Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

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  • Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

7/29/18 (Sun)

I was never a big fan of Mr. Rogers, who seemed embarrassingly old-fashioned to me back in the day even before Sesame Street was blowing the neighborhood away. But I’m regretting all those years of neglect after seeing this superb documentary of his life – his view of the role of the emerging medium of television in communicating with children, the radical ideas cloaked in his retrograde and laid-back style, his ability to reach out to children (the most difficult audience in any medium). Rogers felt that the pie-throwing and banana-peel humor of the early children’s shows were downright destructive to little minds seeking simple truths, and sought to bring kids up to his level rather than the other way around by addressing them honestly and directly. It’s difficult to imagine today how strange that must have seemed at the time, especially in the show’s childlike setup: sock puppets, crude sets, basic storylines, unhurried style, simplistic themes. But what could be cloying comes out as oddly compelling in the face of Rogers’ earnestness.

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Noh: Ukon, Yashima (右近、八島)

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  • Noh: 右近、八島 (Ukon, Yashima)

7/15/18 (Sun), Tokyo

The rarely performed Ukon is credited to Zeami, Noh’s towering genius, but was apparently revised to an unknown extent by his grandson Nobumitsu. While officially classified as a god-focused Waki Noh, it’s usually considered closer to a “third category piece” or female-centered Woman Noh. One actor told me that the stately Waki Noh tend to be boring and suspects that this piece may have been re-branded along the centuries to increase its appeal. That need may have prompted the grandson’s revision in the text, but it’s hard to know how much was changed or Zeami’s intentions in the absence of a manuscript; given that he was also a performer and thus writing for himself, he may not have been able to resist creating a juicy role in the first place. The play takes place amid the cherry blossoms, an odd choice for this blazingly hot season, but I suppose there aren’t many summer-based Noh plays to choose from compared to the vast number of shows set in spring.

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Evita (2018 tour)

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  • Evita (2018 tour)

7/6/18 (Fri), Tokyo

I hadn’t seen the stage version of Evita since Harold Prince’s original London production in 1978, which I caught 2-3 weeks after it opened. That and A Chorus Line, which was also in its initial run, were the first shows I ever saw on a West End or Broadway stage. With ACL also due in Japan next month, this is a real nostalgia trip for me. Thinking back, I realize that both productions represented a triumph of direction over material, with astonishing staging concepts that not only disguised the weaknesses in the shows but practically made them irrelevant. My experience to that point had been local or touring productions of Fiddler on the Roof and Man of La Mancha and such, so these concept-driven productions were pretty mind-blowing. Evita has been revived in various incarnations since, but this international tour is a recreation of the original overseen by Prince himself. I wasn’t going to miss it.

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Ivo van Hove’s (!) West Side Story

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  • Ivo van Hove’s (!) West Side Story

7/13/18 (Fri)

Something’s coming indeed. Hot on the heels of the unlikely news that Hollywood giant Steven Spielberg is taking on his first musical with a film remake of West Side Story, it’s been announced that the eclectic stage director Ivo van Hove is taking on his first Broadway musical with a stage production of that very same West Side Story. Odd that these are coming essentially at the same time, especially as the approaches of the populist filmmaker and decidedly non-populist stage director are likely to be vastly different.

Most notably, a press release on July 12 by veteran producer Scott Rudin says that the new stage version will not feature the classic finger-snapping dances by Jerome Robbins, who (in Robbins’ own modest words) “conceived, directed and choreographed” the original production, but use new work by contemporary dance choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker. Scenery and lighting design will be handled by van Hove’s regular collaborator and life partner Jan Versweyveld, making for an all-Belgian creative team. Based on the director’s previous shows, we can expect a bare stage and lots of bare feet.

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Mitani Bunraku: Much Ado About Love Suicides (其礼成心中)

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  • 其礼成心中 (Much Ado About Love Suicides)

I see they’re bringing back the Bunraku puppet parody Much Ado About Love Suicides (Sore Nari Shinju) of 2012 by the prolific stage and film writer Mitani Koki. The show riffs on the popular double-suicide (shinju) puppet dramas of the early 1700s by Chikamatsu Monzaemon, Japan’s most famous playwright. The highly conservative Bunraku world, unlike Kabuki, has made little attempt to innovate or attract new audiences and has struggled as a result. It has been left to individuals such as Mitani and the renowned photographer Sugimoto Hiroshi to take up the mantle. Mitani is primarily known as a comedy writer (Warai no Daigaku; Welcome Back, Mr. McDonald), so expectations were generally along those lines. Here is a review of the 2013 Tokyo revival.

