Recent Pacific Overtures Revival Questions

[RyanInVancouver]

Hi all - 

Just a question for anyone who saw the recent Pacific Overtures revival... does anyone remember what the facts are they used in Next? I'm working on a production and we're trying to find up to date facts and while Google is helping, we figured it might be interesting to see what the recent revival used. Any help would be great. Thanks!

[ljay889]

John Doyle cut all facts from the number.

[EthelMae]

Use the original facts. Saw it 17 times in 1976. Stay away from the Doyle production. No boat, no Next facts, act 2 monologue cut, no Chrysanthemum Tea, basically no set or costumes.

[KJisgroovy]

The original facts are all out of date. 

I liked the Doyle version a lot! It lacked the bite and spectacle of the original production but I don't wonder if maybe that's a better approach for a show about Japan that's written and directed by white people in 2018.

[qolbinau]

"It lacked the bite and spectacle of the original production but I don't wonder if maybe that's a better approach for a show about Japan that's written and directed by white people in 2018."

Can you elaborate a little more about what you mean by this, and why it is a 'better approach'?

[Scarywarhol]

The Doyle version was so utterly devoid of...anything, really, it made me question everything else of his I'd ever seen. Truly one of the least interesting nights I've spent in the theater. And such a waste. And such casual contempt for the show.

[JBroadway]

Doyle is Doyle. I didn't like his work on Pacific Overtures, and I don't like his work in general. But you can't get mad at a fish for swimming, and you can't get mad at Doyle for doing a stripped down production. 

[Scarywarhol]

I loved his Sweeney and Company, though. I felt like his Pacific Overtures was sorely lacking in style and insight in a way neither of those were.

[Kad]

I disliked Doyle's production, too- aside from "Someone in a Tree" and "Please Hello" which were the only points that I felt like Doyle stepped back and actually let the material speak for itself rather than having his direction speak over it. His cuts to the score and text did it no favors, either. He basically took a show that was explicitly written in a certain style and entirely removed that style so he could put his own in.

And as is often the case with Doyle, it was a remarkably humorless and heartless production, saddled with unnecessary and opaque concepts.

[newintown]

"The original facts are all out of date."

You may mean "the statistics quoted in the script are not recent," but "facts" don't go "out of date."

The show is what it is; there's no need for "Next" to take place in 2017.

[RyanInVancouver]

Because of the nature of the company I work with ours is very scaled down. A very simple set design, a stage and then a hanamichi with the audience seated on either side and then a third bank of audience seating further downstage (thrust style). We're doing a lot with shadows (the boats appear as shadows as does the emperor) and puppets (Admiral Perry is a puppet). We put a lot of our budget towards costumes, and all the actors are in full kabuki style make up. We're doing it with a smaller cast (12) as the venue is only 100 seats, but we haven't cut much (other than stuff like the "marching band" that's supposed to appear in the March to the Treaty House). We have our first preview tonight.

 

[Dancingthrulife2]

Doyle's production is certainly one of my favorites and one of the most faithful to what Japan is and feels like as opposed to the often overblown Occidental fantasization. Having lived in Japan myself, the beauty in the culture is more along the line of the less-is-more aesthetics. Even in the Japanese language, people tend to leave out the obvious and what can be easily deduced from the context. For example, "I" and "you" are barely used because you can easily tell who is talking. When you hear a long sentence without much substance, it's often intended to soften the criticism than to bloviate.

One thing this production does very well is that it makes it clear that Pacific Overture is about the overture of the history of colonization by Imperial Japan. It gets rid of the distracting "Japanese" elements to make room for the much more needed and important message: the mindset of colonization can be passed over from the colonizer to the colonized through the action of colonization.

[EthelMae]

All I can say is the 1976 original production was glorious. The 2nd production done at the now defunct Promenade Theatre Off-Broadway was beautiful in its smaller production values and the Roundabout production also was effective in its way. The Doyle production felt empty although I was very near the small orchestra who played the score beautifully so in that respect it was fun to revisit a show I truly love- but most of the rest at CSC, was disappointing to me.

[John Adams]

Dancingthrulife2 said: "One thing this production does very well is that it makes it clear that Pacific Overture [sic] is about the overture of the history of colonization by Imperial Japan."

Say what...?

I've read that sentence, then re-read it, and then read it a few more times. For the life of me, I cannot figure out what you are trying to say... ?????

[Dancingthrulife2]

John Adams said: "Dancingthrulife2 said: "One thing this production does very well is that it makes it clear that Pacific Overture [sic] is about the overture of the history of colonization by Imperial Japan."

Say what...?

I've read that sentence, then re-read it, and then read it a few more times. For the life of me, I cannot figure out what you are trying to say... ?????"

