On Sunday five friends and I went to see another Takarazuka show, this one called ‘Reimei no Kaze’, which they translated as ‘Morning Breeze’ but I would translate as ‘Dawn Wind’. The morning did not start off well. For starters, I had bought my tickets separately from my friends, and so while I had a ticket to the 11am show, they were all attending the 3pm one, which left me on my own for most of the day. Unfortunately, I also got on a slow train while on my way to Takarazuka city and started to run pretty far behind schedule, to the point that I was still two stops away from the station I needed at 10:45. In preparation for a mad dash from the station to the theatre, I removed my ticket from the purse that I was using (which was deep and had no pockets, making it hard to locate things in) to the pocket of my trench coat. Well, while I was running to the theatre it must have fallen out of my pocket, because when I arrived at the doors to the Grande Theatre my ticket was no longer there. Luckily, I miraculously remembered my seat number and row, and no one had accidentally sat in it, meaning that once everyone was seated and the show had begun the ushers called down for me, having verified that the seat that I claimed to own was in fact empty. So, I missed the first 8minutes or so of the play, but at least I made it in. Like the other two shows that I have gone to in this theatre, the first half was a play in the proper sense, in that it had a plot and the like. Not that I understood the plot. In fact, I understood very little about what was going on that wasn’t directly related to history, did I mention that this was a play about Japan before, during, but mostly after WWII? The story itself followed a man that I’d never heard of named Jiro Shirasu, who I am led by the program to believe was an actual person, and his devotion to a peaceful but independent Japan. To be honest, I was much more interested in the other main character: General Douglas MacArthur. Who was played by the lovely Yamato Yuga, an about 5’7” Japanese woman, with a corncob pipe and aviators. In this show MacArthur was a dashing young man who truly loved the country of Japan for all of its beauty. There was not much singing in this first part, and since I understood very little of what was going on (I talked to a Japanese woman afterward who said that even she had had a difficult time following the show) I didn’t enjoy it as much as I have others that I’ve seen. What I *really* did enjoy, however, was the revue that made up the second half of the show: Passion. It was a lot of fun, the dancing was amazing, the music very catchy (does anyone remember the song ‘Mambo #5’? They sang that in Japanese.) and the top stars as bright as ever. After the show I met up with my friends and visited a store in the area, then visited the costume museum and gift shop, had some lunch and talked with some people. I had originally thought of heading home, but I realized that even if I headed home immediately at that point that I would be late for dinner, so I sent a message to my host mother and waited for my friends’ show to be over so that we could all eat together. We were about to get on the train to head home when one of my friends realized that her wallet was missing, which led us back to a couple stores and the theatre, which was unfortunately closed.
-The Takarazuka Grand Teatre closes before 8pm.
-The police box at Takarazuka station has a ‘Takarazuka Top Stars’ calendar on the wall. Every store in the area has some sort of poster or whatever, but the police station?
- The troupe, Cosmos troupe, is the youngest in Takarazuka, and I had heard beforehand that it tended to be more modern and experimental than the others. What I was not warned about, however, was that the costume designers for Cosmos are not afraid of colour. The palates were amazing, one scene in pink, three shades of bright purple, brilliant blue, gold and the main singer in silver and red, another was all in lime green, orange, black, red, purple, red, and more gold. Thankfully there were a couple scenes in there that were monochromatic, my eyes needed the rest.
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