“Our life a fragile cherry blossom that grows in beauty on the twig” runs one of the lyrics in James Clavell’s “Shogun: The Musical,” and it’s so true. The comparative fragility of life is not all you can learn from “Shogun,” however. If you peruse your Playbill, you can come away from the show reasonably well versed in Japanese. A glossary of phrases included in the program, just below the plot synopsis, tells you, for instance, that hai and gyoi both mean “yes,” while domo arigato and do itashimashite mean “Thank you very much” and “You are welcome,” respectively. It also tells you that a shogun is a “supreme military dictator,” that seppuku is “ritual suicide,” and that cha-no-yu is “the sacred tea ceremony.” It tells you that wa means “harmony,” that Yame! means “Stop!” and that a ryo is “a large thin gold coin.” It gives you both the polite and the impolite forms of “I understand,” and tells you what to say when a high-ranking lord arrives (onari) or, alternatively, how to say “He is the enemy” (Teki-da).
“Shogun,” which opened at the Marquis last Tuesday, is about an English sea captain who gets shipwrecked on the coast of Japan in 1600 and learns a thing or two. It has a book and lyrics by John Driver, music by Paul Chihara, and some of the most hilarious choreography—by Michael Smuin, who also directed—I’ve ever seen. It begins with two half-naked men appearing aloft, one on either side of the stage, each banging a drum—and what more could you ask? “Shogun” has a shipwreck sequence, a lightning effect, an entire number performed on a treadmill, a slow-motion sequence, a gun-shot, an earthquake, a rainstorm, a snowstorm, a cavalry charge, a ninja raid, a haiku competition, a song about sex paraphernalia, and one more number in the first act than it says there’ll be—I know, because I checked.
“Shogun” also has lots of dry ice, but then it’s the sort of show that has lots and lots of whatever is in it to begin with: lots of scenery (designed by Loren Sherman), lots of costumes (designed by Patricia Zipprodt), lots of cast members doing lots of “Star Trek” acting, and lots of flex-foot dancing straight out of “The King and I.” It has lots of songs, too, including one that goes “Our lives like leaves in mountain streams…karma, karma” so many times that you want to yell “Yame!” (“Stop!”) or “Wakaru!” (“I understand!” impolite). The only thing that Mr. Chihara’s music hasn’t got lots of is wa. There’s lots of tuneless caterwauling in imitation of Andrew Lloyd Webber, and lots and lots of high notes that everybody has to strain for—particularly Philip Casnoff, who not only plays the lead and got knocked unconscious by a piece of falling scenery during the previews but has to endure countless jokes about his character’s sexual endowments, or, as Mr. Driver’s book has it, “the size of his yang.”
That said, it only remains to note that June Angela gives a remorselessly well-enunciated performance as the heroine (her voice, miked, sounds a little the way Julie Andrews’ used to sound naturally); to state one’s conviction that Natasha Katz, who designed the lighting and has been involved in more worthwhile projects, will go on to better things; and to mention again Mr. Clavell, who is, presumably, the person to whom we ought to say domo arigato for all this.
“Shogun” is one of those musicals which most people, I think, will want to catch at least one act of, though it’s hard to choose which. Both halves begin with the two half-naked men banging their drums, for example. (The producers have spared no expense.) I think I would recommend the second act. Of course, if you opt for the first act (though it means missing Mr. Smuin’s jocund firefly ballet), you can get to bed early, or, if you like, perform cha-no-yu with a couple of dry Martinis at one of the two revolving bars at the Marriott Marquis. In which case, Kampai (“Bottoms up!”).
Mimi Kramer
The New Yorker, December 3, 1990