Legend of Kung Fu
13 April 2008 (Sun), Beijing
My friends and I came across this in a Japanese guidebook on our way back from the Great Wall. It described an action piece performed by Shaolin Temple guys and gave it a strong recommendation. Continue reading
春琴 (Shunkin)
4 March 2008 (Tues), Tokyo Setagaya Public Theatre
This was an exploration of Tanizaki’s oft-staged novelette of the same name along with his famous essay “In Praise of Shadows”「陰翳礼賛」, both published in 1933. I’ve never been interested in seeing the play in the past nor had I seen any of the five film versions. This time, though, the director was Simon McBurney of Theatre de Complicité, who often works at this theater. I’ve been a fan of his physical style of theater for many years, including his intriguing version of the Murakami novel Elephant Vanishes 2-3 years ago. I waited too long to get tickets, as usual, but managed to get a 3F seat (fortunately in the center) on a weekday matinee. As it happens, the shows on this day had English subtitles, which turned out to be very fortunate. Over the weekend, I read the story, which is only 85 pages or so. It is a viciously cruel tale, but I can see where it lends itself to dramatization. With McBurney at the helm and the essay as part of the mix, I knew this was not going to be a straightforward telling. And I was right. Continue reading
女が階段を上る時 (When a Woman Ascends the Stairs)
2 March 2008
Keiko (Takamine Hideko) is the mama-san of a Ginza hostess bar in the late 1950s. In an image repeated many times throughout the film, we first see her climbing the narrow stairs to her establishment, a dreary ritual that she says in an overdub that she hates. Nevertheless, she notes that, once she’s up, she can handle anything. She was widowed quite young and at age 30 is standing dangerously on the brink of her sell-date. But she has pledged chastity to her late husband and is intent on maintaining respectability, adamantly refusing to mix sexually with the wealthy businessmen who patronize the bar. She stands up for the old values, for example continuing to wear a kimono unlike the Western dress of other hostesses. Her dream is to open her own place in Ginza, which would give her independence. But for that she would need a patron – and such patrons would be hard to come by without sexual favors. Meanwhile, her boss is complaining that she is losing business, and indeed several of her hostesses quit and steal her customers. Pressured by the expenses of keeping up a good front (perfumes, kimonos and such), falling revenues, the day-to-day grind of the business and family medical needs, she gradually allows her high morals to slip away.
January 6, 2008
「放浪記」(A Wanderer’s Notebook or Her Lonely Lane) was one of the Naruse films that have recently been re-released on DVD. I loved his 流れる (Flowing) and 浮雲 (Floating Clouds), both of which were based on stories written by this film’s subject Hayashi Fumiko, and was interested to see more of his work. Continue reading
放浪記 (Horoki)
9 February 2008 (Sat), Tokyo
Having recently seen Naruse’s masterful if unsettling film version, I was eager to experience it on stage. Mori Mitsuko has apparently been doing this show since it opened in 1961 (she’ll hit her 1,900th performance in this three-month go-round) and is still selling out. They announced that she would not be doing her famous second-act somersault this time, which at age 80-something is understandable. But I sensed that the time is ticking for her and decided I’d better see her before she checks out of the role. Continue reading
The Birdcage
29 January 2008
(From an e-mail exchange with a friend. We were apparently comparing Birdcage with its original French version La Cage Aux Folles.)
You thought “The Birdcage” was a better film than the French original?? Mon Dieu! Continue reading
Take Flight
2 December 2007 (Sun), Tokyo
A musical in the formative stages with book by John Weidman and songs by the Maltby/Shire team. It had been done on a tiny scale in London at the Menier Chocolate Factory, but local director Miyamoto Amon has reworked it for the 1,500-seat Forum with hopes of taking it to Broadway. Its main draw for the Japanese was ex-Takarazuka star Amami Yuki in her first stage musical role in some time, which seemed a fair guarantee of commercial success. I was pretty dubious of the creators developing a work in a language they don’t understand for an audience way outside their target, and Amon’s tendency towards works that have “significance” wasn’t encouraging either. (In an interview in Theatre Guide, he quoted Sondheim as saying that the musical was dead. So who does he think killed it?) On top of this, Weidman tends to write shows about themes rather than people, and Maltby/Shire haven’t done much of distinction together since Baby. (The trio worked together before on Big, which flopped big time. The score was execrable.) In any case, I’ve been wrong before, and these are all major talents, no matter what I think. So I was eager to take a look. Continue reading
Hairspray (film)
3 November 2007 (Sun), Tokyo
The previews of the movie had actually discouraged me from seeing it because of what seemed to be a strangely subdued performance by John Travolta, which suggested a take on the show that I wasn’t going to like. But curiosity got the better of me, and I was willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. Continue reading
Young Frankenstein
15 October 2007 (Mon), Broadway
Mel Brooks’ latest ripoff of one of his old shows. It’s still in previews after a fairly successful Seattle run, and expectations and advance sales are exceedingly high. Tickets are apparently a pretty tight commodity even in previews, and I was lucky enough to be invited by a friend. I would normally have seen the movie again first, not having seen it since its original run in the 70s. But I hadn’t even realized the show was in town already, so it was going to have to be a surprise. Continue reading
Archives: Romance
11 August 2007 (Sat), Tokyo
A new play in Japanese by the prolific Inoue Hisashi about the life of Chekhov, whose works had a powerful effect on the development of modern Japanese drama. This is Inoue’s first show to be set outside of Japan. The starry cast included Otake Shinobu and Matsu Takako, either of whom could sell out a theatre on her own. With both, not to mention some other well-known veterans, tickets quickly became scarce for the unusually long two-month run. Continue reading
The Bee
26 July 2007 (Thurs), Tokyo
A mini-play imported with cast intact from the U.K., where it had a brief but critically acclaimed run last year. Though based on a Japanese short story, the show was developed in London and written in English by the ever-popular Noda Hideki, who also directed. I’ve never liked Noda’s frenetic style; he is clearly uncomfortable with quiet and constantly has his characters running around the stage meaninglessly in a desperate attempt to generate energy. That was the case some years back with his Red Demon, a sophomoric play about a strange creature landing on a desert island. In that case, the British critics were on my side, giving the English version of the play a mercilessly brutal drubbing in London. The knives were thus out for The Bee. The general feeling, though, was that Noda had redeemed himself, and the play had a successful run, if only for one month at a tiny theatre. I figured if he could win the critics over, I’d give him another chance. Also, the cast of four included Kathryn Hunter, who was such a great Lear a decade ago. I tried to get tickets for the Japanese version as well, but that was sold out instantly. So I settled for just the English show, which was after all the original. Continue reading
The Wiz Live!
12 January 2016
I was excited right away by the idea of The Wiz as the now-annual live TV musical. It’s a family show with great songs and plenty of great visual and dance potential, and the Oz setting should be familiar to pretty much anyone in the US who’s been a kid. I was especially happy to hear that they were going to use an all-black cast as per the original rather than the multi-racial version done in New York, which by all accounts was bland – an ironic but broadly true comment on multicultural shows in general, I think. They gathered an impressive all-star cast of singers and rappers and actors, which makes a lot of sense for a name that doesn’t resonate like The Sound of Music. They’re also using new staging, choreography and orchestrations, which could go either way – I loved the funky 70s sound of the original, and dance pieces like the cyclone number were pretty hard to beat. But an update could work well if done right, a big if. Continue reading
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