Today was amazing. That is to say, today was the day when we went to see the Takarazuka Revue in the city of Takarzuka itself. I should explain. Takarazuka was an all-female revue begun in 1913 to bring tourists to the resort town of Takarazuka, and was based on the Paris reviews of that time period. Because it is an all-female performing style, women play the men’s parts as well as the women’s parts, with actresses specializing in one or the other. The style is opulent, somewhat Vegas-like in its love of sequins and feathers, and the actresses are all extremely talented in singing and dancing as well as acting. The show that I went to see with my class was called ‘El Halcon,’ staged by the Star troupe, which was about a ruthless British naval officer who was secretly a Spanish spy, and a French noblewoman-pirate, but really the plot was not very important. What were important were the amazing costume and set changes, the intensely synchronized dance sequences and the many raising and lowering platforms, not to mention the extremely convincing acting. After the show itself and the entirely plot-less (but amazing) musical review that followed, we made a couple tries at the gift shop, where the DVD’s were well out of our price ranges, then walked around the city a bit and visited a small museum of costumes from previous shows, including a set from the most popular Takarazuka show ever staged: ‘Rose of Versailles.’ I really hope that I can go to another show before I leave Japan, but the tickets are very hard to get, as the fan following is intense. I have to say though, that the tickets we had were probably the worst in the house, but even so I had no trouble seeing what was going on, probably because though the auditorium is tall, it isn’t very deep and the levels are steep. Plus, everything is amazingly over-the-top and everyone is mic-ed.
-The Takarazuka actresses who specialize in male roles (‘Otokoyaku’) are immensely more popular than those who play female roles (‘Musumeyaku’), and generally have more starring roles (and more merchandise).
-Takarazuka has done everything from ‘The Importance of Being Ernest’ (which they called ‘Ernest in Love’) to a ‘biographical’ show about Hemingway to ‘Carmen’ to period Japanese dramas.
-Almost the entire audience was made up of middle-aged women, with practically no men in sight.
-The Takarazuka Hello Kitty was twice as expensive as any of the other special Kitty’s, so I didn’t end up buying one.