See What I Wanna See Lyrics – All Songs from the Musical

"See What I Wanna See" – The Musical Guide & Song Meanings

Review: a musical that weaponizes “statements”

How do you write lyrics about truth when your whole premise is that truth is a costume change? Michael John LaChiusa’s 2005 off-Broadway provocation answers by making language itself the crime scene. In Act I, characters do not sing feelings so much as file testimony. The score keeps yanking the audience back to the same moment in Central Park, 1951, and the lyric strategy is bluntly procedural: “my version,” “your version,” “the version I can live with.” The trick is that LaChiusa does not treat these songs as neat arias. He writes depositions with hooks.

The title could be a shrug. It is actually the show’s moral engine. Every witness is composing a self-portrait while insisting they are just describing events. That is why the best lyric moments sound like rationalizations mid-flight, a thought turning into an alibi. When it works, you hear a character reach for a metaphor and accidentally reveal the motive beneath it.

Musically, it lives in contemporary chamber territory: jazz colors, pop voltage, and a kind of anxious recitative that keeps plot information moving. The Public Theater version was marketed as “contemporary” and “lush,” but the real adjective is restless. The songs are short enough to feel like cuts in an edit bay. That rhythm matters, because the show is structurally an argument: truth is not discovered, it is performed.

How it was made

The show’s origin story is unusually trackable. Before it was “See What I Wanna See,” it existed as “R Shomon” at Williamstown, then was reshaped for its New York run at The Public in 2005 under director Ted Sperling. The creative team around LaChiusa was built for precision: musical staging (Jonathan Butterell), orchestrations (Bruce Coughlin), and a design lineup that could pivot between noir and ritual without needing a chorus to do the heavy lifting. The source material is explicit: three short stories by Ry?nosuke Akutagawa (via translation credit to Takashi Kojima in licensing materials), fused into two acts with medieval prologues that function like a recurring nightmare.

If you want the “napkin anecdote,” this is not that kind of project. The more revealing trivia is logistical: the cast album was recorded at Sear Sound on October 31, 2005, while the show was still running, and released later by Ghostlight Records. That timing tells you how the piece was positioned: not as a blockbuster, but as a writer-forward score intended to survive via recording, licensing, and rediscovery.

The 2024 revival by Out of the Box Theatrics adds a fresh layer of intent. It leaned into Japanese theatrical vocabulary, including puppetry and translation choices, as a way to bring the adaptation closer to its source and to question what “Americanized” even means when the show’s whole point is perspective.

Key tracks & scenes

"Kesa" (Kesa)

The Scene:

Medieval Japan as ritual. A couple in a sealed-off moment that feels lit by moonlight even when the stage is bright. The prologue is staged like an unfinished act of violence, then snapped shut.

Lyrical Meaning:

This opening is the show’s thesis in miniature: a person narrating themselves while doing something they claim they do not fully control. The lyric is less confession than self-editing, which is why later “statements” feel like echoes, not variations.

"The Janitor’s Statement" (The Janitor)

The Scene:

1951, New York City. A janitor reports what he “found” on a shortcut through Central Park. In the 2024 staging, a noir atmosphere is signaled by a shadowed apron and an arched tunnel of leaves, with the audience positioned as detective.

Lyrical Meaning:

A working-class narrator insists he is merely observant, yet the lyric keeps slipping into ownership and bias. It is the show’s quietest warning: even the “neutral” witness is curating.

"See What I Wanna See" (The Wife)

The Scene:

A nightclub and its afterglow. Flirtation becomes a camera angle, then a trap. The song is staged as seduction with an audience, not intimacy.

Lyrical Meaning:

This is the title as philosophy: desire is a lens, and the lyric is the sound of someone choosing the lens in real time. It also plants the show’s recurring idea that “truth” is often the story that protects your appetite.

"You’ll Go Away With Me" (The Thief)

The Scene:

Central Park turns predatory. The bravado of a 1950s bad-boy spirals into obsession, with the park’s darkness doing half the acting.

Lyrical Meaning:

The lyric is coercion disguised as romance. LaChiusa writes the cadence of a line that wants to be a love song but keeps tripping into threat, which is exactly how this character tries to rewrite his own violence.

"The Medium and the Husband’s Statement" (The Medium / The Husband)

The Scene:

A séance as courtroom. The dead man gets his turn, delivered through another body. In productions that emphasize theatrical devices (like the 2024 revival’s puppetry), the scene becomes a literal argument about who controls the narrative.

Lyrical Meaning:

It is the show’s meanest joke: even the dead are unreliable. The lyric exposes how “spiritual truth” can be a performance with stage directions.

"Gloryday" (Company)

The Scene:

Act II opens into post-9/11 New York, where a priest’s hoax about a coming miracle spreads. Central Park becomes a civic altar, with strangers gathering for something they may not even believe.

Lyrical Meaning:

The show shifts from crime to faith, but the lyric engine is the same: people choosing the version that makes grief tolerable. “Gloryday” is less anthem than mass hallucination, staged as hope with a ticking clock.

"There Will Be a Miracle" (Aunt Monica)

The Scene:

Late in Act II, the priest’s atheistic aunt lands a number that cuts through the noise. In reviews of the 2024 run, this song was singled out as one of the few moments where the writing and event align cleanly.

Lyrical Meaning:

The lyric stakes out a brutal position: certainty can be a kindness, or a lie we gift ourselves on purpose. It is the show letting an older voice argue that belief is also a craft.

