12/12/14 (Fri), Tokyo
A film of the live broadcast of the London musical that was shown on UK screens back in September. I hadn’t seen the show since it first opened in 2005 and, my memory being a bit fuzzy, thought it was a good chance to get reacquainted. Continue reading
I didn’t look at the theater columns until a few days after arriving in Tel Aviv, and realized too late that I had missed a Hebrew version of Fiddler on the Roof. Drats. It only played 2-3 performances before making way for the next show, which sounds like a waste of a lot of rehearsals (presumably they keep the sets in stock). Anyway, I wanted to see something Israeli, and the next weekend offered a show called Kazablan, a 1966 musical based on a play and movie – not Casablanca, but a 1954 Israeli play and its highly popular 1964 screen adaptation about a kid of Moroccan heritage struggling to fit into Israeli society. It was performed in Hebrew with English subtitles. I’d never heard of it, but I was evidently the only one judging from the reactions of all the Israelis I talked to. So it seemed a good choice. Continue reading
オン・ザ・タウン (On The Town)
9/28/14 (Sun), Tokyo
At long last, On The Town reached Japan. It featured three pop stars from the super-popular music group V6 (managed by the legendary Johnny’s Office), which was a mixed blessing. On the one hand, the show’s success was ensured from the minute it was announced: apparently, getting three of these guys together for this period of time is a near miracle given their sundry activities individually and as a group, and the show was sold out for the entire run before it even opened. So commercially this was a gold mine. On the other hand, this was clearly a Johnny’s crowd, with an audience that was 95% young and female. I haven’t seen such a female-heavy auditorium since Takarazuka. There was no room whatsoever for fans of Broadway musicals who may have wanted to see this Bernstein classic for the first time. It didn’t matter to this audience what they were seeing as long as their idols were there. So it pretty much establishes this show as a star vehicle, a very different approach from the US. Whether it will enter the repertory, and whether anyone would risk doing it now with normal musical actors, is an open question. Continue reading
Noh: 経政 (Tsunemasa)
9/14/14 (Sun), Karasumori Hachiman Shrine
This was an evening show being performed at a neighborhood shrine as part of an annual festival. I had hoped for candlelight rather than artificial lighting, especially since it’s called for in this case in the script itself, but I guess fire laws (and common sense on a wooden stage) prevailed. Continue reading
東京暮色 (Tokyo Twilight)
9/6/14 (Sat)
An uncharacteristically dark film by Ozu about a dysfunctional family. Continue reading
KABUKI: Terutora Haizen, Tanuki, 8/26/14 (Tues), Tokyo Kabukiza
I especially wanted to see the rare first show, originally a Bunraku puppet piece by the great Chikamatsu Monzaemon of 1721 that was adapted for Kabuki in 1742. Continue reading
The Audience (National Theatre Live)
6/27/14 (Fri)
Helen Mirren takes another stab at Queen Elizabeth II in the National Live film of this big hit from last year. Continue reading
夜中の犬に起こった奇妙な事件 (Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night)
4/19/14 (Sat), Tokyo
I had seen the London production last year (just a few weeks before the roof came crashing down during a performance) and was interested in seeing how the Japanese would approach the piece, especially in this much smaller space. Tickets were hard to come by because of the star, Morita Go, the idol singer who was so good in Kinkakuji a few years back.
The production was absolutely superb, making an equally compelling case for the material as in London. One excellent touch was the shift of the action from England to Japan – Christopher became Yukito, the trip from Swindon-London was Shizuoka-Tokyo, A-level exams became some sort of equivalent Japanese test and so on. The material was adapted so deftly that it didn’t feel at all like a foreign work, and it allowed the actors to behave normally instead of contorting themselves kabuki-like into their image of a Westerner. This approach is done at times for the classics, especially Shakespeare, but not enough for contemporary works. I hope this becomes a trend. Continue reading
Kabuki: 髪結新三 (Shinza the Barber)
4/17/14 (Thurs), Tokyo
I was interested in this play after seeing the Bunraku puppet version based on the same source just a few months back. It turned out to be different in every way. Continue reading
Hairspray (NBC Live)
1/21/17 (Sat)
Hairspray was a surprising choice as one of the NBC Live offerings. It seems too new for reinvention: it closed on Broadway less than ten years ago, and a (misguided) film version was released around the same time, meaning that a good portion of the audience will have seen it in some form or other in the not-too-distant past. Also, it is not an iconic title like past productions The Sound of Music or Grease, nor were there many big names in the cast as in The Wiz. As much as I personally love musicals, I had to wonder where NBC thought they were going to find an audience. It does deliver a feel-good message in roughly the same musical style as the popular Grease, which maybe they thought would be an attraction. In any case, it’s a terrific stage show, and they had the very good sense to retain the inimitable Harvey Fierstein as the mother. Despite the low ratings from the actual broadcast last month, I was eager to catch it. Continue reading
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