Author Archives: Sekenbanashi

Sanze Tangen and the Million-Ryo Pot (丹下左膳余話 百萬両の壺)

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  • 丹下左膳余話 百萬両の壺  (Sanze Tangen and the Million-Ryo Pot)

11/1/20 (Sun), Tokyo

The Tokyo International Film Festival is featuring a special section on director Yamanaka Sadao, a prolific film director from the 1930s who tragically died at age 28. He made over two dozen films in a brief period at a pace of 4-5 per year, but only three survive, all of which are highly regarded. That makes it easy to do a retrospective of his career, and all three have been digitally cleaned up for the occasion. That includes one of my all-time favorite Japanese films, Humanity and Paper Balloons. Today was the oldest of the surviving films, dating from 1935, when sound was just taking hold in Japan. The theater is not practicing social distancing, so we’re back to crowded seats (the theater was around 60% full even for an old flick readily available on YouTube). I guess I should be careful what I wish for, especially since everyone was concentrated in the center. Still, it was good to be in a packed house again.

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Kabuki: Sogoro the Fishmonger, The Sword Thief (魚屋宗五郎、太刀盗人)

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  • Kabuki: 魚屋宗五郎、太刀盗人 (Sogoro the Fishmonger, The Sword Thief)

10/17/20 (Sat), National Theater

I haven’t been to Kabuki since January because of this dumb pandemic as well as the ridiculously foreshortened offerings at the Kabukiza since their August reopening – they really expect us to spend ¥8,000 for shows lasting  little more than half an hour?? They’re out of their minds. The National Theater restart is short by its standards but still a full 2.5 hours, making it a much more attractive option.* The morning show featured a newly written skit about a pandemic in Edo where actors sneak into a closed theater during a long shutdown and perform their favorite roles. I saw Koshiro, today’s performer, do something similar in Las Vegas years ago and am still traumatized. In contrast, the afternoon show featured the audience favorite Sogoro the Fishmonger as its main offering with the reliable Kikugoro, who’s been playing the role for decades. I haven’t seen it in years, so I decided to go for it. Continue reading →

Noh: Mitsuyama, Shokun (三山, 昭君)

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  • Noh: 三山, 昭君  (Mitsuyama, Shokun)

10/11/20 (Sun), Tokyo

I’ve seen shows at the Kanze and Kita schools in recent weeks, so now it’s Hosho’s turn (partly because I couldn’t get tickets for the sold-out Kanze performance). The shows today were both relative rarities. Each has the unusual feature of two characters entering after the break rather than just the star. The tickets were 70-80% sold, meaning 35-40% of the theater. I’m not sure how they make money on these, but I’m glad they’re pushing ahead. Continue reading →

A Cornered Rat Dreams of Cheese (窮鼠はチーズの夢を見る)

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  • 窮鼠はチーズの夢を見る (A Cornered Rat Dreams of Cheese)

10/5/20 (Mon), Tokyo

Yukisada Isao’s adaptation of a best-selling BL (boy’s love) manga. For the uninitiated, BL are comic series written by women and for women focused on love affairs among males, not necessarily gay. The former sub-genre is now a genre of its own and a full-fledged phenomenon. The idealized portrait of men falling for each other allows the overwhelmingly female readership to fantasize about sex while remaining apart from it. It shares that quality in a way with the all-female Takarazuka and all-male Kabuki theaters, where the knowledge that all characters are being played by performers of the same gender (and the restrictions that places on intimate scenes) ensures that love affairs remain in the realm of fancy. (A recent NHK television series featured a fervent BL fan who becomes disgusted when she discovers that her supposed boyfriend is gay – she can accept male-on-male sex only on the page. She eventually sees the error of her ways, of course, and they live happily ever after as best friends.) I was dragged by a friend to the theater, where I was the only male in the house as well as the only non-Asian. I pulled my mask up tight.

