London (Jun 2014)

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  • Another Country, 6/9/14 (Mon), West End
  • Wolf Hall, 6/11/14 (Wed mat), RSC
  • Bring Up the Bodies, 6/11/14 (Wed eve), RSC
  • Titus Andronicus, 6/12/14 (Thurs mat), Globe
  • A Small Family Affair, 6/12/14 (Thurs eve), National
  • Incognito, 6/13/14 (Fri), Fringe
  • 1984, 6/14/14 (Sat mat), West End
  • Hobson’s Choice, 6/16/14 (Mon), Regent’s Park Open Air

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Curious Incident… (夜中の犬に起こった奇妙な事件)

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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 →

Hairspray (NBC Live)

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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 →

Take Me Out (テイク・ミー・アウト)

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テイクミーアウト（Take Me Out)

12/14/16 (Wed), Tokyo

A Japanese-language production of Richard Greenberg’s 2002 drama about a baseball player who comes out as gay and the consequences of that action. Continue reading →

Hedda Gabler (Hungarian State Theatre Cluj)

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  • Hedda Gabler, Hungarian State Theatre Cluj, 12/10/16 (Sat), Tokyo
  • Hedda Gabler, BBC film (1963), 12/11/16 (Sun)

This was a production by a Romanian group performing a Norwegian show in Hungarian in Japan – how’s that for globalism? This was part of the annual Ibsen Festival and one of three productions of Hedda (the others were in Japanese and Norwegian). The actors are from a Hungarian-speaking part of Romania, one of those oddities resulting from one war or other. I brought along a Hungarian friend among others to critique the translation.  Continue reading →

Noh: Mochizuki (望月)

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Noh: 望月 (Mochizuki)

11/20/16 (Sun), Tokyo

Mochizuki belongs to a class of Noh works that actors aren’t allowed to do until they are deemed ready by their elders. As such, the lead’s performance was a big honor for him. In a lecture on the show a week earlier, he noted that the story was basically scratched out some centuries ago to give young performers a chance to do the popular lion dance from an even-higher ranking show called Shakkyo. Here it’s presented as a show within a show, so technically doesn’t violate the hierarchy keeping the unworthy actors from the lions, a very Japanese compromise — though the fact that this show is now itself a ranked show is ironic.  Continue reading →