- 千と千尋の神隠し (Spirited Away) (stage version)
3/22/22 (Tues)
Spirited Away, the worldwide anime hit, has been retooled as a major stage show by British director John Caird of Les Mis fame. It’s always a thorny business bringing films to the stage since few producers have the creativity or guts to stray too far from familiar material, as way too many Broadway duds have proven in recent years. This one was particularly tricky since they’re dealing with an animated feature involving supernatural elements. Anime/manga has been a rich vein for producers here to mine, such as the hugely successful Kabuki version of the One Piece epic and a musical rendering of video game phenomenon Token Ranbu. It is now its own genre, known in local parlance as 2.5D shows. But Spirited Away is based not on a series but on a single highly popular film – it reigned for years as Japan’s biggest-selling movie by far of any genre (until eclipsed by another anime last year) – with iconic characters and scenes that its legions of fans will be eagerly awaiting. The trick for a long-running success is how to balance between lovers of the film and audiences less familiar with the material if at all.
That’s not necessarily a problem in Tokyo: the show is only being done here for four weeks (followed by a national tour) and boasts familiar stars. That ensures a full house for the brief run – tickets were quickly snatched up – and the high-for-Tokyo ticket price of ¥14,500 should guarantee a profit despite the elaborate staging (they were going for over 10 times that price on online resale sites). Given the familiarity of the movie and the family-friendly material, I’m at a loss why they didn’t book this for a longer run, especially with the money they’ve put into it. I have to assume they’re aiming for a future production in London or New York considering the creative staff – in addition to director/adaptor Caird, non-Japanese handled the music arrangement, orchestrations, art design and puppetry design (in the land of classic puppet theater). That would make this a trial run of sorts. The Japanese theater world works in strange and mysterious ways.
sekenbanashi 