Pacific Overtures — Page 9

South Florida - just stop.

Dear World, you ask?

It was one of the worst of the worst.

The plot? Dull, dark, boring. The audience only needed to hear the first chords for their eyes to glaze over. By the time Angela Lansbury entered - looking like a poor drag queen, I knew there was no hope. The score was more than just unremarkable - it was horrible. Why are we forced with this tuneless, ugly, bore?! The poor actors were saddled with the worst numbers ever written: poor Angela is given a tuneless song about a man who left her. Where is "Losing My Mind" from Follies when you need it? Hell, where is Follies when you need it? The overly long ballet is unremarkable, and a sequence involving a tea party is particularly painful. The ending is forced and trite, and as I walked out I saw the audience fuming over what they had just had forced upon them.

The sets were very nice.

The poor audiences are what really move me. We are being fooled into believing that THIS is what good theatre is. I have an OBLIGATION to stand up for the masses and call out this Dirgical for what it really is: trite, dull, and overall, a waste of time at the theatre.

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The bad guys/elitists are really the powers that be now, and they are one committed --- and efficient --- bunch. They know how to bulldoze their darlings into the public's consciousness, leaving the beautiful and worthwhile to languish by the wayside.

And as we've seen, they've already done a very good job of it!

Just look at that list of awards!

His awards date back to 1963 and nominations back to 1958. A culmination of over 50 years. How is that "now"? What year is it in your world of paranoid delusions? Who is the President of the United States? Were the audiences in your world only bamboozled intermittently by Sondheim's hits, but not bamboozled by his flops? Or is "bamboozle" denote artistic merit rather than commercial success? That's the thing about paranoid delusions. They're often contradictory to fact (which is different from "truth") and inexplicable to those living in reality.

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Updated On: 2/5/15 at 02:50 PM

"They're often contradictory to fact (which is different from "truth") and inexplicable to those living in reality."

They're also contradictory to themselves. The time I pointed that out unsparingly was when he blocked me. He put up with -- and actively engaged in -- a lot of arguments with me until that point.

After Eight is essentially Blanche DuBois without the charm or class.

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Very late to this discussion-- (and could not care less about the diatribes against Sondheim, Sondheim fans, A8, Fantod et al)

Goes without saying based on my avatar where I stand in ranking the greatness of Pacific Overture's score. Pure magnificence and one of the greatest combinations of music and lyrics to grace the Broadway stage (if you put aside the semi-racist and unfunny "Welcome to Kanagawa").

HOWEVAH.... I too am in the camp of those who find sitting through the play onstage to be a bore and a trial. (Go figure.) Full disclosure-- I saw the Boston tryout of the original production, not the final show at the Winter Garden, replete with the earlier (dull) version of "Chrysanthemum Tea", the parade of steampunk sculptures as part of the gift exchange sequence shown in Boris Aronson's book, and street clothes for the ensemble in "Next" before their actual costumes were ready. I was deeply moved by "Someone in a Tree", "Bowler Hat" and "Pretty Lady" the first time I heard them onstage, but a lot of the rest of the score was more intimidating than lovely on that first hearing. The book scenes in Act II literally put me to sleep.

Fast forward to the Promenade revival. By now I knew the cast album by heart and loved it. The show onstage? Still a bore, and still put me to sleep in Act II (some speech about approaching armies of the Lords of the South), and now what's worse was I missed all that gorgeous spectacle that carried me over the bumps in the libretto in the original production.

I'm left feeling the score is one of the most brilliant ever created for a play that does't really hold up onstage. It's the fragment, not the day. It's a score but not a play...

Updated On: 2/5/15 at 06:37 PM

"It's a show that evokes a more cerebral than emotional response. Musical theatre tends to be- even in its best works- a sentimental or melodramatic or emotionally heightened form. "

I think I get where you're coming from, and I mostly agree... Although I would say the music is, IMHO, so emotionally moving that it *does* manage an emotional response, albeit in a more... abstract (?) way as compared with a show with a more straightforward narrative.

For the record, I do think Sondheim is starting to have *some* sort of mainstream fame. No, I'm not saying his songs are as familiar as other composers, or even his show titles (well, except for West Side Story,) but more and more you hear his name casually mentioned on tv shows, talk shows, etc, with the assumption that the audience has *some* idea who he is. A8 and others can say this is meant to be ironic, or more probably for them, an example of people being elitist or trying to appear elite, but nevertheless.

Updated On: 2/5/15 at 08:39 PM

Can't help it-have to say:
The show was an original musical-not based on a movie, not based on a book, not based on a comic strip, not based on a board game, not based on a magazine article, and not based on a TV show. I'm sure there's more I'm forgetting. Surely it deserves credit for that.

Not saying great musicals can't be based on other mediums-we know they can be but in our current world of shows coming in, i.e., Hee Haw, Somewhere and all the revivals, this show has to get credit as a daring musical piece that dared to come into NY the same season as A Chorus Line.

Sorry, I have a special place in my heart for Pacific Overtures as I know you all do with your favorite shows.

Updated On: 2/6/15 at 12:28 AM

A Chorus Line is an original musical, too! :P

According to "Finishing the Hat", Sondheim holds W S Gilbert in very low regard, unfortunately, so the fact that he can out-rhyme Gilbert probably counts very little in the pride Sondheim has for Pacific Overtures.

I'm convinced that in order to enjoy the show, it HAS to be live in the theatre. I love watching the musical numbers from the 1976 OBC video, but the book scenes are tough. I remember very much enjoying the not-quite-as-good revival at Studio 54 ten years ago. There's such a performance art aspect to the Kabuki style that just needs to be experienced in person.

That being said, THE MUSIC. I think the one of the most beautiful passages Sondheim ever composed is in "There is no other way"


"The bird sings, the wind sighs,
The air stirs, the bird shies.
A storm approaches.

The leaf shakes, the wings rise.
The song stops, the bird flies.
The storm approaches."

*siiigh*

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Updated On: 2/6/15 at 12:18 PM

I adore the show, score and book. But I've only seen two live production (the Promenade and the Roundabout) and the video of the original cast.

I confess that I found the Roundabout production less interesting than the others, but that production embraced what seemed to me to be a sort of generic quality in an effort to be more "authentic." The heavy stylization of the other two productions (as well as the saving of female performers until "Next," when the world of Japan becomes entirely different) was more thrilling and interesting to me.

I find the entire show to be very emotionally compelling, particularly as a exploration of the important things we lose while gaining other things we think are more important (but perhaps aren't).