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ekusudei22 ~*~ The Struggle With Osaka-Ben¹
I often appeared in Bow Hall performances during my time in Star Troupe.
(Bow Hall is—as I mentioned previously—a theater next to the Grand Theater, where we perform in between performances at the Grand Theater and Tokyo Takarazuka Theater. It often runs about two weeks at the most, with about twenty performers, and seating for 500, so the performances are on a much smaller scale than the Grand Theater. The lead roles also don't go to only that troupe's top star, but are quite often shared among younger members. They can take the form of a musical only, or a revue show only, or a recital, so that all kinds of theater programs are put on.)
First, I appeared in "Lovers' Suicide - Love in Yamatoji."
This was a Takarazuka-esque arrangement of Chikamatsu Monzaemon's Meido no Hikyaku (The Courier for Hades), the tale of Umegawa and Chuubee. It was a Japanese-style performance, but the music was all rock and the set was constructed from monochrome black boxes, which gave the work a novel feel for Takarazuka.
The role of Chuubee was played by Setouchi Miya, who had become top, Umegawa was Mokku (Haruka), and I played Yohei, a sales clerk in Rumi-san (Setouchi)'s store. This Yohei-san is sort of like the 'Pushover' character in kabuki (The name comes from the way the character seems weak enough to fall over if pushed. A young and gentle-mannered man, and a role with innocence to it.) and I think it was the perfect role for someone like me who is always waffling.
Then in the final scene on the snow-covered mountain where Umegawa and Chuubee commit lovers' suicide, I sang the theme song for five or six minutes as a solo in a degatari manner (like how the high-ranking Noh-actor stands to the side of the stage and gives the substance of the performance with shamisen accompaniment).²
It was a good role.
*
Right around that time, there was a production of Chikamatsu at the Imperial Theater in Tokyo directed by Ninagawa, with Hiramiki Jirou and Taichi Kiwako, and the theme song sung by Mori Shinichi became a popular topic of conversation. It was completely by chance, but I thought "I won't loose out to the Imperial Theater!" and worked together with everyone to make a really splendid production.
Speaking of good productions, during the process of putting everything together we occasionally encountered a terrible obstacle.
In this production, everyone struggled with the Osaka dialect.
The creator and director, Suganuma Jun-Sensei, had created a kabuki-esque period drama, and thought an Osaka dialect would be good. We received the script, and after we finished the read-through stage, it was decided.
The script was written in standard Japanese, so he was slightly reckless with his decision to ask us to change it into Osaka-Ben.
Moreover, half the cast was composed of people from the Kanto area³, and I fought a hard battle along with the Kanto natives over the Osaka-Ben.
Although in the normal scheme of things, the Kanto natives were often giving warnings from their lofty positions ("Wait, the Osaka dialect has slipped into that line"), the tables had turned for this production.
In order to get a dialect coach, they had to search out the Kansai natives they usually taught so loftily and take Osaka-Ben lessons from them.
However, the accent differed depending on their hometown. "S'which one's the real one?" We thought in circles as we turned it into Osaka-Ben.
Properly speaking, the story is about wharf merchants, so they're speaking with a maritime vocabulary, but we didn't have the time to prepare that far. We were told that an Osaka-Ben intonation would be good enough, and that's what we did.
But a dialect is even more difficult than learning English pronunciation.
Without learning it thoroughly, in the end I learned it as a musical scale of do do re do mi do fa do.
The Kanto natives with their Osaka-Ben neurosis went overboard and dissolved into confusion, and even words which would have had the same accent were changed somehow, and people with unbelievable accents appeared one after another, making for really humorous rehearsals.
Well, when the curtain rose the visual component was strong, so even if there were mistakes from time to time you could watch it without noticing, but a cassette tape doesn't lie.
I still have it, and when I listen to the tape of the live recording I can clearly hear how irredeemable the Osaka-Ben was when we said our lines, and it's really quite funny.
When I'm feeling sad, I listen to this tape.
(1) Osaka-Ben: A dialect particular to the Osaka area.
(2) This theme song is "The Only One In This World." I love it! If you have the TIP Sampler Disc, you'll have seen a re-staging of the suicide scene and song from one of the TCA Specials, with Kouju Tatsuki singing Yohei's role. I also really recommend the 1998-99 re-staging with Shiokaze Kou (she comes from a family of kabuki actors) in the lead and Mirai Yuuki playing Yohei!
(3) The Kanto area is the central-eastern part of Honshu, including Tokyo.
Next Up: Chapter 23 ~ The Blossoming Topknot
I often appeared in Bow Hall performances during my time in Star Troupe.
