PACIFIC OVERTURES by Stephen Sondheim &...

PACIFIC OVERTURES by Stephen Sondheim & John Weidman (The Theatre Communications Group: $8.95, illustrated). The libretto to the celebrated Sondheim-Weidman musical about Commodore Matthew Perry’s opening of Japan in 1835 has been out of print for several years. (The show originally was produced by Harold Prince in 1976 and substantially revised for an Off-Broadway revival in 1984.) Although the innovative use of Japanese theatrical conventions that impressed theater audiences doesn’t translate onto the printed page, the book remains an intriguing study of shifting perspectives. The Old Man, who recalls witnessing the signing of the initial treaties; the increasingly Westernized Kayama, who sings “A Bowler Hat,” and the eminently practical Madame, who owns “a small commercial venture with a modest clientele,” view the arrival of the Americans quite differently. The authors make it clear that the Westerners forced their presence on a xenophobic society that preferred to remain isolated: The British Admiral, a parody of a Gilbert and Sullivan character, concludes his introduction, “We don’t foresee that you will be the least bit argumentative,/ So please ignore the man-of-war we brought as a preventative.”