• コメディ・トゥナイト (A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum)

3/7/17 (Tues), Tokyo

Amon Miyamoto, who brought his maverick (and Tony-nominated) production of Pacific Overtures to Broadway some years back, is the go-to director for Sondheim musicals in Japan, but I was still surprised to hear that he was tackling this pure farce versus the more pseudo-serious shows that he prefers. It made more sense once I realized that he’s given it a twist: he’s changed the setting from ancient Rome to Edo, the name for present-day Tokyo through the mid-19th century. This is the first time I know of that Sondheim has permitted a fundamental change like this in any of his shows throughout his long career. (I understand that he’s also given the okay for a Company in the UK using a female lead.) Maybe he’s getting more mellow in his old age. I had assumed that this was one of Miyamoto’s wacky ideas but was surprised to learn that it came from Sondheim himself (a friend of Miyamoto’s since happening upon Pacific in Tokyo in 2000) at the suggestion of Japanese writer Aoshika Koji, who translated the script alongside Miyamoto’s lyrics.

The show is a brilliant construction with broad character types, so the idea was not totally outlandish on the surface. Still, the overseas setting of most musicals allows performers significant freedom since they don’t have any expectations to live up to; any quirks can be written off by audiences as “foreign”. Shows set in Edo have to be true to character types familiar to Japanese audiences. In addition, there are significant elements that have no clear Edo equivalent, most notably the slave (who has an entire song about desiring his freedom) but also small things like the statue (sculpture hasn’t been a factor in Japan since the 13th century) and plenty more. Miyamoto had his work cut out for him. He uses the title Comedy Tonight with the original Japanese title (roughly, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Rome) in smaller print below. His Pseudolus is the young Kabuki star Kataoka Ainosuke (片岡愛之助), making his first appearance in a musical.

In Miyamoto’s concept, a group of traveling players is putting on a performance, a conceit that’s pretty much jettisoned after the show’s opening other than the song titles displayed on a sideboard and the “Pretty Little Picture” sequence. The actors make a promisingly boisterous entrance via the hanamichi (the stage extension running through the audience used in Kabuki theater) and proceed into “Comedy Tonight”. Unfortunately Miyamoto wasn’t able to translate that initial burst into much of a number, failing to take advantage of the ample opportunity for sight gags and pratfalls. He injects a scene with a famous Kabuki character about to commit suicide, for example, but when Pseudolus protests, the character just gets up and walks blandly offstage. There must have been something better the director could have come up with – remember, this is the number that almost single-handedly saved the show back in 1962. This lack of invention pretty much continued throughout the first act. For all the desperate movement, there was a distinct lack of energy on the stage. The actors seemed to be following the numbers in the unnatural manner that typifies Japanese musicals, unable to put a distinct stamp on their roles (more on that below). Things turned around considerably with the appearance of Miles Gloriosus (renamed Arao Masazo) in what was easily the night’s best performance. But that was too late to rescue the act as a whole. The audience was largely quiet both during the show and after the first-act curtain fell. A Japanese friend observed at the end of the first act that the show explicitly promised comedy from the beginning but didn’t carry through, and was regretting leaving work early for this. His only genuine laugh was when Ainosuke made a joke about one tall courtesan that recalled his real-life wife, the very tall model/actress Fujiwara Norika. Not much to hang a show on.