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Noh: Teika, Sesshoseki (定家、殺生石)

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  • Noh: 定家、殺生石 (Teika, Sesshoseki)

10/3/20 (Sat), Tokyo

It was encouraging to see a nearly full house for live theater — that is, the available tickets (50% of capacity) were nearly sold out. People are definitely hungry for entertainment. Tokyo actually now allows shows to perform at full capacity, which some productions (such as the sold-out Japanese version of the musical Billy Elliot) are taking full advantage of. But the Noh world remains conservative and cautious, maybe because of the higher average age of the audience. Continue reading →

Thunderstorm (雷雨, 1983 film)

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  • 雷雨 (Thunderstorm, 1983 film)

9/26/20 (Sat)

One of numerous film versions of Cao Yu’s seminal 1934 stage work. Sun Daolin (孫道臨), a major film star of the 1950s to 1970s, adapted, directed and starred in this 1983 version. The groundbreaking stage show was immensely influential in China as the first successful Western-style drama, helping to transform the entire course of Chinese theatrical history. The story comes off as melodramatic, involving as it does family struggles, class warfare (making it popular in the Communist years) and incest. But the characterizations are compelling, and the story flows nicely, though depending on one questionable coincidence.

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Rose

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  • Rose

9/25/20 (Fri)

Revival of Martin Sherman’s one-woman show, performed by Maureen Lipman and being streamed worldwide. The show was originally written for her back in 1999, but she never got around to it; it ended up being done at London’s National Theatre with an acclaimed performance by Olympia Dukakis. Presumably having nothing else to do stage-wise at the moment with all the theaters in London closed, she’s finally taken on the role, performing alone in an empty theater for live broadcast. One positive side to the wait is that she’s actually closer to the age of the character now.

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Porgy and Bess (Met Live)

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  • Porgy and Bess (Met Live)

9/22/20 (Tues), Tokyo

The Met Live film that had been broadcast abroad during its performance on February 1 finally arrived in Tokyo theaters this week. The production, the first at the Met in nearly 30 years, had received rapturous reviews and was sold out throughout the run. The production had debuted in London at the ENO in 2018, but they presumably had to expand it for the gigantic Met stage. I thought it would be bashed for cultural appropriation and its none-too-flattering portrayal of black life, but it seems to have been warmly welcomed this time, not least for the opportunity it provides to black singers. (The Met actually had to import a large portion of the chorus from elsewhere.) At any rate, it proved hugely popular and will presumably be around for a while as long as they can secure the main singers, which doesn’t seem to be a problem these days.

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Bunraku: Komochi Yamamba, Gonza the Lancer (嫗山姥, 鑓の権三)

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  • Bunraku: Komochi Yamamba, Gonza the Lancer (嫗山姥, 鑓の権三)

9/13/20 (Sun), National Theatre

These are the first Bunraku performances since the pandemic hysteria began six months earlier, and they’re still in ultra-cautious mode: taking temperatures, requiring masks, asking us to tear off our own ticket stubs, and, most consequentially for them, cutting the seat count drastically by leaving every other seat open (even for those seeing the show together) and closing off the entire section in front of the narrators, presumably to prevent virus-filled spit from hitting the audience. It was all extremely grating, but I guess we should be grateful that at least there was a show. There were unusually no English earphone guides this month for some reason, so my companions had to rely on the detailed summary provided in the program.

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Marty (1953 TV)

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  • Marty (1953 TV)

8/31/20 (Mon)

Paddy Chayefsky’s 1953 television play, telecast live back in the day when they did that sort of thing. Its favorable reception spawned a slightly expanded and largely recast movie version that became a sleeper hit, snaring an Oscar against Hollywood heavyweights and sparking a boom in TV-to-movie adaptations.

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Swoon

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  • Swoon

8/23/20 (Sun)

Tom Kalin’s artsy 1992 film based directly on the Leopold and Loeb case, a contrast with the fictionalized Rope. Leopold and Loeb are presented outright as sexually involved, though the former appears more serious in the relationship than the latter. The boys, rich and extremely bright, would seem to have everything to live for. But through boredom or cynicism or apathy, they have turned to livening up their existence by pursuing various crimes such as fires and larceny to see what they can get away with. Loeb now ups the ante, setting his sights on murder, specifically the murder of a child. The movie basically follows the case after that, including the murder, their capture, their reaction (each trying to blame the other) and ultimate fate.

Whereas Rope was more interested in the motives and intellectual back-and-forth of the murderers, tying this to Nazi ideology, Swoon is a more personal look at Loeb’s controlling nature and Leopold’s obsessive desire to please him. Continue reading →