Kakumei banzai!

[starlady]

So today we went to see the Star Troupe of the Takarazuka Revue put on "The Scarlet Pimpernel" in Takarazuka. Holy crap it was awesome. For those of you who don't know, Takarazuka is famous for being all-female, and I have to say (especially from way up in the back of the house) it was disconcertingly hard to remember that the people playing the male roles were not actually men. Not so much the parts with few lines, since their idea of masculinity is clearly indebted to the Japanese Army (i.e. lots of blustering anger and shouting), but definitely for the lead male roles. Wow the main otokoyaku got so much applause! Practically every time she walked on the stage, I swear. At any rate, just as a production itself, it was pretty good I thought (the company is clearly swimming in dough: I've never seen a stage with more moving parts), though I swear I went blind from all the sparklies, and the costuming choices were free-handed at best. The best part was when Percy and his cohorts are like "They're searching for the Scarlet Pimpernel in London! What kind of man do they think the Pimpernel is? Strong and cool! So we have to be even more like peacocks!" and they broke open a closet in the wall to reveal...18th century pimp outfits, I kid you not. Floor-length zebra coats with matching hat and pink plumes anyone? Don't forget the sky blue trousers and pinstripe vests! Oh, it was awesome! And at the end of the omake/encore, the lead otokoyaku came out, I kid you not, in a three-foot ostrich- and pheasant-feather contraption. Brilliant. Though, okay, as I said to basically everyone, the text's not-at-all-implicit anti-revolution, pro-aristocracy bias is both grating and interesting, since i can't really think of any other terribly popular texts that have such anti-egalitarian principles and yet are still so popular. I suppose everyone gets around it by playing up the romance.

In other news, we had a party in Kobe this weekend and it was quite awesome. Oh man the nachos and the takoyaki were amazing. I want more nachos.

Comments

[nokiirat.livejournal.com]

zebra coats and nachoes? sounds like a great time to me. :)

[starlady38.livejournal.com]

Yeah, we know how to have fun.

[spacevlad.livejournal.com]

Nachos and takoyaki, lol, that's an unusual combination!

ELO FTW.