Two years ago, Amon Miyamoto brought his staging of the 1976 Stephen Sondheim-John Weidman musical Pacific Overtures to Lincoln Center. New York audiences - even those who had seen the show's opulent debut on Broadway - were enraptured. Performed by Japanese actors in their own language, this story about American gunboat diplomacy in 19th-century Japan revealed the material's quietly exquisite heart - a heart that had been considerably speeded up by Hal Prince's original exercise in razzle-dazzle.

For his latest version, Miyamoto seems to have inhaled a few of the fumes left over from the space's hedonistic disco heyday. Some of the restraint has been removed, and Miyamoto, who acted as choreographer as well as director, has injected notes of camp that are jarring.

What is more, B.D.Wong, the above-the-title star and a fine actor, sings the narrator-like Reciter with less than thrilling results. This Pacific Overtures finds firmer ground when Michael K. Lee, as the samurai Kayama, and Paolo Montalban, as the fisherman Manjiro, occupy the playing area. As they leave the light wood and shoji-screen- dominated stage, representing Japan, and paddle toward the audience, representing the west, where the American commodore Matthew Perry's flagship awaits threateningly, the actors establish a bond that lifts the show.

When Lee and Montalban sing "I Will Make a Poem", in which they vie informally for verse-writing laurels, Sondheim's lyrics achieve their delicate best. Elsewhere, Sondheim displays his gift for inspired pastiche, evoking military marches, Gilbert and Sullivan, and Oscar Hammerstein.

Even if this Pacific Overtures sounds some false notes, it would be worth seeing for the rendering of "Someone in a Tree". In that song, a personal favourite of Sondheim's, a treaty negotiation is evoked through the memories of an old man, his younger self, and a samurai. Not only does it contain a lovely melody but the number delineates a sophisticated philosophy of history in just a few minutes.

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