(Bow Hall is—as I mentioned previously—a theater next to the Grand Theater, where we perform in between performances at the Grand Theater and Tokyo Takarazuka Theater. It often runs about two weeks at the most, with about twenty performers, and seating for 500, so the performances are on a much smaller scale than the Grand Theater. The lead roles also don't go to only that troupe's top star, but are quite often shared among younger members. They can take the form of a musical only, or a revue show only, or a recital, so that all kinds of theater programs are put on.)
First, I appeared in "Lovers' Suicide - Love in Yamatoji."
This was a Takarazuka-esque arrangement of Chikamatsu Monzaemon's Meido no Hikyaku (The Courier for Hades), the tale of Umegawa and Chuubee. It was a Japanese-style performance, but the music was all rock and the set was constructed from monochrome black boxes, which gave the work a novel feel for Takarazuka.
The role of Chuubee was played by Setouchi Miya, who had become top, Umegawa was Mokku (Haruka), and I played Yohei, a sales clerk in Rumi-san (Setouchi)'s store. This Yohei-san is sort of like the 'Pushover' character in kabuki (The name comes from the way the character seems weak enough to fall over if pushed. A young and gentle-mannered man, and a role with innocence to it.) and I think it was the perfect role for someone like me who is always waffling.
Then in the final scene on the snow-covered mountain where Umegawa and Chuubee commit lovers' suicide, I sang the theme song for five or six minutes as a solo in a degatari manner (like how the high-ranking Noh-actor stands to the side of the stage and gives the substance of the performance with shamisen accompaniment).²
It was a good role.
*
Right around that time, there was a production of Chikamatsu at the Imperial Theater in Tokyo directed by Ninagawa, with Hiramiki Jirou and Taichi Kiwako, and the theme song sung by Mori Shinichi became a popular topic of conversation. It was completely by chance, but I thought "I won't loose out to the Imperial Theater!" and worked together with everyone to make a really splendid production.
Speaking of good productions, during the process of putting everything together we occasionally encountered a terrible obstacle.
In this production, everyone struggled with the Osaka dialect.
The creator and director, Suganuma Jun-Sensei, had created a kabuki-esque period drama, and thought an Osaka dialect would be good. We received the script, and after we finished the read-through stage, it was decided.
The script was written in standard Japanese, so he was slightly reckless with his decision to ask us to change it into Osaka-Ben.
Moreover, half the cast was composed of people from the Kanto area³, and I fought a hard battle along with the Kanto natives over the Osaka-Ben.
Although in the normal scheme of things, the Kanto natives were often giving warnings from their lofty positions ("Wait, the Osaka dialect has slipped into that line"), the tables had turned for this production.
In order to get a dialect coach, they had to search out the Kansai natives they usually taught so loftily and take Osaka-Ben lessons from them.
However, the accent differed depending on their hometown. "S'which one's the real one?" We thought in circles as we turned it into Osaka-Ben.
Properly speaking, the story is about wharf merchants, so they're speaking with a maritime vocabulary, but we didn't have the time to prepare that far. We were told that an Osaka-Ben intonation would be good enough, and that's what we did.
But a dialect is even more difficult than learning English pronunciation.
Without learning it thoroughly, in the end I learned it as a musical scale of do do re do mi do fa do.
The Kanto natives with their Osaka-Ben neurosis went overboard and dissolved into confusion, and even words which would have had the same accent were changed somehow, and people with unbelievable accents appeared one after another, making for really humorous rehearsals.
Well, when the curtain rose the visual component was strong, so even if there were mistakes from time to time you could watch it without noticing, but a cassette tape doesn't lie.
I still have it, and when I listen to the tape of the live recording I can clearly hear how irredeemable the Osaka-Ben was when we said our lines, and it's really quite funny.
When I'm feeling sad, I listen to this tape.
(1) Osaka-Ben: A dialect particular to the Osaka area.
(2) This theme song is "The Only One In This World." I love it! If you have the TIP Sampler Disc, you'll have seen a re-staging of the suicide scene and song from one of the TCA Specials, with Kouju Tatsuki singing Yohei's role. I also really recommend the 1998-99 re-staging with Shiokaze Kou (she comes from a family of kabuki actors) in the lead and Mirai Yuuki playing Yohei!
(3) The Kanto area is the central-eastern part of Honshu, including Tokyo.
Next Up: Chapter 23 ~ The Blossoming Topknot
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Date: 2013-01-28 11:09 am (UTC)I love how even Japanese have to struggle with Osaka-ben XDDD
During "Jin" A. tried to teach me a few things, so I could understand the play better, but it's a whole different language indeed. XDDD
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Date: 2013-01-28 05:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-30 07:12 pm (UTC)thanks again for translating!!
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Date: 2013-02-12 11:36 pm (UTC)I bet you'd recognize thick Osaka-ben, though. It's really recognizable even if you don't speak the language because of how it sounds.