Monthly Archives: April 2019

Le Marie-Vison (毛皮のマリー )

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  • 毛皮のマリー (Le Marie-Vison)

4/2/19 (Tues), Tokyo New National Theatre

This is one of four Tokyo productions in recent months of Terayama Shuji’s classic underground work from the late 1960s. This production stars Miwa Akihiro, the cross-dressing television and singing personality who was the inspiration for the show and its original star back when he was young and cute. He was so impossibly campy in Mishima’s Black Lizard a few years back that I walked out, but given his close association with this role, I figured I’d give him another chance. The direction follows that of the original hippie-era production. The Japanese and French titles (taken from a song popularized by Yves Montand) translate to something like “Marie in Mink”.

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CNN’s Reiwa agenda

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4/3/2019

Every Japanese emperor gets his own imperial era name, one of the perks of the job, and it was announced this week to great fanfare that the era to take effect when the new emperor is enthroned on May 1 will be named Reiwa.  Thus, the remainder of 2019 will be known in Japan as Reiwa 1, and succeeding years will follow in kind until the next emperor takes over. The present era, Heisei, will finish its 31-year run when the current emperor, Akihito, abdicates on April 30. He will be known in future textbooks as Emperor Heisei.

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