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zukalations · 7 years ago

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Farewell Takarazuka Grand Theatre: 4 Top Stars Special Talk

This interview, published in the December 1992 Kageki, features the four Top Stars of the time (Shion Yuu, Mori Keaki, Anju Mira, and Suzukaze Mayo) reminiscing as the Takarazuka Grand Theatre was about to be entirely rebuilt. There’s a lot of details about their early careers and time as fans themselves before entering the company.

Farewell Takarazuka Grand Theatre: 4 Top Stars Special Talk

Participants: Suzukaze Mayo, Shion Yuu, Mori Keaki, Anju Mira

Shion: I’ve been watching Takarazuka e~ver since I was in my mother’s womb, so I’m very sad to lose the Takarazuka Grand Theatre we have now. I love the atmosphere…getting off at Takarazuka station, walking down the road lined with souvenir shops, and going past the onsens to see a show at the Grand Theatre. And then heading back along the Hana no Michi humming the show’s theme song.

Mori: The first time I went inside the Takarazuka Grand Theatre was when I took the TMS entrance exam.

Shion: Really!?

Mori: Until then I had only seen Takarazuka on TV. When I first set foot in Takarazuka, it sort of reminded me of Sendai somehow.

Suzukaze: Ah, I think I understand what you mean.

Mori: It’s a very peaceful area, and everything’s really pretty. When did you first see Takarazuka, Kaname (Suzukaze)?

Suzukaze: I first saw Takarazuka on a field trip in my third year of middle school. I just had a seat behind a pillar, but it was a really vivid memory for me.

Shion: I love that pillar, you know. It really makes me feel like I’m in the Grand Theatre. When I was first a fan and didn’t understand how to get tickets ahead of time, I’d line up for tickets and if I got one it would always be behind that pillar. I’d watch everyone heading up to the seats in front and wonder who on earth they could be to get seats so close.

Suzukaze: When I first saw Takarazuka during the field trip, I thought anyone could meet the stars of the show whenever they liked. So I went to the place where they were renting the opera glasses, pointed to a picture in the program, and asked ‘Please, I’d like to meet this person.’

Shion, Mori, Anju: So cu~te!!

Suzukaze: The young lady there told me 'You can’t do that.’ (laughs)

Mori: When I first saw Takarazuka, I bought same-day tickets and ended up in the very back of the first floor. Watching from that far back the stage looked so far away that it seemed like something I could never reach: it felt like watching TV.

Anju: I first went to the Takarazuka Grand Theatre for Shime (Shion)-san’s TMS Culture Festival.

Mori: I was there too, in the yokasei drum and fife ensemble. (laughs)

Anju: Oh, you were there together~. I came for the entrance exam and saw the Culture Festival, and I was just in time for Snow Troupe’s Gone With The Wind, so I watched that as well, feeling like I was going to fall from the third floor the whole time. I couldn’t see faces clearly, and there was a ton of applause at the opening announcement 'This is Migiwa Natsuko of Snow Troupe,’ so I was really startled. At the Culture Festival, I even saw Shime-san leaving through the stage door.

Shion: The Culture Festival was the first time I set foot on the stage of the Grand Theatre, so I was really emotional~

Mori: You had a quick change coming through the audience, right? That was so moving.

Shion: The costumes were hanging up in the wings, and just seeing that I was like 'Real Takarazuka costumes~’ so it was really emotional for me. I knew it wasn’t like Koshien [1], but I thought 'Maybe I could just take this home after getting off stage…’ (laughs)

Anju: I don’t really remember my Culture Festival well, but when I was doing the address for my debut I was so emotional I thought I would cry.

Suzukaze: I remember being in the yokasei drum and fife ensemble better. For my Culture Festival I feel like I was just desperately trying to get through it.

Shion: And after debuting and gradually becoming a senior actress there are even more various emotions to encounter.

Anju: It’s delightful going up through the lifts, or being on the silver bridge - it’s like your dreams are coming true one by one.

Mori: While when I was started I was always way off to the side where it says 'Hankyu Department Store’ [2], gradually I moved more towards the center until before I even realized it I’d ended up here - that sort of thing is so fascinating.

Suzukaze: On the last day of the Moon Troupe show in the Grand Theatre I felt like it was the most emotional performance we’d ever done. From the start everyone was so enthusiastic and then during the last curtain call we all said 'thank you’ to the Grand Theatre together with the whole audience, which was a really happy moment. I love that theatre, it feels like it raised me…it’s really hard on me to see it go. They told us that by the time Moon Troupe gets back from the Tokyo performance, all the electricity will have been shut off, even the emergency lights, so that made closing day even more emotional.

