‘Pacific Overtures’ Review: Rising Sondheim
Pacific Overtures (★★★★☆) sounds doubly refreshing to ears eager to venture somewhere less familiar in Sondheim-land.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.Heard’s talented cast sings with passion, too, caressing the stories inside the songs to find touching notes of humor, pathos, pride, and prejudice.