Kunoichi Productions: Pacific Overtures

Here's my odd confession about Stephen Sondheim: when I first discovered Sweeney Todd, I was so dazzled by it, so overwhelmed by how close it came to artistic perfection, so struck by its completeness, that it took me quite a while to explore & appreciate the rest of Sondheim. (I am still surprised when I meet people who have some other favorite Sondheim musical, or even some other favorite musical, or who can't sing, however poorly, the entire score). I did make one exception, though: Pacific Overtures, a work I also loved immediately & have wanted to see on stage for years, though I'm also aware of the dangers of such wishes; after wanting for many years to see one of Federico Garcia Lorca's plays on stage, I went to Yerma at Shotgun Players a couple of years ago, & I'm still reeling from their clueless travesty (my entry on it is here).

So I was both excited & filled with my standard anxiety when I was wandering down Haight Street one day last month & saw a poster advertising a production of Pacific Overtures, by Kunoichi Productions. I had never heard of them before, which is why I had to find out about the show from a poster, which is yet another reason it's good to wander. It turns out Kunoichi Productions is a new local group, dedicated to "bold, innovative multidisciplinary theater with Japanese aesthetics, blending the ancient and the modern, using both comedy and philosophy while fusing Eastern and Western theatrical elements"; kunoichi means female ninja; & you can find that information & more at their website here.

I ended up making it to the show's final performance, which was yesterday afternoon, & I am glad I did not skip it, as it turned out to be a very good production, really impressively good, considering the challenges of putting on this complicated work & what I assume are the group's limited resources (as we all know, these are difficult times even for established arts groups, let along scrappy start-ups, so, again, kudos to them for taking on & rising to such a big challenge).

Given Kunoichi's interests, staging Pacific Overtures as their first full production was an astute yet bold choice, as the piece straddles & explores different worlds & power structures, showing how they interact, intersect & clash, & how their inhabitants change or refuse to change during cross-cultural confrontation. Despite all it has to offer, this show isn't done that often, I'm not sure why. I assume the need for an all or mostly Asian cast hinders some, but certainly in this area there's no lack of qualified talent. As I've mentioned, it's a complicated show, but that comes with being a Sondheim show, & his is a name that is now a draw for a sizable group (I can't speak to the rest of the run, of course, but yesterday the house was almost full, & very attentive & enthusiastic).

Pacific Overtures has some of my favorite Sondheim numbers, such as the exquisite There is no other way & one of my all-time favorites, Chrysanthemum Tea, a song which manages to be both witty & tragic, as well as advancing the plot, giving us some history & cultural context, & revealing the personalities of all involved, which makes it, obviously, a triumph of the musical-comedy stage. ("Musical comedy" is a term used only for convenience here, as this show's subject, the opening of Japan by Commodore Perry & his American warships, is not a topic that would suggest, to most people, the makings of a Broadway musical.) The score also contains the song Sondheim once said was his personal favorite, Someone in a Tree, a complicated, multi-voiced narrative about . . . well, many things, but not quite grasping what we supposedly witness is a major part of it.

First I am going to complain about something, but this is my complaint every time I see a musical: the entire show was amplified. Given the relatively small performance space (La Brava Theater, which I had not been to before, despite many years of theater-going; it turned out to be a welcoming space, with the shabby-chic Art-Deco elegance of a former movie palace, which it is), one that an actor's voice should be able to fill, it was a shame that they didn't take advantage of the possibilities for intimacy & subtlety that come with a natural speaking voice. Amplification flattens & distorts tones, removes lower-volume possibilities, & in some ways reduces the audience's attention, as they don't have to listen as carefully. And the little microphones taped to the performers' faces are ugly & distracting. I say all this knowing full well that the use of amplification is going to continue, of course. I just wish it were not so automatic when singing is involved.