Mori: Snow Troupe will be the very last to perform in the current Grand Theatre [3], which really is deeply moving. What I keep thinking about is how it’s not just part of my career, but that it’s connected to all the other performers who have stood on that stage for nearly 70 years - to be at the end of that is something that makes me feel happy, pressured, all sorts of emotions. When I start thinking about it I can’t help but feel that the Grand Theatre is a truly amazing place.

Anju: It’s a theatre full of so much history and so many memories.

Shion: It’s so sad~

Suzukaze: Did you take video when you were doing your last Grand Theatre performance?

Shion: I did, I did! From the dressing rooms to the baths (laughs)

Suzukaze: During the Moon Troupe performance, to commemorate it we let even the most junior actresses use the Uni Baths [4], so everyone was happy.

Anju: The stars to the dressing rooms after the shrine to Inari-san leave such an impression, right?

Suzukaze: And don’t the dressing rooms have their own unique scent?

Shion: They do, they do~

Suzukaze: It’s really calming somehow.

Shion: It’s like our home after all…

Mori: I feel like in a way an era is ending with this Grand Theatre and after this will be a fresh start.

Shion: Of course I have to be happy about a brand new Takarazuka Grand Theatre being built, but it’s actually a very complicated feeling, and I’m so sad I can hardly bear it…

Mori: I think there is going to be a bit of a dividing line between those who will only know the new Grand Theatre, and it’s going to be hardest on those like us who will experience both theatres. Which would be everyone here now…

Suzukaze: On the last day of the Moon Troupe performances, during the curtain call our kumichou said 'I feel the new Grand Theatre will inherit all the gathered memories that our current Grand Theatre has protected.’ When I heard it I thought 'That’s really it.’ The new Grand Theatre will be good in its own way, and since humans are territorial creatures we’ll surely get used to it, but emotionally, the current Grand Theatre seems to know all our joys and strengths so it’s very sad.

Mori: It’ll be really tough until we get used to the new theatre, I’m sure. When we were doing the photoshoot in the audience seats I was thinking 'this is really our home’ - it really feels like it’s full of the souls of so many different people.

Shion: it’s a living building. You can feel the life in it.

Mori: I heard that in the new Grand Theatre, the state operations will be controlled by a computer system, but I won’t be able to forget the artistic skill of all the stage staff who have supported us until now. For example, how happy a feeling it is when the spotlight operator shuts off the light, bam! at the perfect moment. It’s a really great feeling, like, 'we’re in perfect sync!’ It’s rather like a mental art so it’s very unfortunate that it will go away. There are so many stagehands doing hard, sweaty work to support us, and all sorts of other staff giving their all out of love to put these productions together. I loved that feeling of what we do being a collaborative art.

Anju: In Fancy Touch I’m on top of a pyramid in the prologue, and they got me up there backstage through human power. I think if you didn’t have a trusting relationship with the stagehands you’d surely be too scared to do that sort of thing. So it makes me wonder what will become of that in the future as well.

Suzukaze: Like Yan-san (Anju), when I was in PUCK there were mechanisms moving me through the air and such, and there wasn’t a single error through the whole production. When I’m in this current Grand Theatre I can really feel that us actresses can’t make a show all by ourselves, but it starts with all the people supporting and helping us. My strongest memory is the warmth, how people would do things like say 'good luck’ during a performance. I’m sure that won’t change even when we go to the new theatre, but I still have a lot of worries.

Mori: I’m sure everyone has a lot of doubts and concerns about starting over, but I feel that once we get started in the new theatre we’ll be able to enjoy it. But still, this theatre is filled with so many memories they can’t even be expressed in words.

Shion: I can’t forget the performance of War and Peace when the Grand Theatre stairs broke. They weren’t able to repair them in time for the last performance, so even though so many people were retiring - Shou-chan (Haruna Yuri), Rin-chan (Tajima Kumi), Pucchii-san (Azumi Reika), Maimai (Minakaze Mai), and so many others - through the whole run we had to use a staircase with only a few steps, as if it was a regional production. If we start talking about all the memories of things like that that have happened in this Grand Theatre there’ll be no end to it.

Mori: By the way, it’s quite unusual for all 4 of us to be able to talk like this. What’s really interesting is that there’s only one class year between each of us [5].

Shion: That’s right, even though I feel like some of us are together for magazine features and such regularly. I’ve had newspaper intervieews and such together with Yan often, so if I’m asked about her reason for joining the company or something I can answer easily. (laughs)

Anju: I can do the same for Shime-san! (laughs)

Mori: I’ve done events and special appearances for a while, so I feel like we’ve been well acquainted for some time. When we’re all face to face like this it ends up feeling like a school reunion.

Anju: We were able to appear together in The Rose of Versailles [6] as well.

