Musicals

Fighting Against the Pandemic
Hagio Hitomi

In 2022, the confusion of the COVID-19 pandemic had already entered the thirdyear. Nevertheless, the number of performances in the musical world increased
as though the pent-up energy and gloomy mood was released all at once. Still,there were a number of cases in which the performances had to be cancelled orsuspended due to the pandemic. On the other hand, several original musicals
were produced one after another and they proved the underlying strength of theJapanese musical world.

International Companies Were Back Again andSome Large-Scale Musicals Were Cancelled061

During 2022, the musical world was brave to take risks and worked toward presenting shows while cautiously checking on the situation. International companies visiting Japan were the productions that were the most severely impacted by
the pandemic. However, they got going, starting with Singin’ in the Rain that
toured to Japan in February. It was a UK production and when you saw the scene
in which the lead Adam Cooper was singing and dancing in the pouring rain, it
felt as if a ray of hope was shining through the clouds. The production was full ofthe spirit not only to revive performances in Japan but also to protect theatre
culture by getting through the pandemic.
American companies such as RENT and A Chorus Line as well as Chicago,
Broadway Christmas Wonderland among others that were also from the US
toured to Japan in 2022. Although the number of visiting companies had
decreased compared to the peak period, they were coming back step by stepand it was one of the signs that the musical world was trying to overcome theglobal pandemic.
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Large-scale Japanese musical productions opened one after another as well.
Miss Saigon and Elisabeth were revived at the Imperial Theatre after they wereinevitably cancelled in 2020. Both musicals are very popular and the tickets werereferred to as “Platinum Tickets” as they were very difficult to get hold of.
However, in both productions, much to the dismay of the ticket holders, the performances frequently had to be cancelled when the cast got infected with coronavirus or when they were bound by quarantine rules.
It is true that the actors playing the main characters are a big draw for
popular musicals. In the future, however, the productions should be steered in a
direction that makes it possible to continue performances infallibly through aclearly defined system that makes more use of understudies (covering a certainrole) and swings (covering several roles). Some people go to a musical because
they want to see a box-office star but there are also many people who want toexperience the work itself. Especially when it comes to musicals that tour toseveral cities around Japan, there must be many local audiences who are excited062

to see the show for the first time. There are, however, an increasing number ofproductions that are now covered by understudies and/or swings due to the prolonged pandemic.
The performances of many productions were cancelled a number of times
due to the pandemic and it was most disappointing to the fans and the companyof Man of La Mancha starring Matsumoto Hakuo that it played only seventimes. Hakuo has been playing the title role since 1969 when his stage namewas Ichikawa Somegoro. The production was known Hakuo’s “final appearance” in Man of La Mancha and it was originally planned to play for about amonth. Thank goodness the producers made an exceptional decision to revive itin 2023 as there were so many people who were heartbroken because theymissed the show.

The Premiere of High-Profile Musicals and Resuming Postponed
Productions
Hairspray and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat were two epic
musicals that premiered in Japan after two years. Although international

companies of both musicals had toured Japan in the past, it was the first timethey were presented with Japanese casts.
The revival of Hairspray was a delightful surprise because the starring
actress, Watanabe Naomi, now lives outside Japan and she returned to be inthe show. She was just right for the heroine and it was difficult to imagine
anyone else playing the role. The characters in the musical overcome and rise
above all sorts of discrimination based on reasons such as gender, race andphysical appearance, and it was striking that the Afro-American characters
were played without putting on dark makeup. The decision on the makeup was
made due to a request from the Broadway producers. How to express different
races with a Japanese cast is probably going to be one of the next challenges forJapanese musicals.
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is one of Andrew Lloyd
Webber’s earlier works and Yabu Kota, who belongs to the talent agency Johnny& Associates, starred in the production. The musical opened at last two years
after the originally-planned date. But, surprisingly, there was only a small audi-063

ence. It was probably because there was a higher ratio of audience members thatare Johnny’s fans who are younger than the regular musical fans, and the situation during the pandemic must have made it difficult for them to “go on an expedition” to see Johnny’s idols perform.
Japan premieres of foreign musicals were also produced consistently
although smaller in number than they used to be. The Off-Broadway musical The
View Upstairs depicting gender discrimination was interesting as it fits with thetimes. Be More Chill was the Japanese-cast version of the musical that was premiered on Broadway in 2019. It is a drama about high schoolers who are copingwith life’s problems and it seems that the worldwide hit of the musical numbers
helped spur the Japan premiere.
I did not expect that Flower Drum Song and Bye Bye Birdie would be premiered in Japan. (Flower Drum Song was presented by the Takarazuka Revue
Company at Bow Hall in 1992 and is therefore not strictly the Japan premiere.)
Both musicals premiered on Broadway over fifty years ago and in Japan they
were produced by small-and-medium size or emerging production companies
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instead of major or long-established ones. The emerging production companies are the ones that are likely to discover and present more buried musicals
in the future.
Incidentally, there was an interesting phenomenon of two productions ofThe Fantasticks “competing” with one another. The latest version is called TheFantasticks−Boy Meets Boy, which was rewritten by Tom Jones who wrote theoriginal libretto and lyrics, and right after it was presented by a small production
company, Toho Co., Ltd., presented The Fantasticks for the first time in fifty-fiveyears. One was a gender-free version and the other was the original version. Bothproductions were impressive and the strong appeal of the musical got through.
The most fruitful musical produced in 2022 was probably Guys and Dolls. It
is a popular musical that premiered on Broadway in 1950 and has been revived inJapan several times by Takarazuka Revue Company and Toho Co., Ltd. since its
Japan premiere by Takarazuka in 1984. This time, the version produced by Toho
was updated by Michael Arden, who is currently the hottest director on Broad064

way. The scenic designer Dane Laffrey made full use of the stage mechanisms of
the Imperial Theatre and designed an effective set that helped to create a funfilled production.
A certain number of Korean musicals are presented in Japan every year
nowadays although they are small in number. Ludwig: Beethoven The Piano was
the most memorable production among the Korean musicals that were premiered
in Japan this year. It was a pity, however, that the libretto was not well written
although the music was enticing as is often the case with Korean musicals.

