reciter

Mako, the company’s founding artistic director, played the Reciter in the musical’s Broadway premiere and directed his own 1978 production at EWP, where he reprised his Tony-nominated performance.

Jon Jon Briones takes on the role of the Reciter as well as the Shogun and Emperor, moving gracefully from narration to enactment.

It’s a good-not-great production that adjusts the musical’s rhythms to the gentle vibe of Jason Ma, the actor in the central role of the Reciter.

Heard’s revival has as its metaphorical hallmark a feature cut into Chika Shimizu’s set, a tiny Zen garden that Ma’s Reciter tends to from time to time.

“Kings are burning somewhere, wheels are turning somewhere: trains are being run, wars are being won, things are being done, somewhere out there. Not here,” the Reciter sings in the opener, “The Advantages of Floating in the Middle of the Sea.”