Suzukaze: That’s right. Even though I was a yokasei when Yan was a honkasei, we didn’t have any interaction [in TMS], but we became close when we were playing Oscar in The Rose of Versailles. After that, when you saw Memories of You, you told me 'your dancing has gotten better’, and that one sentence made me so happy I felt like jumping for joy and I started crying.

Anju: No way~ (laughs)

Suzukaze: That one statement gave me energy all the way through to the end of the run. I think Takarazuka is fascinating because of all the different sorts of shows all four troupes can do.

Shion: It’s great that each troupe has its own specialty.

Anju: I could never do Puck.

Suzukaze: If you put the ears on anyone could do it! (laughs)

Anju: They’d say I was an evil spirit, not a fairy. (laughs)

Shion: But it’s really sad that even though all four of us are together, Karincho (Mori) is about to retire. I feel like I’m losing my last comrade-in-arms I’ve spent all this time with, together with the Grand Theatre, which makes it all even more painful. I have so many memories welling up, but I’ve already told the person in question (laughs) so I won’t repeat all that! But I’m really so happy we will be able to perform together in the new Grand Theatre in January [7]!

Anju: Karincho-san was already a star even when she was still in TMS. You were somehow different from everyone else, and you were amazing even then. Being in the center seemed to suit you, so you would be placed in the center naturally from the beginning, and you could change the whole atmosphere around you.

Suzukaze: When me and Mori-san played Oscar and Andre together in The Rose of Versailles [8], I was so affected I wished I couuld steal even a tiny bit of Mori-san’s unique qualities for myself… While I think it’s really appropriate that you are the last to perform in the Grand Theatre, personally I wish you could be there forever. Please don’t leave~!! I’ll be there behind you taking notes as long as you’re here.

Mori: Thank you so much, everyone. Takarazuka is such a wonderful place, and I’ve had so much fun working with everyone to put on the shows, and the Top Stars all help each other out so warmly. Gosh, I’m going to cry… (laughs) Having the opportunity to be Top for four years, I had so many different experiences as both a stage performer and a human being, and I don’t have any regrets.

Shion: I’m really happy that Karincho-san and so many others will be there in January for the opening performance of the new theatre. Star Troupe is happy to have you.

Mori: I’ll be there getting in the way from the first show~ I’m glad I’ll be able to make one more good memory. I’ll have to investigate e~verything about the new Grand Theatre. I’m looking forward to it, hahaha.

Anju: While I’m sure I’ll be a bother in a lot of ways, I think I’m very lucky to have a special appearance in Star Troupe productions in both the old and new theatres. Thank you to everyone in Star Troupe for having us.

Suzukaze: I’ll give it my all. While I don’t know yet what they’ll be having me do, I want to be myself and enjoy the show with the kind help of the Star Troupe members. My dream to do a Japanese-themed show is coming true, and while I’m sure I’ll be terribly clumsy I’m prepared to do whatever it takes. Directors, Senka members, everyone in Star Troupe, please take care of Suzukaze Mayo. I think when I’m onstage at the new Grand Theatre in the Star Troupe performance I’ll feel even more that this Grand Theatre is really gone.

Anju: Even if I wail and cry, this Grand Theatre will still be gone, so although I’ll be sad and miss it dearly, I would like to go onstage at the new theatre with fresh emotions.

Mori: I’m very grateful that Snow Troupe will be closing out the Grand Theatre. There’s only one thing remaining for me, which is to give this Grand Theatre, that has been filled with everyone’s memories, a brilliant conclusion. Every day I express my gratitude to the Grand Theatre so I feel confident it will go well.

Shion: Thank you!! After this when you appear in the new theatre’s opening production, we can begin building a new history together.

1. I think this is a reference to the special uniforms worn by teams competing in the Koshien baseball tournament.

2. In very old shows, the Grand Theatre drop curtain said ‘Hankyu Department Store’ on the side, where lower-ranking actresses would end up.

3. The Takarazuka run of The 47 Ronin was the last production to take place in the old Grand Theatre.

4. The Grand Theatre (old and new as far as I can tell) has three bathing areas separated by rank, with the Uni Baths reserved for the most senior actresses.

5. Shion Yuu, 64th class; Mori Keaki, 65th class; Anju Mira, 66th class; Suzukaze Mayo, 67th class.

6. 1990 Fersen production starring Ooura Mizuki.

7. The Star Troupe Houjushou/Parfum de Paris was the opening performance in the rebuilt Grand Theatre, featuring guests from the other troupes.

8. 1991 Oscar production starring Suzukaze Mayo.

#takarazuka #article translation #mag: kageki #sienne: shion yuu #sienne: mori keaki #sienne: anju mira #sienne: suzukaze mayo

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