The Floating Bridge of Dreams
Nov. 30th, 2008 12:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)

Moon Troupe, 2008
Top Star: Sena Jun
[ TakaWiki ] [ Sanspo Stage Graph ]
Summary:
The Shining Prince, Genji. A son of the late emperor by a lowly concubine, he was made a commoner by his father so that he could serve the country as part of the government without being drowned in court politics (since his mother's family couldn't provide him strong support). He had several loves, but arguably his strongest was Murasaki no Ue, a young woman that he essentially raised from the time she was a child. This is all back story, because The Floating Bridge of Dreams is based on the last section of the Tale of Genji, and is about his grandson Niou no Miya (an imperial prince, since Genji's daughter married the emperor) and his youngest "son", Kaoru.
The play opens with a flashback, one year after the death of Murasaki no Ue. With her death, Genji became an empty shell and shut himself up in his home in Rokujou. The last that he was seen by the court was on the anniversary of Murasaki no Ue's death, when he went to make offerings for her. There were already rumors swirling about the court of how Genji's eldest son, Yugiri, was using his father as a puppet to gain political power. At the gathering, Genji is obviously lost in the past, even mistaking his granddaughter Onna Ichi no Miya for Murasaki no Kimi. As Genji mounts the stairs to the shrine, he drops his prayer beads. He calls for his grandson, Niou no Miya, to pick them up for him, but Kaoru steps forward, saying that as Genji's son, it's his place. Genji speaks in riddles, calling Kaoru a "child of sin", and agrees that it's best for him to come along up with him, to be purified of his sins. Genji passes away shortly thereafter, and the years pass....
Niou no Miya and Kaoru have become beautiful young men, perhaps even as lovely and talented as their predecessor...? They were practically raised together as brothers by Genji, since Niou was Genji's favorite prince. Niou dances at a gathering, but then bows out when he realizes that Kaoru is absent. Kaoru has been very troubled lately by the death of a young woman named Onokimi, whom he had hoped to marry. Onokimi was the daughter of Genji's estranged brother, the Eighth Prince. However, she had resisted being taken from the sheltered, religious life she knew, and eventually passed away due to illness before Kaoru could bring her to the capital from her rural home in Uji. Niou is worried about how all of this has affected Kaoru, but doesn't want everyone in court to realize how serious things might be getting. So he makes an excuse that his attention has been caught by one of the young lady dancers.... Everyone accepts it, because Niou is a notorious playboy.
Caught in his lie, he makes a detour to visit the young woman, named Kosaishou no Kimi. She is a gentlewoman of his sister, Onna Ichi no Miya. However, Kosaishou is actually a trap, laid by his sister. His sister is determined to scold him and fix his wandering ways, because nearly all of her gentlewomen are ladies that Niou had seduced and then dropped into her lap to take care of. Things start out well, but then Niou manages to woo them all back to his side with sweet words of contrition, and he escapes. He sets out for Uji, where he hears Kaoru has been going often.
But Kaoru has not simply been brooding at Uji. He has discovered Onokimi's half-sister, Ukifune, an unacknowledged daughter of the Eighth Prince who looks exactly like Onokimi. He has hidden her in the Eighth Prince's former residence and visits her there when he can get away from the capital. But Kaoru's personality is a distant one -- he is dodged by dark secrets, and also still grieving for Onokimi. Ukifune is unsure how he really feels about her, and is unhappy and lonely. Then, one night as she is sitting alone in her room in the dark, Niou sneaks in. At first he tries to fool her into thinking that he is Kaoru, but Niou has a unique perfume and she knows right away who he is. They talk for a short while, and then as the sun rises Niou lifts one of the blinds. One look at Ukifune's face and he sees the resemblance to Onokimi....
Meanwhile, in the capital Yugiri is plotting to bring political power back into the hands of the Genjis (Minamotos). He has a grudge against Ni no Miya, the Second Prince and current heir, and he has heard rumor that Ni no Miya is in love with a daughter of the Kobai clan, who are rivals of the Minamotos.
Onna Ichi no Miya, Niou, and Kaoru reminisce about growing up together in Genji's Rokujou mansion. Then the scene changes to Ni no Miya and Koubai no Naka no Kimi. They are discovered together, and Ni no Miya is reminded of his position. Raised to respect authority and protect the family name, he acquiesces as the Minamoto clan (Yugiri's sons and retainers) lead a wailing Naka no Kimi away.