Taped-on face mikes aside, this was a very attractive production. The costumes were especially impressive, & astutely done: when the brothel-keeper comes out with her gaggle of crude farm girls, half of whom were comically played by men, to perform Welcome to Kanagawa, the countrified geishas' outfits were notably more garish than anyone else's, done in overly bright shades of pink & green & other electric colors. (This comic scene is balanced later in the drama by one in which three British sailors approach a young girl they think is a geisha, leading to unwanted advances from them that end in the death of one of the sailors by the girl's father, a scene performed in this production with great delicacy & menace.) The more aristocratic Japanese were in refined dark blues & browns. Commodore Perry, done up like something approaching a Kabuki demon, wore a glistening jacket of stars & stripes, accompanied by two American sailors with grotesque "white people" masks, making them look both swinish & babylike.

There was a lot of movement, clearly based in Japanese theatrical traditions, which the performers seemed quite expert in (in other words, their movements looked natural & expressive, & not like something they had studied just for the occasion), as well as several choreographed dance numbers, all handled with aplomb. Clever use was made of the single set, a multi-level Japanese-style house, & of the auditorium itself, as characters entered or exited through the aisles (causing those of us in the front row to be cautious about extending our legs out!).

It was fascinating to see, finally, something I've been so familiar with through recordings, because of course most recordings don't give you the full show – there are narrative bits, expository bits done with dialogue, that reveals important context for the familiar songs. I have a bad habit of listening to recordings & not necessarily reading all the liner notes, or the plot summaries, so it sometimes takes a while for me to understand exactly what's happening (and in the recording of the original Broadway cast, as part of the work's incorporation of traditional Japanese theatrical techniques, the women's parts are played by men, which further complicates things if you're not reading along; in the recording of the Broadway revival, women play the women's roles, & in this production they did as well, though there's also some cross-gender casting, as mentioned earlier).

Parts of the story, particularly towards the end, were clearer to me than they ever had been before. There were also moments when I wasn't sure if I picked up on something because it was clear, or because at some level I already knew what was going on; for example, during Someone in a Tree, one of the narrators is an old man, one whose mind is possibly starting to slip, who tries to recall what he heard & saw on that long-ago day, when he climbed up a tree & saw into the treaty-house – he's very chatty, & very repetitious, but the important details elude him. The actor in this role skillfully conveyed the character's age, but was it that I was already aware enough of it to pick up on his rather subtle indications? (I have this same situation with Shakespeare productions, especially heavily cut ones: does the story still make sense as they tell it, or do I just know the material so well I'm supplying the lacunae?) (And for the record, the other narrators in Someone in a Tree are the old man's younger self (much younger, as they keep reminding us), a warrior who had been hidden under the floorboards of the treaty house, & the Reciter, our guide through the evening & the history.)

The big comedy number, Say Hello, in which representatives from foreign powers keep showing up, each bearing gifts & menace, & each characterized with musical cleverness by Sondheim (the British representative patters à la Gilbert & Sullivan, the French diplomat is filigreed with a bit of Offenbach), was very cleverly done by the group. As you'd expect with Sondheim, there's a lot of cleverness (the wordplay doesn't stop with the title). And as you'd also expect with Sondheim, if you know his work rather than his reputation (or at least his former reputation), there's a deep reservoir of emotion being drawn on. Some of the characters make only brief appearances (the wife of the low-level samurai at the beginning, for instance) & some have major arcs (the fisherman who, capsized at sea, ended up spending time in Massachusetts, who later returned to warn the Japanese about Perry's ships) that end up in surprising places, but their sorrows, their anger & confusion, provide the human spine to the history, all well conveyed by these players.

The final song, Next, Next, an urgent, on-rushing, speedy look at the changes in Japan after the Meiji Emperor decides to assert his supremacy & lead his country victoriously into the modern world, was astutely updated. There was a flash at one moment that I took to be a reference to the dropping of the atomic bomb. One of the performers at the very end was dressed in an anime-cosplay style, which is certainly a huge part of Japan's current influence but not something that would have been noted, certainly not noted as a major cultural marker for the USA, when the musical premiered in this mid-1970s.

