Franklin Pierce was an awful president.
He signed the Kansas-Nebraska Act which lost him the support of the North and was another step toward civil war. He did nothing while Kansas was bleeding, nor did he stop Americans from trying to make foreign countries into slave states.
Perhaps this was all because he turned to alcohol after his last surviving son was killed in a train crash on the way to Washington. He died of cirrhosis in 1869.
Oh, he did complete what Fillmore started and signed the treaty with Japan that Commodore Perry presented to him.
Admirals from five different countries—the United States, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Russia and France—arrive and descend on Lord Abe, First Councilor to the Shogun, demanding that he sign treaties with them, granting each of them various trading rights.
Please note that this video is the complete Original Cast production of Pacific Overtures, and I have it set to start at the “Please Hello” number, but there is nothing to stop one from winding it back and watching the whole show from the beginning, something that I would endorse, of course. By the way, this is the computer enhanced version of that video; Theater Geek took the original video, ran it through some software to clean up the image a bit and then further enhanced it with a few manual tweaks. I watched it the other night and it’s a definite improvement over the original.
Sondheim:
The conceit of the show, postulating it as one written by a Japanese playwright exposed to American musical theater, spawned one of Weidman’s most inventive ideas: the Japanese would speak elegant, formalized King’s English, whereas all the foreigners would speak a pidgin form of their native language. Thus the verbal style of “Please Hello.” I also would like to point out with suitable pride that the lyric is historically accurate as an account not only of the succession of arrivals but of the specifics of each country’s demands. The music, unsurprisingly, is a series of pastiches: Sousa march, Gilbert and Sullivan patter, Dutch clog dance, Russian dirge and French can-can.
The song moves very quickly and many of the words might get lost on first hearing. For example, when the American Admiral presents the treaty for signing:
Also cannon to shoot
Big loud salute,
Like so:(He gestures toward the sea; an enormous explosion offshore)
Say hello!
(Another explosion)
Treaty meet approval? If no,
Commodore Perry very fierce.(Indicating treaty)
Disregard confusion below—
President Fillmore now name Pierce.
Or here’s how the Russian Admiral explains extraterritoriality:
Coming next
Is extraterritoriality.
Noting text
Say “extraterritoriality.”
You perplexed
By “extraterritoriality”?
Just noting clause
(Don’t touch the coat!)
Which say your laws
Do not apply
(Don’t touch the coat!)
When we drop by,
Not getting shot,
No matter what—
A minor scrape,
A major rape,
And we escape
(Don’t touch the cape!)
That’s what is extraterritoriality.
Oh, but I was talking about Franklin Pierce, wasn’t I?