride, humility, fame, fortune, and oblivion. I think THAT's the movie that should be made one day. How a group of brilliant chorus dancers were elevated to individuality and "stardom" and uniqueness for one show only ... then thrown back into the same mosaic they managed to escape from for one brief moment.
Oh, and by the way, I think Ang Lee should direct a film version of Pacific Overtures ... he knows how to mix fantasy with reality. Theatricality with realism. He's done it before, and he can do it again. I would love for him to do it.
Yes, I know he's not Japanese, but he would bring a sensibility (and sense!) to it that goes way beyond what a "western philosophy" director could do.
Actually, I think Ang Lee can do pretty much any kind of movie he wants to do. He's the Meryl Streep of directors today.
"Jaws is the Citizen Kane of movies."
blocked: logan2, Diamonds3, Hamilton22
blocked: logan2, Diamonds3, Hamilton22
#35Here's An Entire Video of The Original PACIFIC OVERTURES On Broadway
Posted: 9/26/13 at 10:13pm
Like Growls, what now seems like ages back I paid a fortune for a copy of this, but it was nearly unwatchable (I managed, but...) Maybe 4-5 years back a kind person sent me a copy on DVD that looks to be the same place this source is from--I've watched it a number times now, and it really is stunning.
I forget the details, but I believe it was actually filmed as some sort of cultural gift/exchange with Japan (that did have something to do with the US anniversary.) On my copy there's a short interview thing with the NHK TV people and Hal Prince (and Sondheim?) outside the theatre.
I also remember that maybe 5-10 years back Image, who have done most of the Sondheim DVDs, were interested in releasing it. IIRC no longer was it a rights issue, but rather they felt that they couldn't release it without a remastering, and it wouldn't sell enough to warrant that (this could all be rumour.) It really is a thrilling, beautiful production--that's also considering the time really well filmed compare to some other live theatre videos.
Great to read peoples' thoughts, especially those who were around when it premiered. I guess Sondheim's joke that the reaction would be "Oh no! Not another kabuki musical," holds some weight.
While I do think it's a full musical (when I think of a play with music, I think of something that would be coherent and maybe even as powerful without the music. With Pacific Overtures, the music is really where the cultural shifts are most shown--either directly (A Bowler Hat,) or in terms of the musical vocabulary used which becomes more "Westernized." (Even if, as Sondheim has pointed out, he doesn't really use a true old style Japanese scale in the play.)
(And while my DVD is fine, I'd rush out to buy a commercial release--restored or not. Surely if EVening Primrose and Night Music the movie can get viable releases...)
limey2
Swing Joined: 7/9/14
#36Here's An Entire Video of The Original PACIFIC OVERTURES On Broadway
Posted: 7/9/14 at 5:22pm
It's on at the Union Theatre, London NOW. Tickets sold out after the first week and the critics and Twitter are raving about it :)
http://www.uniontheatre.biz/pacific-overtures/4584217093
#37Here's An Entire Video of The Original PACIFIC OVERTURES On Broadway
Posted: 7/9/14 at 11:21pmthanks for posting this spectacular production which I did see in it's original run in 1976, the very week of the TONY AWARDS that year...I also saw the great revival done on Broadway in the Upper West side...I don't remember the name of the theatre but I really fell in love with this show seeing it in a smaller venue...