There were no printed programs handed out, & I understand the cost-savings there, but I wish they had at least given us a single sheet. There was a QR code you could scan, but I'm just not going to do that. But Kunoichi Productions's website did give the credits, so here they are, though unfortunately I don't see listings for the set, lighting, & costume designers:

Lawrence-Michael C. Arias as Abe

Faustino Cadiz III as Swing

Keiko Shimosato Carreiro as the Reciter

Edward Im as the Boy

Sarah Jiang as Tamate

Stephen Kanaski as the Warrior

Ryan Marchand as Perry

Eiko Moon-Yamamoto as the Shogun's Mother

Nick Nakashima as Kayama

Vinh G. Nguyen as Manjiro

Mayadevi Ross as the Madame

Julia Wright as Swing

Directed by Nick Ishimaru

Music Direction by Diana Lee 

Choreography by Megan and Shannon Kurashige of Sharp & Fine

Cultural Advising by Ken Kanesaka

Dramaturgy by Ai Ebashi

Good job all, & I look forward to seeing what Kunoichi Productions comes up with next.

Do you see that straw? That's a straw.

– There's the man, says Joe, that made the Gaelic sports revival. There he is sitting there The man that got away James Stephens. The champion of all Ireland at putting the sixteen pound shot. What was your best throw, citizen?

– Na bacleis, says the citizen, letting on to be modest. There was a time I was as good as the next fellow anyhow.

– Put it there, citizen, says Joe. You were and a bloody sight better.

– Is that really a fact? says Alf.

– Yes, says Bloom. That's well known. Do you not know that?

So off they started about Irish sport and shoneen games the like of the lawn tennis and about hurley and putting the stone and racy of the soil and building up a nation once again and all of that. And of course Bloom had to have his say too about if a fellow had a rower's heart violent exercise was bad. I declare to my antimacassar if you took up a straw from the bloody floor and if you said to Bloom: Look at, Bloom. Do you see that straw? That's a straw. Declare to my aunt he'd talk about it for an hour so he would and talk steady.

A most interesting discussion took place in the ancient hall of Brian O'Ciarnain's in Sraid na Bretaine Bheag, under the auspices of Sluagh na h-Eireann, on the revival of ancient Gaelic sports and the importance of physical culture, as understood in ancient Greece and ancient Rome and ancient Ireland, for the development of the race. The venerable president of this noble order was in the chair and the attendance was of large dimensions. After an instructive discourse by the chairman, a magnificent oration eloquently and forcibly expressed, a most interesting and instructive discussion of the usual high standard of excellence ensued as to the desirability of the revivability of the ancient games and sports of our ancient panceltic forefathers. . . .

Once again, happy Bloomsday to my mountain flowers.

Museum Monday 2025/24

 

The Athlete by Auguste Rodin, a plaster model now at the Legion of Honor

Salonen's Last Stand, Mahler's Resurrection

Last night I was back at Davies Hall for the first in departing Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen's final run of performances, a three-concert run of Mahler's Second Symphony, the Resurrection. I was there once again courtesy of Lisa Hirsch, & I am particularly grateful as the Symphony's Uber-style surge pricing means single tickets for these concerts are going for astronomical sums, which is not surprising given this might be our last chance to hear what one of the great conductors of our time can do with our orchestra..

The Resurrection, a massive work, an emotional landmark for many symphony-goers, is always a special occasion, though of course as Salonen's last stand, these performances are particularly fraught. I assume the repertory was set before Symphony management made the unexplained & inexplicable decision to let their prize music director go, but the circumstances made the choice both ironic & hopeful.

The hall was packed & the audience vociferous in its applause & cheers for Salonen & Co every chance they got (not that there wasn't some of the usual bad behavior – very loud coughs, items dropped, & one man down front who had to be cautioned about his cell phone use during the performance by an usher with a sign; people are going to people, no matter how special the occasion). And this was a special occasion. The applause for the conductor's entry were in support; the applause & cheers for his final bows were in tribute. This was a stupendous performance on everyone's part: the orchestra, the chorus & their director (Jenny Wong), the soloists (soprano Heidi Stober & mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke), as well as Salonen. Given what I'll keep calling the circumstances, & despite or perhaps really because of the magnificent artistic achievement of all the musicians concerned, it was difficult not to feel that the performance was at some level the musical equivalent of the fuck-you dress.

