Did Critics Welcome Pacific Overtures Back to Broadway?

Pacific Overtures, Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman's complicated tale of the Western invasion of Japan, has come back to Broadway, where it opened at Studio 54 on December 2. The mounting is under the leadership by director Amon Miyamoto, a Broadway neophyte, who helmed a critically lauded Japanese-language production of the musical, which premiered in Japan and later played brief runs in Washington D.C. and at Lincoln Center. This time around, the show is being performed in English and features a cast led by B.D. Wong. Did this staging make the critics feel welcomed in Kanagawa?

Here is a sampling of what they had to say:

Eric Grode in his Broadway.com Review: "A lot of what seemed inscrutable and intriguing at an international arts festival is exasperating on a Broadway stage, an ungainly mix of earnest stage tricks and pandering slapstick. Miyamoto has given the under-appreciated show a healthy dose of the cheap laughs that Sondheim and Weidman dodged so carefully in the first place… Exhibit A of this reliance on kitsch can be found in the Reciter, a sort of all-purpose narrator/Greek chorus/fill-in actor. B.D. Wong, whose performance in M. Butterfly remains a benchmark on the complicated emotional dynamics of East-West cross-culturalism, is grievously miscast in the role: Fatuous, glib and relentlessly adorable, his Reciter offers very little insight into the exotic goings-on beyond an arched eyebrow."

Ben Brantley of The New York Times: "Unlike the New National Theater of Tokyo production, which was remarkable for its conviction and cohesiveness, this latest incarnation from the Roundabout Theater Company has the bleary, disoriented quality of someone suffering from jet lag after a sleepless trans-Pacific flight. Something has definitely been lost in the retranslation… what's happening onstage has the aura of a crisis of confidence. The cast members, led by B. D. Wong of M. Butterfly on Broadway and Law & Order: SVU on television as a wryly omniscient Narrator, are a fresh and ardent group. Yet they often inspire the kind of fingers-crossing anxiety that parents feel while watching their school-age children in holiday pageants. An uneasy tentativeness pervades the stage like a mist of perspiration."

Clive Barnes of The New York Post: "This musical has always been the trickiest of the Stephen Sondheim canon to stage--or, if you like, to load and fire. And this new, genuinely Japanese staging by Japanese director Amon Miyamoto, like so many before it, goes off half-cocked. The trouble--and it was apparent even in Harold Prince's brilliant 1976 production--is that John Weidman's fascinating but complex book is too heavy for the delicately designed bookcase provided by Sondheim's music and lyrics… The performances even here are not always equal to Sondheim's material. The most disappointing is B.D. Wong's Narrator, who lacks weight and presence, but the entire ensemble appears more nimble than impressive."

Howard Kissel of The New York Daily News: "There is a nice moment when the screens that initially reflect the stability of Japan are tilted and swayed to suggest impending chaos. Nevertheless the overall texture is often coarse, and the sense of contrast between "modern" Japan and the idealized past less stark. The show is an ensemble effort, and the all-Asian cast is extremely strong, especially Michael K. Lee, Paolo Montalban, Alvin Y.F. Ing reprising his original role as the Shogun's mother and Sab Shimono. Francis Jue is extremely funny as the chief welcomer to Kanagawa. B.D. Wong, in a host of roles, is engaging if not commanding. Jonathan Tunick has redone the orchestrations, which convey a powerful sense of Asia with smaller resources. Whatever its weaknesses, it is always thrilling to see and hear this majestic score."

David Rooney of Variety: "Japanese director Amon Miyamoto has brought clarity, accessibility and thematic resonance to this ambitious, audacious show, which remains unlike any other American musical… Turning less to Kabuki than to traditional Japanese Noh theater for inspiration, the director successfully, if not altogether seamlessly, weds Eastern and Western flavors. More importantly, without over-simplifying, his production carves a fluid through-line out of a challengingly obscure, episodic history play peppered with vignettes and mini-narratives and goes some distance toward fleshing out characters in a show in which individual figures are secondary to the twin protagonists of America and Japan and the ambivalent relationship between them."

Michael Kuchwara of The Associated Press: "There is a rough, unsteady quality to the Roundabout Theatre Company revival of the Stephen Sondheim musical… The Roundabout adaptation uses a cast of Asian-Americans and, surprisingly, something is missing in the musical's return to its home turf. Not that there aren't pleasures to be found, but this revival seems coarser and not as secure as other productions of the show… This latest incarnation is midsize and middling, finding its strengths in the emotional qualities of the score, one of Sondheim's most ambitious, right up there with Sweeney Todd and Sunday in the Park With George. The production doesn't look particularly lavish, although designer Rumi Matsui's movable tan panels and Junko Koshino's colorful costumes are often lovely to see."

Linda Winer of Newsday: "The improbable and miraculous journey of Pacific Overtures continues at Studio 54, of all preposterous locations, where Stephen Sondheim's least-likely Broadway musical opened last night in a slow-starting but thrilling cross-cultural revival by Japanese director Amon Miyamoto… There always has been too much Weidman talk and not enough Sondheim music in the first part of the show, a weakness that all the stylized spectacles and delicate humanity of Miyamoto cannot solve. We highly recommend patience."