I
think, for me, Pacific Overtures
might be Sondheim’s all-killer-no-filler score.
It has fewer songs than most of his shows, and musicals like Sunday in the Park with George or A Little Night Music might have some of
the all-around best numbers, but every song in this show really makes it
count. Even though the score only
features eleven songs, narrowing it down to five was no easy task.
(Pictures are from various productions - it's incredibly hard to find a good assortment of Pacific Overtures photos.)
“Chrysanthemum Tea” – A hugely sprawling
patter-and-plot number. In it, the
dilemma of western ships approaching Japan’s isolationist shores is expressed
by the Shogun’s mother. She offers her
son her warnings, advice, and tea through lyrics that simply outdo themselves
in rhyme.
Best
line: “Have some tea, my Lord, / Some
chrysanthemum tea. / It’s a tangled situation, / As your father would agree. /
And it mightn’t be so tangled / If you hadn’t had him strangled? / But I fear
that I stray, my Lord.”
“Poems” – As Kayama and Manjiro journey, they
play a game of almost “dueling” poems, inventing compositions based on one
another’s opening lines. Some of the
imagery is just terrific, and I like the way they both write for their
respective “ladies”: for Kayama, his
wife, and for Manjiro, America.
Best
line: “Moon, / I love her like the moon,
/ Making jewels of the grass / Where my lady walks, / My lady wife.”
“Someone in a Tree” – This is such an
intriguing number; I adore it. Here, an
old man reminisces about the day he saw the westerners come, aided by the
memory of himself as a boy and a soldier listening to the proceedings. It’s a gorgeous contemplation on the nature
of observation and history, the idea that nothing quite matters unless it’s
been witnessed.
Best
line: “I am hiding in a tree. / I’m a
fragment of the day. / If I weren’t, who’s to say / Things would happen here
the way / That they happened here?”
“A
Bowler Hat”
– A great passage-of-time song about gradual assimilation. Through Kayama, we see how the influences of
the west bleed into Japan. The way each
stanza builds upon the previous one by echoes and slight changes is excellent,
and it’s a great showcase for the actor.
Best
line: “No eagle flies against the sky /
As eagerly as I / Have flown against my life.”
“Pretty Lady” – This song is creepy-beautiful
Sondheim at its best. In the number, a
trio of British sailors come upon a young woman they mistakenly believe to be a
geisha. While the melody and overlapping
harmonies are absolutely rapturous, the lyrics – in which their desire for her
becomes increasingly insistent – make it hair-standing-on-end foreboding. Truly amazing.
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