As you can probably tell from my attempts to marshal praise-words into some sort of coherent form, this performance – strong, supple, soaring in its clarity & emotion – was a glowing one. I've been to other powerful Mahler performances that, while memorable, also left me feeling bludgeoned, not lifted up as this one did. This symphony is a tricky ship to sail! To switch metaphors, it was like seeing a familiar Old Master painting after a scrupulous cleaning, revealing shades of color & swathes of details that had been hidden under wax & varnish, waiting to be revealed. Particular instruments (the harps, the organ, the timpani) spoke with an invigorating clarity & force, but also with a tenderness, I hadn't recalled. The slow still entry of the chorus was like the first rays of sunlight after a stormy (picturesque, but stormy) night. Cooke, whom I believe I once described as "reliably radiant", came through as usual, with a voice like the warmth of a tender embrace. Stober soared along with the sinuous musical lines. The chorus ascended as one, & brought us with them. Requiems often try to duplicate the trumpets of the Last Judgment, but this was the thunderous opening of the final ascension. And this transitory & electric cathedral, with its vast perspective of arching architecture, its colors & pillars, &, this being Mahler, its gargoyles, had been summoned from the score as by a magician's wand by the conductor's baton, floating over us, suspended, giving us the usual dilemma: what do you do after hearing such a revelation?

I've read through what I've written a couple of times, wondering if I should tone it down, tamp down the extravagance, prune a few adjectives. But why? Ultimately, we go to live performances to have an evening like this, one that will live in memory as a justification for the time & money we spend on this strange hobby of going to sit in the dark, listening to sounds that will pass away just as we (often barely) comprehend them. So let my babbling stand as a monument to the why & wherefore of a concert-going life.

Enough of my raving. Re-entry has, as usual, been difficult. This was a great evening, & as for what happens to the Symphony after this, well, resurrection is always the hope.

Friday Photo 2025/24

 

a tree in the Japanese Tea Garden, Golden Gate Park

Museum Monday 2025/23

 

detail of Three Women by Margaret Peterson, at the Oakland Museum of California

Penultimate Salonen: Strauss, Sibelius, & Smith at the San Francisco Symphony

Thursday night I was at Symphony Hall for Esa-Pekka Salonen's penultimate stand as Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony. (I was there courtesy of Lisa Hirsch; check here for her review of this concert.) He was conducting a meaty program bookended by two Richard Strauss tone poems (Don Juan & Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks); in between came Sibelius's 7th Symphony to close the first half & then, after the intermission, the world premiere of a Symphony commission, Rewilding by local composer Gabriella Smith.

As locals are all too well aware, Symphony management made the boneheaded decision, for reasons never really stated beyond the usual "different artistic visions", to let their prize Music Director go. Overt demonstrations are not allowed, but the audience showed its support for Salonen with on-going applause & cheers for him every chance they got – as he walked on, as he bowed after a piece, as he walked off; when the concert ended, the applause extended well beyond the usual.

In recent years I've sort of lost my taste for Richard Strauss, but Thursday's performance made me wonder why, as the lush, dizzying strains of Don Juan unfolded (sounding occasionally like outtakes from Rosenkavalier, suitably enough given the eroticism pervading both works), with just enough of a zing of danger & a shot of the eerie to make it clear this was not just any lover's rhapsody but the story of a specific lover, the obsessive, haunted, & hunted Don Juan. Well, as they say, that's why they play the games. It's always good to give what we think we know a reality check.

That was followed by the Sibelius 7, a relatively compact piece. A few weeks ago at the Symphony, Dalia Stasevska closed her concert with a vigorous Sibelius 5, a work that rises majestically on muscular wings; the 7th, by contrast, seems rooted monumentally in place, like a vast granite mountain, undecorated by frivolous little flowers & suchlike; what chips & fragments skitter away from it come from the same substantial source.

That was a lot to mull over during intermission, with more to come – in fact, with a highlight to come, as a world premiere always strikes me as the highlight, or maybe I should say potential highlight, of a concert. But before we could hear the piece, the composer was brought out to talk.

