z-t-review: My Fair Lady (National Tour 2018 w/ Asaka Manato)

After a bit of a delay I’m back with the rest of my reviews from my vacation! Two days after I saw Elisabeth I headed down to Oita in Kyushu to see the final performance of Asaka Manato’s first post-taidan show, My Fair Lady. I am absolutely obsessed with this show/film*, so even if Maa-sama wasn’t in it I think I would have still tried to see it. As my Japanese is not that great I was curious to see if I could determine how they would make Eliza’s Japanese sound different. Would she use Saga dialect, as that’s her hometown? Or some other dialect? Frankly I’m still not sure, but as with my other review I’ll be outlining my experience in randomly ordered bullet points. Let me know if you have any info on what specific dialect might have been spoken!

*Apparently it was performed in the Tokyo Takarazuka Theater in 1963, with a male Henry Higgins! I didn’t think they’d allow that lol XD

-  Maa-sama played Eliza very girlish. The previous time I saw her perform she was the stalwart Russian guy from Land of the Gods, so this was a welcome change, and there didn’t appear to be any discomfort from playing a female role. At times she leaned a bit toward the dumb side, but in a humorous way that played well with the audience. I forget that, given the age of the actresses playing the character in most productions, that Eliza is supposed to be 19-24-ish (it has moved toward older in newer productions I have seen) so I was glad to see a cheery approach, and it allowed for a stronger shift in maturity in the second act.

- I was curious how Maa-sama’s voice would sound - and it was great! Better than the videos online! She could hit all of the notes, though she sounded a tad tired on the highest ones. Not really strained per se, but as if she had been doing dozens of performances in an unfamiliar register, which, of course it was lol. It’s clear that she was really pushing for lower notes in Takarazuka and almost seemingly faked the strain on the ‘higher’ ones (in comparison now not really high at all). I say seemingly faked because she already sounds great in a higher register after such a short time. She has no doubt worked incredibly hard with a vocal coach, and I’m so happy she was able to perform these songs so soon and so well after her graduation.

- One small change however was the final section of “I Could Have Danced All Night”. The final note was shortened in length, though I don’t wholly disagree with just making it shorter in all productions. It’s a tad unrealistic for someone to be singing in an operatic register at 3AM regardless, but to hold that final note for what, four measures? Beyond unrealistic XD.

- Speaking of voices, everyone sounded incredible! Absolutely fantastic singing from everyone. Honestly, the maid/butler choir was distractingly good. This is mainly because

- Only the songs were amplified? They clearly had two audio settings - one to lightly boost the spoken scenes and another to really bump the music and singing. It was great.

- Speaking of which the orchestra was on stage, split in two and elevated on either side, about a full story up. They sounded wonderful; the bass really popped and if I didn’t see them I almost would assume it was recorded.

- The sets and costumes were quite nice, though they were often carbon copies of the 1964 film. No complaints, but I’m always down for new interpretations in design.

- Some notes on translation:

     * For the uncultured accent, “hi” became “shi”. Thus Professor Henry Higgins was Professor Henry Shiggins and I never not found that funny. It also made for a cool stage trick with a lamp. It had a real flame that if you made “shi” sounds into it the flame would not flicker, but if you made “hi” sounds it would. There was then a kotowaza or phrase of some sort that alliterated on the “hi” sound, which of course led to a wonderful gag of Maa-sama nearly passing out trying to get the flame to flicker on “shi” instead. She eventually just blew it out and her look of pride and then embarrassment read from 10 miles away and was fantastically hilarious. In those moments she built instant empathy for Eliza.

     * I’ve not explained the plot of the show at all (apologies) but there are some set phrases that Higgins attempts to drill into Eliza using a xylophone. One of which in English is “how kind of you to let me come”. In Japanese it was “something arigato gozaimasu” and the way Eliza said it, “arigato goseimes” had the audience rolling. She would not drop it - Higgins was borderline screaming “goZAiMASU!” to her response of “go..seiMES!”. No doubt was leaning into it as it was senshuuraku and I was dying. This led to a gag where Higgins shows her cards - a 5 (”go”), a rhino (”sai” but he flipped it to “zai”), and a trout (”masu”). Eliza proudly looks at them and goes, “Go! Zai! Sakana!” And the woman next to me in kimono legitimately guffawed. The audience was all in and I loved it. 

     * One of my favorite songs “Show Me”, starts in English with a very clipped, “Words words words I’m so sick of words!” But “words” in Japanese is “kotoba” so Maa-sama had to cram “kotoba kotoba kotoba” into the same short rhythm and it was a tad clunky. But the energy was still strong and upset so no qualms there. 

     * I’m not a fan of Higgins in general (small wonder in 2018) but I did feel for the (wonderful) actor Terawaki Yasufumi when “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face” started, as that music is ~so~ specific to those syllables the translation simply did not flow well. Again, acting saved the day, and I’d rather a fully translated show then “here’s some random English line and then we’ll explain it with the following lyrics” setup that some Zuka songs have.

- Any moment for dancing was always blown out into full intense segments for the ensemble and it was fabulous. Eliza’s father’s crew was having a blast and I wished they had more time to just trash about on stage. A+

- Also A+, the Ambassador’s Ball was gorgeous, Maa-sama looked ~amazing~. Similarly the Ascot Gavotte cracked me up but the audience did not find “Come on Dover, move your bloomin’ arse!” as funny as I did. Ah well. When Eliza doesn’t stop sharing shocking family gossip though is a universally hilarious moment and Maa-sama’s expressions are priceless. I hoped they filmed it so I can gif the hell out of it.

- As I haven’t really gotten into the plot or characterizations here I don’t want to go on a full analysis on the interpretation of Eliza/Higgins in this story, but I did find that, unlike more recent Western productions which tries to give Eliza as much agency as the plot allows and tends to diminish Higgins, the relationship here between Higgins and Eliza was a bit more romantically-leaning. In the final curtain call Maa-sama and Terawaki Yasufumi who played Higgins did like a fake proposal and lots of “you first, no you go, no, let’s go arm in arm with a head leaning on a shoulder” dealios. It was cute, and audience members were as close to “aww”-ing as they could. It’s not my favorite interpretation, but I think this is the closest I will ever be to experiencing the 1964 film live, which is cool in and of itself. As I listened to the curtain call speech where Maa-sama mentioned how this show helped her post-graduation from Takarazuka, I thought of Sagiri’s first post-taidan show, Woman of the Year, and I realized that both shows have very polite spins on traditional female characters. With her next show after her concert being Sister Act it looks like she’ll continue to kick ass in theater like Sagiri, so I look forward to catching her in more productions in the future.

Next review is either Castle of the White Heron or Thunderbolt Fantasy/Killer Rouge from Taiwan! Stay tuned!