Jill Paice is a widow in love with a tattoo artist (Mel Maghuyop) and haunted by her husband (Benjamin McHugh). (Jonathan Baskin)
As delicate as a cherry blossom, “Tokio Confidential” transports us to 19th-century Japan. This lovely chamber musical about a Civil War widow whose life’s transformed by a tattoo artist reveals Eric Schorr, its composer/librettist, as a talent to watch. While the plot ultimately takes a ludicrously Gothic turn, this exotic if problematic work deserves a life beyond this short run.
The lovely Jill Paice, last seen in “Curtains” and “Death Takes a Holiday,” plays Isabella Archer (shades of Henry James’ “Portrait of a Lady”). Set in 1879, the show begins as Isabella lands in Japan after a two-week ocean journey, inspired by her late husband’s lifelong love of the Far East.
She’s taken under the wing of Ernest (Jeff Kready), a solicitous American art historian, and is entranced by the ornate tattoo she sees on a male laborer’s back. Upon meeting the master tattoo artist, Horiyoshi (Mel Maghuyop), she decides to have her entire back covered with one of his artworks. Before long, they’re caught up in a passionate affair — much to the dismay of his live-in lover (Manna Nichols).
The show goes off the rails in the second act, when we find that underlying Ernest’s kindness is a motive straight out of a vintage horror film.
But the romance between the central characters is touchingly etched, and such scenes as an encounter between the angry widow and Ulysses S. Grant (Mike O’Carroll), with her husband’s ghost (Benjamin McHugh) serving as a spectral mediator, are beautifully written. Running through it all are Schorr’s elegant score and graceful lyrics.
Using her gorgeous soprano to fine effect, Paice is quietly moving as the stoic widow. Johanna McKeon’s Noh Theater-inspired direction and Darrel Maloney’s projections are another plus, especially in the climactic moment, when the tattooist’s work is finally revealed.