Barbra Streisand, Rod Stewart

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  • Barbra Streisand, 8/6/16 (Sat), Las Vegas, T-Mobile Arena
  • Rod Stewart, 8/7/16 (Sun), Las Vegas, Caesar’s Palace

Barbra was making the latest of her farewell concert tours, and I figured it was about time to see her. The hefty price tag was off-putting, especially since she’s far from her peak at age 74. But I still kick myself for missing my only chance to catch Frank Sinatra in his last tour of Japan (with Liza Minnelli and Sammy Davis Jr, no less) because I was too cheap to shell out ¥30,000. I’ve long decided: no more regrets. While I’m not a big Streisand fan – I only have one of her albums, a gift from a friend – she’s undeniably a star in her own universe with a strong catalog of hits. So I combined a business trip with a side visit to Las Vegas.  Continue reading →

KABUKI: The Ambition of Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu (柳影澤蛍火)

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KABUKI: 柳影澤蛍火 (The Ambition of Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu)

7/19/16 (Tues), Kabukiza

The first Tokyo revival of a show written by Uno Nobuo for the National Theatre in 1970. A young ronin manipulates friends, acquaintances and his own fiancée to claw his way to the shogun’s inner circle before overplaying his hand. The ruler is the eccentric Tsunayoshi, the disastrous “dog shogun” in the late 17th-century Genroku Era known for his edict protecting animals. Continue reading →

Takarazuka: Chicago

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Takarazuka: Chicago

7/11/16 (Mon), Yokohama

Takarazuka versions of Broadway musicals are always entertaining in their inimitable way, including rewritten scripts, reshuffled songs and superstar treatment for the main male character, regardless of his/her co-stars or the needs of the story. Chicago was a strange choice since its two leads are female – it’s just not as interesting when women are playing women, especially at the usual talent level of Takarazuka players. Continue reading →

London shows (June 2016)

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  • How the Other Half Loves, 6/11/16 (Sat), West End
  • Showboat, 6/11/16 (Sat), West End
  • In the Heights, 6/12/16 (Sun), King’s Cross
  • Iris, 6/14/16 (Tues), Holland Park Opera
  • The Invisible Hand, 6/15/16 (Wed), Tricycle
  • Elegy, 6/16/16 (Thurs), Donmar
  • The Flying Lovers Of Vitebsk, 6/18/16 (Sat), Sam Wanamaker
  • The Comedy About a Bank Robbery, 6/19/16 (Sun), West End
  • Macbeth, 6/19/16 (Sun), Globe

Continue reading →

Grease Live (TV)

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Grease Live (TV), 5/2/16 (Mon)

Fox’s entry into the live musical genre pioneered by NBC. Grease seemed a natural choice as an ever-potent title about high-school life in the 1950s, using a retooled version incorporating songs from the super-successful movie. The broadcast had received strong reviews and ratings, and while I’m not a big fan of the show itself, I had been interested in seeing what they did with it. Continue reading →

Toast/The Effect

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Toast, 4/24/16 (Sun), Off Broadway

The Effect, 4/24/16 (Sun), Off Broadway

Toast: A revival of the debut piece by the entertaining British writer Richard Bean. I usually avoid US productions of UK shows because of differing acting styles and accents all over the map, but this was imported intact from London in the Brits on Broadway series. The unglamorous setting is a canteen in an aging bread factory, where the all-male work force whiles away the breaks between their grueling plant duties with cigarettes, stale sandwiches, idle talk (e.g. gossip about one worker’s affair with a toothless woman, eye-opening use for skate fish) and horseplay (a habit of crotch-grabbing in one guy’s case). Continue reading →

Eternal Chikamatsu (エターナルチカマツ）

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Eternal Chikamatsu

12 March 2016 (Sat), Tokyo

I decided rather on a whim to see this show, knowing only that it’s a riff on Chikamatsu Monzaemon’s 18th-century classic  Love Suicide at Amijima (心中天網島) where characters from that play somehow interact with similar modern-day counterparts. I was interested in remarks made by the director, David Leveaux, that suggested he (along with the scriptwriter) did not have a good understanding of the notion of suicide in the context of Chikamatsu’s shows. I like both the leads, Fukatsu Eri and Shichinosuke, so I figured it might be worth catching. Continue reading →

Terrace of the Leper King (ライ王のテラス )

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ライ王のテラス (Terrace of the Leper King)

3 March 2016 (Thurs), Tokyo

15 March 2016 (Tues), Tokyo

Tickets to Miyamoto Amon’s production of this Mishima work, its first large-scale revival in over 40 years, were completely sold out on the strength of its rising star Suzuki Ryohei (helped by a great poster with the sculpted Ryohei sitting shirtless front and center). I had read the play and couldn’t make much sense of the rambling theme, but the story itself was certainly dramatic. Also, the Cambodian setting offered promising design possibilities, and Amon had brought in dancers from the Royal Ballet of Cambodia and acrobats from a traditional Cambodian circus called Phare. I was ready for anything. Continue reading →

Tairo Jo: Puppet Hamlet

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Taira Jo’s Hamlet

27 February 2016 (Sat), Tokyo

A second tragedy by puppeteer Taira Jo after last month’s Medea. The performance was sold out, impressive in this theater (Ueno Bunka Kaikan, typically a concert hall). At three-and-a-half hours, including two intermissions, this is not a show for the faint hearted. This was the show’s first and only performance, part of a three-play series commissioned by the hall. Continue reading →