A Wide Variety of Original Musicals Produced One After Another
One of the features of the Japanese musical world in 2022 was, in short, thedrastic increase of original musicals. For many years, the Japanese musical world
has aspired to and called for the need of original musicals. The Japanese havebeen cultivating their capacity for creativity and while the number of original
musicals increased, the pandemic brought about pseudo isolation from othercountries and spurred the increase of original works.
Shiki Theatre Company premiered the long-awaited The Boy and the Beast(Bakemono no ko), which was due to run for about a year. Based on a popularanimated film directed by Hosoda Mamoru, Takahashi Chikae wrote the playscript, Fuki Harumi wrote and adapted the music and it was directed by Aoki
Go. Toby Olié, who had also worked on Shiki’s A Robot in the Garden, designedand directed the puppets. It is easy to imagine how hard it must have been towork with international staff during the pandemic but the production overcame
those difficulties and opened a new chapter for the theatre company.
Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince) was indeed a very appealing stage production. It is a musical adaptation of the popular novel by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.
It was originally made into a musical by Ongakuza Musical company in 1993 andhas been revived several times. This time it was produced by Toho Co., Ltd. Doi
Yuko, who played the prince when it was premiered in 1993, played the same partagain in the Toho version and it was amazing to see her timeless performance.
Currently, over half of the musicals that are presented in Japan are original
musicals including existing works like Le Petit Prince. They might not havereached the level of translated foreign musicals in terms of the size of audience065

and performances. However, if you count Takarazuka Revue Company’s works,
which are mostly original musicals, the original Japanese musicals probably
exceed foreign musicals both in the size of audience and performances.
Out of the works by Takarazuka Revue Company, Never Say Good Bye -The
Footsteps of Lovers and The Great Gatsby, which were updated and revived after along interval, were the productions that shone out. Another production that left astrong impression was The Pleiades in the Blue (Sokyu no Subaru). It is a musicaladaptation of Asada Jiro’s novel and had eighty-seven cast members in total,
which is only possible with a big theatre company like Takarazuka.
As there were so many original musicals and many of them ran for only ashort period of time, it is quite difficult to cover them all. I have, nevertheless,basically covered the main works and those that received attention, and will nowmention a few works that had a strong impact. First of all, Women of the Night(Yoru no onna tachi) was Nagatsuka Keishi’s first musical. Nagatsuka wrote theplayscript and directed the musical, which is based on Mizoguchi Kenji’s filmwith the same title (released in 1948), and it was performed with a unique cast.
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Before the Flood (Kozui no mae) produced by The Musical Company It’s
Follies was a remarkable production. The musical, which is considered to beIzumi Taku’s major work and is included in the company’s repertoire, was newly
directed by Uyama Hitoshi and presented for the first time in twenty-five years.
It is based on John Van Druten’s play I am a Camera, which was adapted fromChristopher Isherwood’s novel Goodbye to Berlin (just like Cabaret, which wasalso based on Druten and Isherwood’s works) and it was adapted into a story
about Japanese people living in Dalian in China just before the Second WorldWar. I was struck with wonder because both the music and the drama withstood
the test of time.
As with the movie with the same title, the musical Slumdog Millionaire isbased on the novel Q& A. Your Lie in April (Shigatsu wa kimi no uso) is a musicaladaptation of a comic book that was made into a movie. The musical Tokyo Love
Story somewhat took me by surprise. Although the comic-book TV drama
series with the same title was popular during the bubble economy period, I066

could not help asking: why now? It may be part of HoriPro Inc.’s strategy toexpand its activities in Asia along with Fist of the North Star (Hokuto no ken),which was premiered in 2021 and revived soon afterwards in 2022. This ismerely speculation, though.
It was a bit shocking when I heard that the Imperial Theatre, which isregarded as the musical hall of fame, will be closed for a while from 2025 to berebuilt. The passing away of the actor Takarada Akira, who played a pioneeringrole in the world of Japanese musicals, was also sad news. As I recall, El Gallo inThe Fantasticks was one of the successful roles he played in musicals. Although
there were all sorts of sad news and incidents during the year, the Japanesemusical world had entered a new phase and it was one thing that gave me hopein 2022.

Hagio, Hitomi
Hagio Hitomi is a film and theatre critic. She became a critic after working as a newspaper
journalist. Besides writing a column series on musicals in The Asahi Shimbun, she writes
reviews on films and theatre for other newspapers. She is the author of Take Me Out to theMusical! (Myujikaru ni tsuretette!) (Seikyusha, 1992) and Your First Musical Film Selected by aProfessional: Hagio Hitomi’s Top 50 (Puro ga eranda hajimete no myujikaru eiga: Hagio Hitomi
besuto serekushon 50). She is also on the selection committee of awards such as the Yomiuri
Theater Awards, the Kikuta Kazuo Theatre Awards and the Matsuo Performing Arts Award.
(Translation: Sumida Michiyo)

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