Blue Moon

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  • Blue Moon

1/27/26 (Tues)

Richard Linklater’s 2025 film is a credible fantasy about the great lyricist Lorenz Hart on the opening night of Oklahoma!, his long-time partner’s first venture with another lyricist – and his mixed feelings when the show, which he mocks as unsophisticated schlock, turns out to be a massive critical and popular success.

Hart’s numbers with Rodgers over the preceding quarter century were and are known for their urbane wit and intelligence and remain among the most golden songs of America’s Golden Age of Song. But in terms of musical theater, the lyrics always sound like the literate Hart, not like the characters on stage. While the team created numerous innovative musicals, the songs themselves remain New York-bound in sensibility. It was Hammerstein who took musical lyrics into the next dimension as specific expressions of character and story; his Oklahomans sound Oklahoman. His songs are integral to the story they are telling, and the story is inseparable from the songs, creating an American equivalent of opera. When Hart is watching the new show, he is viewing his own obsolescence. His reaction is complicated by his personal demons, including a midget-like stature (a miniscule 147cm or 4’10”) that complicates his desire for a romantic partner and his descent into alcoholism. The film examines him over the course of the opening night.

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Kabuki: Kumo no Ito (蜘蛛絲梓弦), Tale of Sanemori (実盛物語)

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  • Kabuki: 蜘蛛絲梓弦 (Kumo no Ito), 実盛物語 (Tale of Sanemori)

1/25/26 (Sun), Tokyo Kabukiza

Kabuki continues to boom following the unexpected success of the Kabuki-themed film Kokuho, still running at theaters after six months (it was just nominated for a minor Oscar this week). This month’s Kabuki program largely featured up-and-coming performers in prominent roles, which encouragingly drew a healthy crowd of young audiences. The first of the three shows, not listed here, was a light three-part dance piece celebrating the new year, basically an excuse to show off a large number of cast members.

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Pretty Woman (プリティ・ウーマン, musical)

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  • Pretty Woman (プリティ・ウーマン, musical)

1/23/26 (Fri), Tokyo

A Japanese-language version of the flop Broadway musical. This production appears meant as a showcase for the half-Spanish hunk Shirota Yu, who also translated the book and lyrics. The other main roles were double-cast despite an effective run of less than two weeks.

It was no better or worse than feared, basically a paint-by-numbers recreation of the movie with songs thrown on top, as with most of these film retreads. Continue reading →

Madame de Sade (サド侯爵夫人)

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  • サド侯爵夫人 (Madame de Sade)

1/18/26 (Sun), Tokyo

Mishima Yukio’s typically talky drama has its fans: it was selected by Japanese critics back in 1994 as the nation’s best play of the postwar era. (Mishima tied as best writer with the equally prolific Inoue Hisashi of Living With Father fame.) It was written in 1965, just five years before the author’s shocking seppuku – which I mention only because director Miyamoto Amon has decided to include this irrelevant fact as the first line in this production, spoken portentously by the actor who will play the servant (after he has stood facing us on the dark stage for several minutes of utter silence). A starry West End production some years back put critics to sleep, though a Swedish rendering by Ingmar Bergman, available on YouTube, is held in some esteem.

This production had two selling points. One, the six-woman show is played by an all-male cast, a technique that Japanese directors turn to occasionally. Second, the lead, Narimiya Hiroki, is making his comeback after abruptly quitting show business several years earlier over horrific media bullying regarding his private life. (As it happens, Higashide Masahiro, who plays the horny countess, is himself coming off an adultery scandal, which somehow feels appropriate for this piece.)

The author based the work on the historical fact that the Marquise de Sade waited devotedly for 12 years for her famously demented husband to be released from prison, only to refuse to see him ever again once he was finally out. The play examines this through the lives of six women, each representing a different side of French society (wifely devotion, social status, religion, etc). Continue reading →

The Mirror (آینه Ayneh)

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  • The Mirror (آینه Ayneh)

1/9/26 (Fri)

Iranian director Jafar Panahi’s 1997 film shows the influence of his mentor Kiarostami, who penned the director’s The White Balloon just two years earlier, in the breaking of the fourth wall. A simple story about a girl whose mother fails to pick her up from school, which takes up the first 40% or so of the movie, becomes something very different when the seven-year-old actress becomes miffed for some reason and, throwing off her costume, refuses to film the final scene. As she storms off, she forgets to remove her body mike, so the director, having film to spare, orders the crew to continue following and filming her as she maneuvers Tehran’s busy streets.