As I've often said, I dislike such talks from the stage, & though there is a Romantic interest in hearing an artist discussing his or her creation, their comments are as often as not partial, pale, even a bit misleading (pushing us to look for one element over other, potentially to us more interesting, elements). After all, if a piece could be summed up in words, why write the piece? If you're a composer, you must feel that music conveys things words cannot, & this would be true even if you were a composer also gifted in writing & speaking (& not all are, of course; the "talk to the audience" is a bit of outreach, like using social media, that gets foisted on all composers these days, regardless of their level of interest & skill in these tasks, which are tangential to their main interest, which is writing music). And most of the material given in these speeches is usually available in the program anyway, so it's a twice-told tale for me.

Smith started with a gracious thank-you to Salonen & the orchestra; as a local composer, she grew up hearing the San Francisco Symphony, so it was a particular thrill, she said, for her to work with them. For the rest of her speech, she rather brilliantly evaded any discussion of the music (which needs to speak for itself) by telling us what rewilding is. But – I already know what it is. And I'm all in favor of it! (In fact I wondered if I was more of a purist than Smith, who went on about bicycling, as bicyclists do, whereas I feel bikes are industrial products, mostly requiring paved roads, that, while not as bad as cars, are not as good as walking.) So all in favor, & that's all the more reason I don't need to hear about it when I'm in the cramped & uncomfortable seats of Davies Hall, feeling tired, & having already sat long enough so that my joints are hurting. And it's not Smith's problem that some words she emphasized (like "joy" & "community"), while important & powerful, are also trendy PR-ready buzzwords that set my teeth on edge.

Am I the only one who felt this way? Very likely. Is it a bit ridiculous that it took a while for me to let the music, once it started, get past my mild irritation with the speech? Again, very likely. But there it is. These things affect us, just as much as whether the seats are comfortable or how we're feeling physically. And though Smith did talk about a rewilding project she had recently worked on (converting an old airport runway up in Seattle – information which was also available in the program), she did not explain how the concept of rewilding affected the piece or her conception of it. I heard nature in the music, but not nature being reborn, or wilderness coming out of humanity's wreckage.

Not that that really matters. An arbitrary title can direct you for only so long before one's own reactions to the music take over. And once I got past my usual irritation at the talk, & my irritation that I was irritated, I loved the piece, a rich, striking profusion of sounds new & compelling. There is much frittering percussion, & then great swoops of sound, like a rushing strong wind, or maybe a warning siren. Some of the sounds are unusual – a percussionist was snapping twigs at some points. This made a noticeable number of audience members laugh – not in a derisive way, but in a way that still puzzled me. Snapping a twig doesn't seem particularly comical to me, though apparently it did to some in the context of a symphony orchestra, but haven't we learned from John Cage & Co that any sound from any source could be incorporated into performance?

According to the program, Rewilding is (this is very precise) 23 minutes long, making it the longest of the evening's four selections. The time flew by, as did the rich & redolent sounds. Though a made object involving an incredible degree of skill on the parts of both composer & performers, & sophisticated "technology" (in the form of musical instruments), the piece conveyed a refreshing sense of being out in nature, aware, taking in the nature-made sounds around us. Perhaps Rewilding isn't such an arbitrary title; maybe it refers to what happens in the soul of the listener.

Rewilding is exactly the sort of thing – a new, substantial, thoughtful, & gorgeous piece designed for a large orchestra – that I fear we will see much less of after Salonen goes, being swept aside by lush orchestrations of pop hits & live performances of film scores to currently popular movies that already have perfectly fine recorded soundtracks.

After Smith's powerful piece, it seemed like another of Till Eulenspiegel's pranks to detain us longer with his antics, but there it was, & it turned out to be giddy, zingy fun, kind of like (& I mean this as a compliment) the score of the most luxe Warner Brothers cartoon ever.

Friday Photo 2025/23

 

at the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park

Museum Monday 2025/22

 

detail of Birds and flowers by Oki Ichiga, now at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco