Pacific Overtures

“Watch This” productions burst onto the Melbourne scene last year with an impressive production of Sondheim’s Assassins. Now, with exemplary casting and impeccable vocal skills, the company brings us Sondheim’s rarely performed and little known Pacific Overtures.

Built on a series of vignettes rather than a central narrative drive, the show endeavours to chart the westernisation of Japan after the Americans arrive. Despite its wonderfully lyrical music, Pacific Overtures is not one of Sondheim’s great successes. It’s not as warm and engaging as most other musicals, starts slowly, and tends to founder in the second act. Nevertheless, Sondheim’s beautiful music and wonderful lyrics are gently shaped by director Alister Smith and the skills of a dream cast. What they can’t do, however, is make the disjointed text and incomplete journeys flow in a way that would make the show completely satisfying. This isn’t a show for newcomers to Sondheim, but rather for Sondheim worshippers who are grateful for every offering from the master.

With the cast playing multiple roles, it’s astonishing to see that there are no weaknesses at all in the company. Anton Berezin, as the Reciter and the Shogun, is excellent, with clear delineation between the two characters. His fine singing and whimsical humour provide a strong base for the rest of the cast to build on. And build they do! Noni McCallum is delicious as the Madam in the highly suggestive “Welcome to Kawagawa” – perhaps one of Sondheim’s most exquisitely naughty songs, but she also excels as a demented soothsayer and a Russian admiral. Along with a great voice she has true comic ability and her timing is perfection.

Nick Simpson-Deeks and Adrian Li Donni are equally impressive as the “twin” sides of a burgeoning cultural war…..Simpson-Deeks as the westernised fisherman Majiro brings his considerable acting skills and voice to finely balance a difficult and underwritten role, and Li Donni is an exciting and appealing talent whose character undergoes the greatest journey as Kayama, a proud and noble Japanese patriot who is seduced by Western Culture. His perfect diction and lyrical voice make “Bowler Hat” in Act Two a clear message of what happens when cultures collide. Both actors are at their best in the duet “Poems”, one of the highlights of the show.

Bianca Baykara impresses vocally throughout and is delicately beautiful and vulnerable in “Pretty Lady”, and producer Sonya Suares (who founded Watch This) is wonderful as the tragic Tamate. Jacqui Hoy is joyfully larger than life as Shogun’s malevolent mother and Leighton Young gives us four delicious cameos, with the best being the old man reminiscing in the iconic “Someone in a Tree”. His presence adds great depth to an already awesome cast which also includes Reece Budin, Emma Clair Ford, Andrew Kroenert, Tim Paige and Elinor Smith Adams.

The set (Eugyeene The) and costumes (Chloe Greaves) are minimalist but effective. The swirling white enso on the stage depicts perfectly the isolation of the islands; the delicate silk blinds and the bamboo tubes, that turn red and blue as well as their customary white, work as visual text as the Americans subtly conquer without violence (a nice change). The four piece orchestra under the excellent musical direction of Robyn Womersley is always perfect and Rob Sowinski’s lighting design is effective throughout. Director Alister Smith has added lots of humour in the ‘spaces between’ that Sondheim always leaves and there are brilliant touches like the red silk scarves, pulled by the actors to denote bloodflow.

This is a small production and some might wish for more elaborate staging and dressing; but it is totally in keeping with the Japanese minimalist style of art, and it provides excellent and satisfying theatre. A must see for all Sondheim fans.

Coral Drouyn

Photographer: Jodie Hutchinson

More Reading

Earlier Coverage and Season Details.

Interview with Nick Simpson-Deeks

Musicals in 2014 and Beyond.