Ni no Miya is reduced to minister of ceremonies, and Niou is made the heir. Ni no Miya gives Niou his ceremonial sword. Niou loves his brother, and he loves his freedom, and he tries to refuse. He also tries to convince Ni no Miya to fight for Naka no Kimi. But Ni no Miya snaps at him for being selfish. He was raised to be heir; there are certain things he would never do, not now that he's been reminded of his position, even if he was stripped of his expectations. Kosaishou no Kimi has overheard them. She tries to brace Niou up while acting as if she didn't notice anything, but Niou is too sunk in apathy. Then she explains that she's leaving the palace. The two have a connection, and the parting is bitter... Kosaishou invites Niou to come out with her, away from the palace and the court. He does, and they mingle in a village festival.
Niou doesn't fit in very well, though, and some mischievous villagers steal his brother's sword. While trying desperately to get it back from the wild, mocking crowd, Niou finds himself face to face with an apparition -- a life-sized puppet of Hikaru Genji. He struggles against the entanglements and eventually frees himself. He gets back his sword, and Kosaishou finds the sheath for him. The two say farewell, as Kosaishou sets out toward a new life.
Late at night, Niou visits Ukifune at Uji. She is practicing the koto, because Onokimi could play it beautifully and Kaoru asked her to learn to play. But Ukifune is terrible at it, since she was an unacknowledged child and wasn't raised properly. Niou consoles her; the two have fallen deeply in love. Although Niou has committed many indiscretions in his life, he has never betrayed Kaoru and his position in this way, but he can't stop himself. The two make love. The next morning, Kaoru arrives... and he can smell Niou's scent all over Ukifune's rooms.
Enraged, Kaoru goes to Yugiri and tells him about Niou and Ukifune. Niou is married to Yugiri's daughter, and if he also marries Ukifune, she would be the higher wife, since her father was a prince. Yugiri will do anything to stop that. Then Kaoru decides to return to Uji and repair the break with Ukifune. He asks her if she knows the story of his mother. He tells her about his mother, who was Genji's wife, but who was seduced by Kashiwagi, the son of Genji's childhood friend. Kashiwagi died of remorse before Kaoru was even born. Kaoru has lived with this secret, that he is not actually Hikaru Genji's son. He tells Ukifune that he loves her, and that he would like to start again; that he would like her to love him in return. Torn between these two men who love her, Ukifune weakly agrees.
Desperate to escape from the palace to help Ukifune, Niou takes shelter momentarily in Onna Ichi no Miya's rooms. She tries to stop him, which enrages him. He snaps and grabs her outer robe. "You know, don't you, that I loved you long before Kaoru ever did?" (This is a 20 second flash of a sliiightly longer side story that was in the original book, so feel free to be confused.) Then Niou's retainer arrives with the news that they've lost track of Ukifune's whereabouts, and Yugiri's sons are hunting her.
Niou, Yugiri's sons and their men, and Kaoru face off. The news has reached them that Ukifune threw herself into the Uji River. A religious man, the Prelate of Yokawa, has the news that she was saved, but has no memory of her former life. Kaoru accuses Niou, telling him that this is all his fault. Niou takes the blame. The Minamotos still won't let Niou pass, to go to the river, so he draws his sword and faces them down. When he realizes the odds, he turns the tables on them, and holds the sword to his own neck. He forces them to recognize that he is the heir, and as his first order, he tells them to stand down. Frustrated, and seeing that Niou will never be a puppet and it would be a better political move to take his orders, Yugiri's eldest son orders his men away. They leave.
Niou and Kaoru are left. Kaoru begins to make plans to go and get Ukifune, but Niou stops him. He argues that they should let her live her life as she chose, away from the both of them, free of their influence. Kaoru argues that he loves her, but Niou tells him that trying to mold her into Onokimi wasn't love -- that it was very different from Genji and Murasaki no Ue.
The day arrives for the ceremony to make Niou the heir. As he mounts the steps, he drops his prayer beads. In a mirror of that time when they were children, Kaoru steps forward and picks them up, presenting them to his crown prince....
What I Thought:
When Hankyu announced that there would be no new top musumeyaku for Moon Troupe for a while, they said that they were going to use the opportunity to showcase the talents of a variety of musumeyaku in the troupe. I think a lot of people were skeptical, but... this show convinced me they weren't entirely blowing hot air. I thought it was a very interesting (and wildly different) adaption of the Ukihashi Chapters of Genji, and I thought Ono-sensei did a marvelous job writing in a lot of largeish musumeyaku parts: Kosaishou no Kimi, Ukifune, Onna Ichi no Miya, Kobai no Naka no Kimi..... As a huge fan of Hanase Mizuka and Shirosaki Ai, I was really happy with it.♥
Okay, Jen, great, you say, but what about the show? We know you hate Takarazuka Genji adaptions, and you always fall asleep in the middle of Asaki Yume Mishi.
