Pacific Overtures at Signature Theatre

Pacific Overtures

Signature Theatre
4200 Campbell Avenue Arlington

In 1853, after 200 years of stability, Japan faces an American expedition determined to open the "floating kingdom" to trade. The isolationist island's reckoning with the unwelcome western influence is brilliantly illuminated through a kaleidoscope of stories about sailors, samurai, "someone in a tree" and two friends who choose radically different paths.

Thru - Apr 9, 2023

Show Type: Musical

Box Office: 703-820-9771

www.sigtheatre.org

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Pacific Overtures Reviews

Average Rating based on 8 reviews

Highly Recommended
Recommended
Somewhat Recommended
Not Recommended

Washington Post - Somewhat Recommended

"...Somewhere on the musical-theater periodic table between the work of Bertolt Brecht and Rodgers and Hammerstein sits "Pacific Overtures." A geopolitical history lesson wrapped in a Japanese fable wrapped in a Broadway musical, the show has a score that's dauntingly clever even by the standards of Stephen Sondheim's elevated genius bar."

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- Peter Marks

DC Theater Arts - Recommended

"...Pacific Overtures may be a show that is easier to admire than love. But in this gorgeously detailed production, the admiration is well-earned, and each moment justifies the audience’s interest and engagement."

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- Bob Ashby

MetroWeekly - Recommended

"...The score, with music and lyrics by Sondheim, also simply sounds lovely filling the openness of director Ethan Heard's in-the-round staging, grazing the graceful, watercolor-hued screens set designer Chika Shimizu has wrapped around the Max Theatre. Alexander Tom conducts a nine-piece orchestra - complete with a booming taiko war drum - that breathes vitality into those plunking, repeated quarter notes that so sing of Sondheim."

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- Andre Hereford

Talkin Broadway - Recommended

"...In keeping with the authors' intentions, Pacific Overtures uses adaptations of Japanese staging techniques to tell the story. Commodore Perry (Nicholas Yenson), leader of the American flotilla, and his soldiers wear masks depicting the "barbarian invaders" with enormous eyes and large noses, as do the European generals who join the diplomatic assault on Japan in the second act. (Sondheim's brilliant "Please Hello" ensemble number introduces each nation's representative with a pastiche of its music: John Philip Sousa for the Americans, Gilbert and Sullivan for Great Britain, etc.) Huang also designed winning life-size puppets, operated by cast members, that become the dramatic centers of their scenes."

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- Susan Berlin

Washington City Paper - Somewhat Recommended

"...While Pacific Overtures is certainly enthralling at all the right moments, the musical more importantly wants us to think critically and carefully about the culture we consume and how we consume it. This production succeeds in part through its attempts to disrupt the expectation that musical theater exists for the pleasure of its (mostly White) audiences. Insightful, moving, and truly innovative, Pacific Overtures is not just a musical to be reckoned with. This production is a reckoning within musical theater itself."

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- Melissa Lin Sturges

Stage and Cinema - Highly Recommended

"...How's this for an overture: Go see it. Signature Theatre has mounted a very good production of an experimental, rarely performed musical by the late composer Stephen Sondheim. It is both spotty and highly recommended."

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- P. Kubicks

MD Theatre Guide - Highly Recommended

"...So, with a clean notebook and beaucoup d’enthusiasm, this critic left smitten by a talented 10-member cast, the innovative musical numbers and clear, concise direction by Ethan Heard—plus the tale of these people who lived in Japan at the time of America’s invasion. With music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by John Weidman, Signature’s “Pacific Overtures” tells the story of Japan’s westernization starting in 1853 after 250 years of isolation on this “floating island,” as the opening number suggests, “the Advantage of Floating in the Middle of the Sea.”"

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- Carolyn Kelemen

BroadwayWorld - Highly Recommended

"...The clash of cultures -between West and East-is portrayed with poetic and musical flourish in Signature Theatre's production of Stephen Sondheim's rarefied and insightful Pacific Overtures. This very specialized of musicals should now appeal to a larger audience thanks to the savvy, relevant and comprehensive direction by Ethan Heard."

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- David Friscic

Pacific Overtures at Signature Theatre