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& Juliet

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  • & Juliet

12/14/25 (Sun), Broadway

This one wasn’t at the top of my to-see list during my NY visit – I had ignored it in London, where it debuted – but there weren’t many choices on a Sunday night. It was either this or Mamma Mia, another musical based on the work of Swedish songwriters, which I hadn’t seen since (gulp) 2000. I ending up going for the new piece. Big mistake.

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Plan 75 (プラン75）

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  • Plan 75

12/27/25 (Sat)

Hayakawa Chie’s 2022 work, amazingly her first feature film, is a beautiful and understated rumination on an aging society, an acute issue in Japan. The government has crafted a sweet-sounding plan offering incentives for those 75 and older to, in effect, kill themselves. Those who sign up receive a ¥100,000 cash payment (rendered oddly as $1,000 in the subtitles) and can spend their final hours wining and dining in a lovely facility, where they will then be gassed to death. Cremation and other costs are completely covered as well. While the program is nominally voluntary, the attraction is strong for lonely old people with nowhere else to turn, and there is considerable pressure to ease the burden on society by slipping peacefully away rather than dragging on unproductively for decades more.

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Scam (でっちあげ)

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  • でっちあげ (Scam)

12/12/25 (Fri)

A Miike Takashi film of 2025. An elementary school teacher is accused by a mother of abusing her son. We first witness a home visit by the teacher, who spouts racist comments about the mixed-blood kid and disparages his classroom behavior in outrageous terms. The mother is incensed and complains to the principal, who insists that the teacher apologize just to get rid of her.

Then, in imitation of Koreeda’s far superior Monster, it replays the event in question from the teacher’s perspective. Continue reading →

Shoulderpads

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  • Shoulderpads

12/7/25 (Sun)

A spoofy retelling of the classic Night on the Galactic Railroad by children’s writer Miyazawa Kenji. The selling point here, as seen in the eye-catching poster, is the unusual costume design, nothing but a shoulder pad covering the performers’ neither regions. I’m always suspicious of shows relying on a gimmick, but it had strong reviews at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival (not necessarily in itself the best indicator of quality) and, even better, was only an hour long. Continue reading →

West Side Story (1961 film)

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  • West Side Story (1961 film)

12/3/25 (Wed)

I hadn’t seen this version of the film in decades, so I took advantage of the 10am classic movie series sponsored by Toho Cinemas to see it on the big screen. I especially wanted to refresh my memory after Spielberg’s remake a few years back. Continue reading →

Noh: Sanemori (実盛)，Momijigari (紅葉狩)

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  • Noh: Sanemori (実盛)，Momijigari (紅葉狩)

11/2/25 (Sun)

Sanemori: I’ve seen the more expansive version of this Heike tale in both Bunraku and Kabuki, but Zeami’s Noh version is not done as often, being one of those shows that only a certain level of actor is allowed to play.

A monk in Shinohara notes that a certain man has been listening to his sermons every day. He approaches the man and realizes that he is the only one who can see him. The man tells him the story of Sanemori, a warrior who was killed in the Battle of Shinohara, then hints that he is in fact that very warrior before slipping off. He returns in full battle gear, wearing a rich brocaded kimono, and tells his story. He describes how he had special permission to use the kimono, usually available only to generals, because he wanted to return to the battle in his home province in splendor. The reciters relate further that after he was killed and decapitated, the enemy discovered when they washed his head that the black dye came off to show his naturally gray hair, revealing him to be an old man. He had dyed it to ensure that his enemy took him seriously, but this is taken as a sign of vanity, an attachment that he must discard in order to achieve salvation. Sanemori, “a decayed and withered branch,” asks the monk to pray for his soul.

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Gonza the Spearman (槍の権三)

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  • 槍の権三 (Gonza the Spearman)

10/31/25 (Fri)

The Tokyo Film Festival was screening three films this year in honor of Shinoda Masahiro following his recent death. Shinoda has his highs and lows, and the selection reflected both sides, the former in Pale Flower, an undisputed masterpiece, and the latter in the ridiculous Demon Pond. So I chose this adaptation of a classic Chikamatsu Monzaemon piece, which I’ve seen on stage in both Bunraku puppet drama and Kabuki. Shinoda’s last Monzaemon work, Double Suicide, felt like a way-too-purposeful attempt to look avant-garde and totally cool, so I went to this warily.

The play is beautifully written, but the tangled web of societal obligations makes it hard to take seriously at times. I almost wondered if Chikamatsu was making fun of that. Gonza is a spearman in the employ of a large clan. He is informally engaged to a woman, but Sai, the wife of a famed tea master, wants to marry him off to her daughter. A mixture of misunderstandings and evil intentions leads to accusations of adultery, and the codified structure of society proves impossible to overcome.

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