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Phoenix (不死鳥)

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  • 不死鳥 (Phoenix)

6/23/18 (Sat), Tokyo

Kinoshita Keisuke, who helmed the fine Twenty-Four Eyes (二十四の瞳) and Like a Wild Chrysanthemum (野菊の如き君なりき), tends to walk a fine line just this side of sticky sentimentality. In this 1947 work Phoenix, he crosses it. Continue reading →

A Critical Companion to the American Stage Musical: Brief Review

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  • A Critical Companion to the American Stage Musical (Elizabeth L. Wollman)

6/11/18 (Mon)

I don’t have much to say about this one-note history of the American musical, which is more concerned with the minority content of the shows than their quality. It discusses West Side Story in some detail, for example, without ever mentioning dance, an odd omission to say the least for this groundbreaking dance drama. In the author’s mind, the musical’s only claim to fame is that it offers roles for Hispanic characters in what she sees as an overwhelmingly white art form. Never mind that those characters were themselves created by three white guys – or, for that matter, three Jewish guys or three gay guys, if that sounds any better (all of the above, in fact). Can’t Hispanics or others create their own shows? And my guess is that Hispanics were no more numerous in the audience at that musical than at any other show – they are still significantly underrepresented among Broadway audiences with respect to their population regardless of the show’s content. This concern for a show’s PC credentials permeates the book and becomes very tiresome.

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Noh: Kagetsu, Fujidaiko, Dai-e (花月、富士太鼓、大会)

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  • Noh: 花月、富士太鼓、大会  (Kagetsu, Fujidaiko, Dai-e)

6/17/18 (Sun), Umewaka Noh Theater, Tokyo

These pieces are not necessarily among the best known Noh dramas, so I was surprised to see the theater 85-90% full, a huge contrast from the many empty seats last time. Then I looked at the program: the Kyogen comic interlude (not described here) featured the TV and movie heartthrob Nomura Mansai. I guess Noh audiences are as star-struck as anyone. But it was heartening that nearly all remained for the last two pieces even after the Kyogen finished. Continue reading →

Shoplifters (万引き家族)

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  • 万引き家族 (Shoplifters)

6/15/18 (Fri), Tokyo

*SPOILERS AHEAD*

The family at the heart of Shoplifters, directed (and conceived and written and edited) by Hirokazu Koreeda, does not appear to let dire poverty get it down. The dad is a construction worker, the mom toils at a huge laundry and the daughter works at a dodgy club giving guys thrills through a one-way mirror, and they only manage to get by with the help of the grandmother’s pension from her late husband. Still, their home is full of activity and warmth, and it feels like a loving family. But all is not as it seems. Continue reading →

Tony Awards 2018: Their Virtue Doth Parade

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  • Tony Awards 2018

6/12/18 (Tues)

In one corner of the world, the Broadway glitterati pats itself on the back and loudly proclaims its tolerance even as it rises and cheers Robert De Niro’s clarion call, “F**k Trump and all his supporters” (I paraphrase).

In another corner at exactly that same moment, President Trump is in Singapore preparing for an historic meeting that could lead to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and peace in a highly unstable part of the world.

And that juxtaposition clearly doesn’t strike anyone on Broadway as odd. The Tony Awards is a party on its own self-obsessed planet. I’m a big Broadway fan and have probably seen more of the play nominees than a lot of Tony voters, but I have to wonder about an industry that clearly despises the people it feeds off of. Continue reading →

Cendrillon (Met Live)

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  • Cendrillon (Met Live)

6/3/18 (Sun), Tokyo

Massenet’s utterly charming 1899 French take on the Cinderella story, making an overdue debut at the Met in a production by Laurent Pelly. While not as memorable musically as Rossini’s Cinderella opera Cenerentola, it is more whimsical, magical and fun. I had higher hopes for the score after the supremely melodic ballet version of Manon at the ROH just several weeks earlier, but that was a piece created long after Massenet’s death and stitched together from various of his works, presumably taking all the good parts. The only truly impressive musical moments this time were the second-half love duet and the fairy godmother’s vocal acrobatics. Even so, the virtues of the show came through in spades, especially in this light-hearted production. It’s strange that it took so long for the Met to get to this gem, especially as this is a ready-made production that has been around since 2006 with the same Cinderella; it shouldn’t have taken 12 years to decide on this, much less nearly 120 years.

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