7/21/19 (Sun), Tokyo Umewaka Noh
Today’s offerings were both genzai Noh plays dealing with real-world events rather than ghosts. They date respectively from the beginning and end of the active period of Noh drama, the first by Noh’s esteemed founder Kan’ami and the second by the much later Yajiro Nagatoshi. They present a striking contrast, symbolizing how elegance and dance gave way to an emphasis on action in Noh’s evolution.
7/20/19 (Sat), Tokyo
An underwhelming critique of the UK’s national health system (NHS) by the estimable Alan Bennett, directed by his History Boys partner Nicholas Hytner and filmed in performance at London’s Bridge Theatre. Continue reading
Naruse’s 1953 film, based on a story by his muse Hayashi Fumiko, opens with voiceovers by a wife and husband grumbling to themselves about their unhappy marriage. The wife Mineko complains about the husband Juichi’s lack of ambition and ability, their financial strain and Juichi’s clear lack of interest in her. She busies herself with small sewing jobs and overseeing their upstairs tenants to boost their income, but gets little support from Juichi. Meanwhile, Juichi bemoans his bureaucratic job, his wife’s undeniably slovenly ways and the draining routine of his unexciting home life. He compares the sloppy bento prepared by his wife with the beautifully arranged lunch eaten by the cheery typist at the next desk. He understandably becomes drawn to the typist, who returns the affection. Mineko is livid when she finds out about their secret trysts and confronts the woman, who is shamed into returning to her hometown. The couple thus remain together but out of habit rather than romance. The film ends with another set of voiceovers as the wife and husband each contemplate whether to leave the other – would that solve anything? would being single at this point be any easier for either? – while carefully avoiding showing how that is resolved.
7/24/19 (Wed), Tokyo Kabukiza
This month’s performance was completely sold out on the strength of a six-year-old actor, son of superstar Ebizo, taking on a role usually played by an adult. The boy is often featured in his father’s widely followed blog, and Ebizo fever has basically enveloped him as well. The first three shows today were all Meiji or Taisho Era pieces that veer from traditional Kabuki in certain ways, while the last, in which the child appears, is a once-archaic Edo Era sketch that was revived/reconstructed in 1985.
I hadn’t planned on seeing this piece, put off by the unwieldy title and not knowing much about it, but it was the least painful option on the half-price board. Described as minor Ibsen, it is rarely revived and is being produced commercially without the usual run at subsidized locations like the National Theatre to give it credence. Nevertheless, the reviews were encouraging, and I figured I could at least tick it off the box of shows you must see before you die.
It turned out to be a sharp and provocative drama dealing with political extremism and family intrigue, nothing minor about it. Continue reading
A lighthearted umusical recounting of six 16th-century women known to us as the wives of Henry VIII, gathered here tonight to reclaim their identities from history. Continue reading
Revival of a 1912 show written, unusually for the times, by a female playwright, Githa Sowerby (adapted here by Polly Findlay). I had automatically assumed this would be a feminist tract, but that proved untrue: all here are trapped under the thumb of the domineering father and their own insecurities, their fates portrayed honestly if pitilessly. The show is less interested in grand themes than presenting an unflinching portrait of the destruction of a family.
7/10/19 (Wed)
I’ve previously written about the ethnic diversity in London theater here and here, including my impression that certain ethnicities appear on stage far too often to be blind casting or coincidental. Now there are statistics to back that up. Research by British theater magazine The Stage finds that black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) performers account for 38% of musical performers as of April 2019, starkly higher than their 13% ratio of the UK population.
Black performers in particular account for 31.7% of all musical roles (i.e., 85% of the BAME total) despite being only 3% of the UK population. East and South Asians, who significantly outnumber blacks in the general population (7%), account together for only 3.7% of West End musical performers. The percentage for white actors is 62.2% (87.1% of general population) and other ethnicities 2.2%.
So the diversity problem is solved at least for black performers, right? Of course not, you insensitive hick. Continue reading
This searing 2015 work by Lynn Nottage, making its London premiere, is an extraordinarily powerful portrait of the devastation wrought by globalization, represented here by NAFTA, on small-town America. It opens (and closes) wearily with an unnecessary framework of two former friends speaking separately with a parole officer, making me think we were in for a didactic all-talk-no-show show. But it quickly gets into gear once the drama proper gets going and never looks back.
From Anatevka to Alabama: by sheer coincidence, my matinee show Fiddler on the Roof ended with European Jews emigrating for America, while the evening show featured European Jewish immigrants arriving in America. The Lehman Trilogy, written by Hebrew-speaking Italian playwright Stefano Massini (adapted and translated by Ben Power), is a phenomenal history of the rise and fall of Lehman Brothers over a 150-year period, taking on the history of capitalism in the West and gradual erosion of the titular family’s life as Jews since its immigration from Germany in the 19th century – a continuation of Fiddler in its way. The fictional musical explored the gradual breakdown of tradition in the lives of individual families. This epic drama looks at where that leads.
I had no intention of seeing this show for the umpteenth time, especially so soon after the magnificent Yiddish version on my last New York visit. But I was attracted by the rare Tuesday matinee, and the Trevor Nunn production and this cast had been very well received.
The show is indestructible and works beautifully here as always. But the acting is variable and overall not very Jewish, at least by the Yiddish-theater-inspired standards as conceived originally. Continue reading
6/9/19 (Sun), London Menier Chocolate Factory
Revival of an infrequently produced and much-rewritten Tennessee Williams play of 1957. A hunky 30-year-old wanderer and troubadour named Val finds his way into a general store run by the hard-minded Lady, a woman trapped in a small-minded Southern town and a loveless marriage. She is haunted by the death of her father, an Italian immigrant, at the hands of racist townsmen twenty years earlier, who set fire to his beloved establishment after he served black customers. Something inside of her having died as well, Lady has remained in the town unemotionally running the store with her callous husband. The husband is now dying of cancer, and Lady, though wary of the young Val, agrees to hire him to help mind the store. His presence reawakens her repressed passion, as things go in these plays, and her feelings are sharpened further by the revelation that it was her husband who led the riot against her father that caused his death. Lady, with a new life literally growing inside her (after an apparent night of fun), asks Val to take her away. The result is not pretty.
sekenbanashi 