Just went back and saw your comment. Sorry for the confusion. What I meant was that Doyle's production interpreted Pacific Overtures as a story about how Empire of Japan gained or developed its colonial and colonialist mentality, which the shortened Next (approved by Sondheim) made very clear. Of course, as you aptly pointed out, there is an "s" in Pacific Overtures. It can be the overtures of many things. For the sake of Doyle's production, however, I think the simplicity at the core of the design does a pretty effective and powerful job to get his point across.  

[devonian.t]

As a director, though, he might well remember that his job is to illuminate the authors' point, not to replace it with his own.  He could write a play about the "colonized" becoming "colonizers" if he wanted.  The original text spends 2 hours exploring the 'overtures' of the West and their rapid effects on Japan.

Hence the comments earlier about Doyle hacking out the original style and content.

[Dancingthrulife2]

devonian.t said: "As a director, though, he might well remember that his job is to illuminate the authors' point, not to replace it with his own. He could write a play about the "colonized" becoming "colonizers" if he wanted. The original text spends 2 hours exploring the 'overtures' of the West and their rapid effects on Japan.

Hence the comments earlier about Doyle hacking out the original style and content."

To be fair, Sondheim is still alive. If he doesn't agree this interpretation, this production wouldn't have been put on stage.

[MadonnaMusical]

I have to disagree with the majority of people here and say that I thought the production was remarkable. To me the updates illuminated and clarified the original intentions of the show in such a heart-breaking way. I definitely did not miss chrysanthemum tea. 

[artscallion]

Dancingthrulife2 said: "Doyle's production is certainly one of my favorites and one of the most faithful to what Japan is and feels like as opposed to the often overblown Occidental fantasization."

 

I understand your point, but Sondheim's has said that his intention was to present the piece as if it were written by a Japanese person who had visited Broadway, seen our shows, then returned to Japan to write this show about Japan in what he perceived to be our American, Broadway style. And all of this written by an American, Sondheim.

This is why it is an odd twist of Japanese and American styles. It's an American man's interpretation of a Japanese story written by a Japanese man in what he thinks is an American style, This is reflected both in the style of the piece, the casting, the language and the politics. It should not be presented as something "more faithful to Japanese" or it's missing the basic, fundamental intention of the piece.

[ScottyDoesn'tKnow2]

I think the idea that the intention was to present the piece as "if it were written by a Japanese person who had visited Broadway, seen our shows, then returned to Japan to write this show about Japan in what he perceived to be our American, Broadway style" better explains why "Next" and the entire facts section is there. I read some critiques that felt that section was bit out-of-place only because the piece seemed to be a critique on Western imperialism of Japan but then the facts make it sound like it all worked well for the Japanese and made it sound like a good thing. I didn't quite subscribe to that as that critique is coming from a place that this modernization is completely good AND I just felt it was a judgment-free observation of where Japan is now due to the events that took place in the show that how it all just logically-followed. With the above intention explained, now it seems like to have a bit of braggadocio. 

Also, I always felt "Please Hello" was a brilliant piece of subversion...seeing Western portrayals poked fun at the way Western productions can do to other cultures.

[devonian.t]

I visited China recently, travelling from Beijing to Shanghai.

It seemed to me that the south had lost something in trying to embrace American culture so entirely.

However, who am I to decide what is right or wrong for other people?  Who am I to decide whether the traditional lifestyle or Westernized society is better?

This is how I feel about the facts in 'Next'.  Let the audience decide whether Japan has gained more than it has lost.

[Kad]

Dancingthrulife2 said: "devonian.t said: "As a director, though, he might well remember that his job is to illuminate the authors' point, not to replace it with his own. He could write a play about the "colonized" becoming "colonizers" if he wanted. The original text spends 2 hours exploring the 'overtures' of the West and their rapid effects on Japan.

Hence the comments earlier about Doyle hacking out the original style and content."

To be fair, Sondheim is still alive. If he doesn't agree this interpretation, this production wouldn't have been put on stage."

Sondheim is remarkably lax when it comes to people interpreting his shows. He's pretty much given the go-ahead for any reinterpretation, at least at a workshop level to see if it works.

[henrikegerman]

The definitive production in my book was lavishly spectacular, had plenty of "bite" and was completely loyal to the text.

That was the National Theatre of Tokyo's PACIFIC OVERTURES that played Avery Fisher Hall to thunderous acclaim in 2002.

[newintown]

That production was in Japanese; hard to say that's "loyal to the text" as the text is in English.

[broadwaybabywannabe2]

EthelMae said: "All I can say is the 1976 original production was glorious. The 2nd production done at the now defunct Promenade Theatre Off-Broadway was beautiful in its smaller production ..."...

 

so true as i saw both these productions in NYC and loved both...i feel that the original production in 1976 of PO was a quiet show in the year of A CHORUS LINE...enough said, and when the Promenade Theatre production came about years later, the show was given a production that allowed it to be appreciated more...