Okay, biased because of the troupe, but... I really thought they did some fun things that kept it from putting me to sleep. And, in fact, made me just as excited to see it the third time as the first.♥♥ The staging was freaking amazing! Not because it was all flash and made your eyes pop out estimating the cost, but because it was minimalist and beautiful. They did a lot of scenes that were basically just the lifts, nothing added, forming the scenery. They have this enormous stage, and when they take all the clutter off of it and only have two people there, it really sets the mood in a way adding too much never could. A small, very cynical voice wonders if they did that more to save on cost because the costumes probably cost the GDP of several small Caribbean islands, but.... *Grin* I don't want to leave you with the impression that there weren't sets, though. There are some rather interesting pieces, including a three-door one where the curtains rise separately on each door when they're letting the different factions give their point of view and such. Actually... someone on the tech crew managed to lift the wrong curtains during Monday's afternoon show... oops. ;)
The costumes were absolutely lovely! Beautiful, beautiful! The bits and doodads and thingies.♥ And imperial guard! And butterfly costumes! And- And- And-!
And that entire scene outdoors at the festival. And the creeeeepy Genji puppet. I just... I ADORE it when Takarazuka does folk dances. I never expected one in Genji.♥♥♥♥♥
And the music! Which I kept humming without really knowing why. It was beautiful.
I thought Yume was a very interesting adaption. Ono-sensei chose the themes of sin and responsibility for the show. Sin was represented by Kaoru, and his back story, and how it is mirrored with Ukifune and Niou. So Kaoru's story is largely about his coming to terms with who he really is, and little by little the audience learns why Genji called him the "tsumi no ko", and also how that all influences his reactions when he discovers Niou and Ukifune together. The story was changed so that in the beginning Ni no Miya was the chosen heir, leaving Niou free to grow up as a carefree and irresponsible playboy. Then, he begins to change little by little after his brother is disgraced and he is made the heir. A large chunk of his self-discovery comes from that adventure he has with Kosaishou no Kimi outside of the palace. .... I do have one huge gripe about Ai-chan's character. A village girl would NEVER have managed to become a lady-in-waiting to the First Princess. But I'll try to suspend my disbelief because that scen was entirely too marvelous to complain about.
Okay, the cast. I have to admit, I've been kind of swept up in the mini wave of anti-Sena Jun sentiment lately. Because I think it is time for her to retire, to let the rest of the troupe become mobile again. But, that said, there are reasons I was once madly in love with her, and her Niou no Miya reminded me of many of them. I was worried about Asako rockin' the Heian garb, but from that very first comedy scene with the gentlewomen, she managed to pull me in. And she made Niou likable while still giving him a personality, which I think is a feat in and of itself. I was really cheering for her and Ukifune, even though I knew the ending of the story.
But as much as I was cheering Niou and Ukifune, I was also cheering Kaoru and Ukifune. I liked Kaoru much more than Niou in the book, and I think Kiriya Hiromu got those things that I loved about Kaoru spot-on. He's serious, and prone to self-reflection; he wants to do what's right for everyone, and in the process manages to cock everything up. I thought it was interesting that Ono-sensei actually had him talk to Ukifune. It was very much like Genji fan fiction, in a way... What if? Or, This Off-Stage Scene, now On Stage. ;) Of course, I think a lot of people are just going to think that Kiriyan's Kaoru has a stick up his butt, but I really loved him.♥ But for those people who think this is a double-lead show, it really isn't. It really, really isn't. I kept being startled every time Kiriyan appeared on stage -- like I'd forgotten she was in this show. ^^:
Okay, so Hazakura Shizuku. Her singing has improved immensely since the Hakataza Me&My, or else the music fit her range better. I really enjoyed her Ukifune, when I expected I'd spend most of the show seething that she wasn't Ai-chan. I could... I could see her with Kiriyan, as a top star. There was a scene or two where I'll admit I even started getting excited about the possibility. (But lately I've just had this feeling about Kiriyan... well, we'll see. That's a whole other post.)