Live updates (2025/2026 reality check)

Information current as of February 2026. “See What I Wanna See” is not a touring commodity in the traditional sense. Its life is revival-based: small-to-mid venues, short runs, high musicianship, and a cast that can double roles without making the audience do math. The most visible recent New York run was Out of the Box Theatrics’ 2024 Off-Broadway revival at Theatre 154 (154 Christopher Street), directed by Emilio Ramos with musical direction by Adam Rothenberg, featuring an all-AAPI principal cast and design choices that included Japanese puppetry and translation elements.

The ripple effect shows up in awards metadata. Zachary Noah Piser received a 2025 Drama Desk nomination for Outstanding Featured Performance in a Musical for this production, and the show’s puppetry also appears in Drama Desk nominations lists. That is the modern “status” of this title: it accrues credibility through craft categories and adventurous companies rather than through long commercial runs.

Practical listener tip: if you are coming in cold, start with the album’s “statement” tracks in Act I, then jump to Act II’s “Gloryday” sequence. The score is written like a montage. Your ear will follow it more easily if you treat it like edited film rather than a parade of stand-alone songs.

Notes & trivia

• The show began life under a different title (“R Shomon”) before being revised for its 2005 Public Theater run.
• Each act opens with a prologue based on “Kesa and Morito,” making the medieval story a recurring lens on the modern ones.
• The Act I section (“R shomon”) is set in 1951 New York City; Act II (“Gloryday”) moves to the present-day cityscape in the wake of 9/11.
• The 2005 production’s design team included scenic designer Thomas Lynch, lighting designer Christopher Akerlind, and sound design by Acme Sound Partners.
• The original cast album was recorded on October 31, 2005 at Sear Sound in NYC, and later released by Ghostlight Records (29 tracks).
• The 2024 Off-Broadway revival framed itself as cultural reclamation through casting and theatrical vocabulary, including puppetry and translation work.
• The 2025 Drama Desk season lists nominations tied to this revival, including featured performance recognition for Zachary Noah Piser.

Reception then vs. now

In 2005, critics tended to react to the piece as an ideas-first chamber musical: formally ambitious, emotionally spiky, and sometimes willfully elusive. Over time, its reputation has shifted toward “problem child worth adopting,” especially as post-2010 musical theatre audiences became more comfortable with fractured narrative and concept-driven structure. The 2024 revival sharpened the conversation by asking whether a Japanese-source adaptation reads differently when performed by an all-Asian cast and staged with overt Japanese theatrical tools.

“The music and lyrics are exultant… an enlivening reminder that faith, like truth and beauty, is often in the eye of the beholder.”

“One could consider… an act of cultural reclamation.”

“After the prologue, we end up in New York City in 1951… a film noir atmosphere… the public is the detective.”

Quick facts

• Title: See What I Wanna See
• Year: 2005 (Off-Broadway premiere)
• Type: Two-act chamber musical with recurring prologues
• Words & Music: Michael John LaChiusa
• Based on stories by: Ry?nosuke Akutagawa (translation credit: Takashi Kojima in licensing materials)
• Original Off-Broadway venue: The Public Theater (Anspacher)
• 2005 director: Ted Sperling
• Orchestrations (2005 production): Bruce Coughlin
• Cast album: “See What I Wanna See (World Premiere Recording)”
• Album release: March 7, 2006; 29 tracks; label: Ghostlight Records
• Notable recent placement: 2024 Off-Broadway revival at Theatre 154 (Out of the Box Theatrics), with puppetry and translation elements
• Availability: Streaming (major platforms) and physical via cast-album retailers

Frequently asked questions

Who wrote the lyrics for “See What I Wanna See”?

Michael John LaChiusa wrote the words and music. The show adapts three Akutagawa stories, but the lyric voice is LaChiusa’s, built around competing “statements” and self-justifying narration.

Is the cast recording the full show?

It is close in footprint, because the piece is largely sung-through. Still, the show’s impact depends on staging choices, especially how productions handle the recurring medieval prologues and the “R shomon” interrogations.

What are the two main settings?

Act I is set in 1951 New York City, centered on a Central Park murder told through multiple accounts. Act II shifts to post-9/11 New York, where a priest stages a “miracle” hoax that becomes a citywide event.

What’s the simplest way to understand the structure?

Think of three short stories bound by theme, not plot: lust and violence in the prologues, truth-as-performance in Act I, and faith-as-performance in Act II.

Was there a notable recent revival?

Yes. Out of the Box Theatrics revived it Off-Broadway in September 2024 at Theatre 154 with an all-AAPI cast, Japanese puppetry, and translation elements that reframed the adaptation’s relationship to its sources.

Key contributors

Name	Role	Contribution
Michael John LaChiusa	Composer / Lyricist / Book	Built a “multiple truths” score where songs function as testimony and self-editing.
Ry?nosuke Akutagawa	Source author	Wrote the short stories that supply the moral questions and narrative scaffolding.
Takashi Kojima	Translation credit (source stories)	Credited translation pathway for the underlying Akutagawa material in licensing notes.
Ted Sperling	Director (2005 Off-Broadway)	Shaped the New York premiere after the earlier “R Shomon” iteration.
Bruce Coughlin	Orchestrations	Chamber textures that pivot between noir bite and prayerful stillness.
Chris Fenwick	Musical director / conductor (2005 production)	Anchored the score’s quick-cut pacing so the narrative stays intelligible.
Emilio Ramos	Director (2024 Off-Broadway revival)	Reframed the piece via all-AAPI casting, puppetry, and translation choices.
Adam Rothenberg	Music director (2024 Off-Broadway revival)	Drove performance clarity in a score that can blur if phrasing turns generic.

Sources: Playbill; Concord Theatricals; Apple Music; Talkin’ Broadway; TheaterMania; Stage and Cinema; BroadwayWorld; Discogs; castalbums.org; New York Theatre Guide; What’s On Stage.