50 Favourite Musicals: 38: PACIFIC OVERTURES (1976) (Stephen Sondheim)

The 50 shows that have stood out down the years and, as we get up among the paint cards, the shows that have become the cast recording of my life: 

First performed: 1976, Winter Garden Theatre, NY

First seen by me: 1987, London Coliseum

Productions seen: two

Score: Stephen Sondheim

Book: John Weidman

Plot:  1853, Japan:  Two acquaintances find themselves on opposing sides of society when the ordered, feudal world of Japan is shattered by the West's gunboat diplomacy establishing trade links.

Five memorable numbers: SOMEONE IN A TREE, THERE IS NO OTHER WAY, PLEASE HELLO, WELCOME TO KANAGAWA, POEMS

To go big or go small, that is the question...  Only Sondheim could conceive that, in the year of the flag-waving American Bicentennial, what Broadway needed was a musical of the opening up of Japan to western trade seen through Japanese eyes!  It ran for five months on Broadway but contains some of Sondheim's most haunting and deliciously complex music.  John Weidman's book also has a central couple whose story will remain topical: against the background of change which erupts when an American battleship appears off the coast of Japan to force them to open trade links to the West, Kayama, the prefect of police, becomes more westernized while Manjiro, a fisherman who was rescued by Americans when he was lost at sea, becomes a Samurai and more fundamental.  It took eleven years unil a London production thanks to the English National Opera - although Paul Kerryson had staged the British premiere the year before in Manchester - and it was an epic production - I still yearn for one of the massive veiled-cartwheel hats - but for me the 2003 production at the Donmar, by virtue of being smaller, edges it.  It was directed by US director Gary Griffin and was based on his own revival in Chicago the year before.  It's not for everyone... but I love it.  It also contains the song that Sondheim claims to be his favourite, SOMEONE IN A TREE, which asks the question: how can we believe what happened unless it was witnessed.  The all-important treaty was signed behind closed doors but Sondheim imagines that it was witnessed by a young boy watching from a tree who could see but not hear, and a Samurai hidden beneath the room who could hear but not see.  This glorious song supposedly inspired HAMILTON's "The Room Where It Happens".

The original 1976 Broadway production was filmed to be broadcast on Japanese television - how fabulous it would be to see the full version.  At the top of the show, Mako, as The Reciter, introduced the secret world of 1853 Japan with "The Advantages of Floating In The Middle Of The Sea"...