Hanase Mizuka!! Oh, oh, I was so excited when she got Onna Ichi no Miya, and then I was downcast because I expected she wouldn't get much of a part at all, and then she was there, being awesome. And-! They gave me my sibling love♥ *is a sick, sick woman* And Shirosaki Ai rocking this part that they essentially made up for her. I loved it -- cynical and witty and just♥ Ranno Hana is the Koubai girl. I thought she looked absolutely adorable with Ahi, but... errr... their voices went together like water and oil. ^^;;;
Our Senka ladies were in fine form, though I have to admit I didn't pay much attention to Rika Masumi or Isono Chihiro. Though Chihiro made a quite awesome lead villain.... I thought she was an odd choice to play Ban Akira's son. ^^;; But Ban-san as Genji-!!!!!!!! Oh, oh, oh...... ♥♥♥♥ She's always going to be my Genji now. And she makes a mighty wonderful creepy puppet.♥♥♥♥♥♥
Ryouga Haruhi rocked the house. I think I fell more than a little in love with her Ni no Miya, who was just such a noble, self-sacrificing, dumb knut. And she's pretty in Nihonmono makeup.♥ Kiryuu Sonoka's character was hilarious. She played Asako's retainer, always following her around or running in with news. Aoki Izumi played evil brother #1 (Emon no Kami), Yugiri's elder son -- not a very thrilling role for her, I'm afraid. :/ Seijou Kaito played evil brother #2 (Saishou no Chuujo), and had a most awesome evil laugh.♥
Ryuu Masaki played eager young retainer #2 (Michisada). Michisada is Niou's retainer, but also the son-in-law of one of Kaoru's retainers, and she's the one who lets drop that Kaoru has been hanging out at Uji again, causing Niou to go investigate. A very pivotal moment. *grin* Also, she sings a solo in one of the opening songs (which is still stuck in my head -- very catchy!).
Kouzuki Ruu is Ai-chan's loutish brother.♥♥♥ She looks soooo pretty in Nihonmono makeup! I want to see the shinko. T_T T_T T_T
So, yes. I worried I wouldn't love it, and then I worried I'd only love it because of who was in it, but.... I don't think that's the case at all. I loved it as itself -- I really rather cool story that was staged beautifully with enough dancing in the aisles to keep you awake between all of the angst. Also, political plotting.♥ You win, Ono-sensei!
(The revue will have to wait a bit... this took me three hours. ^^;;)
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Date: 2008-11-30 03:31 am (UTC)I haven't seen either version of Asaki Yume Mishi, but I'm not a big fan of angsty Heian pieces in general, so I'm really happy to hear that you liked this one, and that Ai-chan got something to do.
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Date: 2008-12-02 01:43 am (UTC)Ai-chan got a couple of songs, too<3
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Date: 2008-11-30 04:35 am (UTC)I'm glad to hear you liked it, I seem to be the only one still looking forward to it. ^_^; And I like angst, so there.
Ban-san as a puppet... I might never sleep again...
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Date: 2008-12-02 01:45 am (UTC)Ban-san is the most amazing creepy puppet ever.
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Date: 2008-11-30 04:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-02 01:48 am (UTC)I hope that summary makes some sense. ^^; I know a few people planning to see the show who don't speak much Japanese at all, so I wanted to do a more thorough one than the official one... but it's all a bit complicated sounding, isn't it? It isn't, really!
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Date: 2008-11-30 05:14 am (UTC)As usual, I love your reviews, :D!
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Date: 2008-12-02 01:52 am (UTC)I'm glad you liked the review! I hope you get a chance to see the show soon.<3
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Date: 2008-11-30 05:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-02 01:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-02 01:58 am (UTC)Or, let's be more realistic: skive off and take me with you one day!!
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Date: 2008-12-02 11:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-03 12:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-02 11:17 pm (UTC)It is such a pleasure (and torture :P) to read them, knowing that one will never be able to watch those shows, at least not live... your reviews are really comforting!
I just wanted to say this once.:)
Again: Thank you very much!
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Date: 2008-12-02 11:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-08 05:29 am (UTC)i can't wait!
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Date: 2009-01-13 12:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-03 04:36 pm (UTC)Just thought I'd drop by and say Thanks for the summary.
It helped clear up parts I wasn't too sure about ^____^v
I loved it by the way ^____^ My first nihonmono show :D
And Apasionado was just HOT. HAWT. <3
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Date: 2009-04-09 05:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-21 09:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-21 01:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-21 03:16 pm (UTC)