Take Flight

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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)

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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

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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 →

Romance (ロマンス)

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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

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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!

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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 →

笑の大学 & The Last Laugh

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笑いの大学   (Warai no Daigaku) (DVD)

A 2005 film version of Mitani Koki’s most famous stage piece. I had never seen the show on stage, but will be seeing a British adaptation called The Last Laugh next week and wanted to catch a production in the original Japanese first. I’ve always had problems with Mitani Koki’s shows since they tend to be a bit contrived. The ones I’ve seen have all been elaborate farces with numerous quirky characters and complicated plots that all get tied up a bit too nicely in the end. I’ve always felt like he simply gives the characters the traits they need for his story or for a particular moment rather than creating natural human beings, and the stories themselves can be pretty artificial, though he does have a nice way of juggling multiple plot strands. I had been curious about this show since it only has two characters, a far cry from anything I’ve seen by him before, and the show next week was a good excuse to rent the movie. Continue reading →

Cocoon Kabuki: The Three Kichizas (三人吉三)

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Cocoon Kabuki: 三人吉三  (Sannin Kichisa)

23 June 2007 (Sat), Tokyo

My third straight year to see Kanzaburo’s annual Cocoon Kabuki series in Shibuya’s Theater Cocoon, which turns away from the overly reverent traditional staging of Kabuki classics in an effort to bring back the raucous atmosphere of the old Edo Era days. This year was Mokuami’s venerable 1860 drama Sannin Kichisa, which I’d seen a few times in the past. It’s a much-revived show, especially the scene along the river when the three Kichisas meet, and includes some of the most famous speeches and set pieces in all of Kabuki. It seems a good choice for the Cocoon series given its populist touch and the grotesquery of certain of its characters. The show was as usual sold out, but I managed to get a couple of seats on the floor right next to the makeshift hanamichi. I guess it was an authentic way to watch Kabuki and not as crippling as I had imagined, but I think I’d rather spend the three-hours-plus on a chair. Continue reading →

Porgy and Bess

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Archives: Porgy and Bess

26 April 2007 (Tues), West End

The opera performed as a musical, directed by Trevor Nunn. The story was reworked and all the recitative turned into dialogue, and the show was given an eight-performance-a- week run in the same way as any West End musical. It seemed a reasonable idea since the show is such a familiar name even to non-opera audiences, not to mention that wealth of famous jazz standards. I’d always found some of the recitative a bit long, so it made some sense from an artistic standpoint as well to try it out in a musical format. (Whether opera singers can hold up for eight performances is another question.) Generally I hate the idea of making things more “accessible”, since I would prefer to lift an audience up rather than to bring the show down. In this case, though, it seemed a justifiable effort.

But, as it turns out, it’s all in the execution. Continue reading →

On the Town (ENO)

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On the Town

23 April 2007 (Mon), ENO

A revival of ENO’s well-received production from last year. With an orchestra of 66 and a cast of 40-something, this was a major staging on a scale pretty much impossible in a Broadway theatre. (The ticket price reflected this at ￡76 or around $150.) The cast was a mixture of opera singers, ballet dancers and Broadway/West End actors, and choreographed in a combination of Broadway and classical dance. I hadn’t actually seen the show since a fantastic production back in Washington D.C. in the 1980s, one of my most memorable theatrical experiences ever, so I was watching closely.

The production was as big and brash as anyone could want for the most part, but there was a decisive shift in point of view that was a bit disconcerting if not entirely surprising. As usual with British productions of Broadway musical classics, the director imposed a “darker” vision on the material. Continue reading →

Follies (Encores!)

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Archives: Follies

10 February 2007 (Sat), Encores!

The opening show of the 2007 Encores! season, which is saluting the Ziegfeld Follies-type format. I wouldn’t have thought that Follies is a show that they would have chosen, since it’s still commercially produced – including two major productions within the last 4-5 years at Paper Mill and on Broadway – and thus hardly lost or forgotten. But the production has apparently generated the biggest response in the history of the Encores! series, and they actually had to add an extra performance on Monday, a first, in order to accommodate the crowds. I hadn’t seen Follies since the mid-1980s London production, which I remember only as being confusing. But given the show’s near-legendary status, the buzz surrounding this production (including a fantastic NY Times review) and the star-filled cast, it was hard not to be excited. Continue reading →

Genroku Minato Uta (元禄港歌)

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元禄港歌 (Genroku Minato Uta)

7 January 2015 (Thurs), Tokyo

Revival of a Ninagawa hit from 1980, written by his frequent collaborator Akimoto Matsuyo. It was a tough ticket to get on the reputation of both the show and Ninagawa’s over-the-top production as well as the starry cast, including Ennosuke and Miyazawa Rie as the two main women. I managed after much searching to find two seats on the internet. It’s strange that there’s no mechanism for extending the runs of clearly popular hits like this, though I suppose Ennosuke in particular must be hard to lock down given his Kabuki commitments (the show also travels to Osaka for a limited run). With the huge cast and elaborate sets, I wonder how they make money in this medium-sized theater for just a three-week run. Continue reading →