The plot of Michael John LaChiusa’s
See What I Wanna See spans from
mediaeval Japan to 21st century New York, which makes it sound like a
David Mitchell novel (not that David Mitchell, the other one.) In fact the
2005 musical is based on three short stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa,
presented without an obvious connection, other than the general theme of
different perspectives to the same events. The mediaeval Japanese story is
“Kesa and Morito,” which kicks off each of the acts with the end of the
affair between a married woman (Cassie Compton) and her lover (Mark
Goldthorp.) We get a different viewpoint in each half, with an ambiguous
ending that sees one or both of the lovers come to a sticky end. The vast
majority of the show however takes place in New York, the first act’s “R
Shomon” is a noir story set in 1951, when a gangster (Marc Elliott)
confesses to raping a singer (Compton) and murdering her husband in
Central Park.