Part of the problem was translating the Yiddish shtick into a Japanese sensibility – the show is set in Rome, but its heart is in the Catskills. The Japanese script by and large navigated the one-liners and untranslatable puns well enough, and while it did not come up with compensating Japanese equivalents (such as the character names), the situation is clear enough to get the point across. The big problem was the lyrics, when the frenetic activity comes to a halt and everything is resting entirely on the verbal humor. In the English version, the songs are great fun in themselves, making use of clever rhyme, alliteration (“I wake too weak to walk”), offbeat wording (“weighty affairs will just have to wait”) and every trick in the book. Sondheim criticized his younger efforts in later years as showing off, but I think the verbal pyrotechnics and lightly worn sentiment fit perfectly with the general tone of the show. I’m even more convinced of that now that I’ve seen how unfulfilled lyrics stop the show cold. Miyamoto was mainly translating rather than creating something that worked in Japanese. For instance, he tried to rhyme in the opening number as in the English, but that technique doesn’t exist in Japanese and predictably fell flat here. He used generic phrases (はちゃめちゃand めちゃくちゃ and such) in the song without including anything specific to the Japanese setting or era. The songs thus lacked character and, uninteresting in themselves, weighed down the show badly. “Everybody Ought to Have a Maid” was particularly poorly conceived. Rethink, please. Miyamoto veered into the vulgar in “Bring Me My Bride” (“全てが太い” = “Everything about me is big and thick”), which smelled of desperation. He really should leave the lyric writing to others.

Events picked up in a big way in the second act, when the jokes are less important than the mechanics of the plot, the songs are fewer (and less tricky in technical terms, making them easier to translate) and the story kicks into high gear. Miyamoto did an excellent job of managing the frenzy over the mistaken identities and maintaining the power at a high level through to the satisfying ending. The actors are much better at running around like crazy than trying to establish a personality, and this was right up their alley. The first and second acts were like night and day.

The show overall suffered badly on the acting side. Ainosuke was competent and likeable, but didn’t radiate great charisma. That’s not true at all of his Kabuki, where he is one of the best of the young generation, so it may be that he was still feeling his way through the material. While his singing voice is passable, music is obviously not his strong suit. He needs to relax and not seem so eager; this is basically a Roman version of Kyogen’s wily servant Taro Kaja. Uchi Hiroki (内博貴), an idol singer, portrayed Hero as whiny and weak rather than the innocent youth in the script, a seriously irritating interpretation (though that may be Miyamoto’s doing). That was still better than the enervated Lou Oshiba (ルー大柴) as Hysterium (renamed Kinkichi), whose lethargic performance made me wonder if he was on tranquilizers. He was like a balloon with the air let out, a windup toy that needed winding. He was a downer whenever he was on stage. He did make a very funny-looking woman in Act 2 but did nothing with the opportunity. He should be the first to be axed in any revival. Others were harmless or worse, though the husband (高橋ジョージ) and wife (松田美由紀) both improved notably in the second act.

Two actors stood out. Kamiyama Ryuji (上山隆治) gave a powerhouse performance as Miles/Arao, with a relentless store of overblown egotism that was exactly what the show called for. He dominated the stage whenever he appeared, the exact opposite of Hysterium/Kinkichi. He benefited from a booming singing voice that brought out the most in his numbers. If the other actors had been at this level, the show would have been an entirely different experience (and I loved the muscle suit). The other actor was Tokui Yu (徳井優) in the minor role of the father seeking his children. He had a terrific feel for the material and made his brief bits worth every moment. He was the one actor who made his character feel Japanese as opposed to a Japanese version of a Westerner.

Miyamoto did come up with some nice touches here and there, such as “Pretty Little Picture” with the boat and the island against the rolling painted canvas. The “House of Marcus Lycus” sequence was also well played (the foreign ladies, who could not have been in Japan at that time, had supposedly been smuggled in past the authorities). And the director came through when needed in the second act, ending on a high note. But the first act dragged due to a combination of inexcusably bad lyrics, limp acting and an unadventurous Japanese script. While a full-on Edo sensibility may be impossible given the material and musical style (which isn’t very Roman either), this was pretty lame. And Pseudolus really needs to be a comedian who can give the part his own style. In the unlikely event that this is revived, the creative staff will need to sit down and give the whole framework more thought.

P.S.  Here are some random attempts at “Comedy Tonight”:

将軍と庶民 / 武将と浪人 / 男子と女人 / コメディトゥナイト

トチったって / 転んだって / 笑っていいとも / コメディトゥナイト

～～

説教もなく / 教訓もなく / 戒(いまし)めなんてなく / 泣くのは明日 / コメディトゥナイト

文句を言うな / あくびするな / 顔をしかめるな / 涙は明日 / コメディトゥナイト