‘Far from beauty & elegance’
Ikuko Kitagawa / Daily Yomiuri Staff Writer
Yukio Ninagawa’s quirky and coquettish Shintoku-Maru is back. First staged 13 years ago, the Oedipal drama of a forbidden love between a boy and his stepmother was most recently run in 1997 and 2002.
“When [Shintoku-Maru Final] finished six years ago, I thought it would be the last time, and I put the role to bed. But we loved the play so much, so we’re very happy to be doing it again,” Kayoko Shiraishi–the only person in the play’s long run to play Nadeshiko, the stepmother–told The Daily Yomiuri ahead of an evening performance of Shintoku-Maru Fukkatsu (revival) at the Sai no Kuni Saitama Arts Theater.
The Japan performance, which stars Tatsuya Fujiwara as Shintoku, follows February’s performance at the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington.
Shintoku-Maru keeps the veteran actress busy for the full 90 minutes of the performance, as she has to change kimono six times.
“I was worried about whether I was strong enough to perform again, but I decided I’d give it a shot,” said Shiraishi, who performs twice a day. “If it was only one staging a day, I might be able to do it in a couple of years, but it’ll be impossible for me to keep up this schedule next time.”
Surely, Shiraishi’s role is the most demanding of the play, as Nadeshiko has more dialogue and dances, and has to switch her persona between kind mother, evil woman and passionate lover.
The play is based on a centuries-old oral tradition that was adapted to the stage by Shuji Terayama and Rio Kishida. Nadeshiko is a traveling entertainer who is purchased by Shintoku’s father to be his wife. Shintoku misses his biological mother so much that he can’t make a connection with Nadeshiko, causing her to become jealous. This strong feeling eventually turns to lust.
“Mr. Ninagawa has designed a group of individual sets to suit Nadeshiko’s state of mind–for the evil woman who appears in Shintoku’s dream, the mother in day-to-day life, an amorous woman in a red-light district and a crazy woman,” she said, adding that it was impossible to perform Nadeshiko’s passion and madness with only one stage set.
Shiraishi said she had wanted to play the role of Nadeshiko for years–ever since she saw the kabuki play Sesshu Gappoga-Tsuji, which tells a similar story to Shintoku-Maru, in which a woman called Tamate-gozen falls in love with her stepson. Shiraishi was hoping to land the role, but at the same time was unsure how she should play a woman who falls in love with her stepson, expressing coquetry and psychological instability. Shiraishi said she tried to explore the character’s mentality, only to come to the conclusion that her acting was not yet up to par.
“I’ve long wondered at which age I would be able to play this role and kept the part in the back of my mind,” she said. “Then, the role of Nadeshiko fell into my lap as if it was a message from God.”
Shiraishi is known for playing eccentric and morbid characters, such as the offspring of a Greek god and a human, or a crazy queen who murders her husband. While Nadeshiko can certainly be counted among her other eccentric roles, the character also comes with a beautiful and heroic nature.
“I’d always dreamed of playing a princess,” said Shiraishi, recalling her childhood, when she wanted to play the heroine but was always cast as a hag. “Among my many roles, Nadeshiko may be the closest to what I would call a heroine.”
The character might be called a princess, too, the actress explains, saying there is a moment–when she is dressed up in her elaborate kimono, makeup and hairdo–that she feels like royalty.
“I like every one of Nadeshiko’s scenes, such as when she eats dinner with her family or goes crazy with her hair standing on end in Shintoku-Maru’s dream,” she says. “But in all seriousness, the final love scene with Shintoku-Maru, although it’s the hardest scene to play, is the big scene, as I play her as a seductive and passionate woman.”
In 1967, Shiraishi quit her job at the Minato Ward office to pursue a career as a stage actress, believing it was the best way to release her pent-up energy. Aspiring to the role of heroine, Shiraishi soon realized that she wanted to express something deeper than could be expressed by the often superficial role of heroine.
“I’d be a bore if I didn’t express a nature of humanity that is far from beauty and elegance,” she says.
In Shintoku-Maru, she says she cares a lot about Nadeshiko’s nature, which flip-flops crazily within the play.
Says Shiraishi, “I have to have dual and triple natures in my mind to successfully portray Nadeshiko’s character as it changes in a blink of an eye from the mundane to the surreal.”
“Shintoku-Maru Fukkatsu” runs until April 10 at Sai no Kuni Saitama Arts Theater in Saitama. No performance on Mondays. The closest station is JR Yono-Honmachi Station. Tickets start at 5,000 yen. For more information, call (03) 3490-4949.
Source: Yomiuri.co.jp
Yukio Ninagawa’s “Hebi ni Piasu” (also known as “Snakes and Earrings”) finished filming in December, but certain cast details quietly slipped under the radar until recently.While it was widely announced that Yuriko Yoshitaka was starring alongside Kengo Kora and ARATA, the movie’s guest cast was not publicized. Media outlets are now reporting that Kamejiro Ichikawa, Shun Oguri, Toshiaki Karasawa, and Tatsuya Fujiwara are among the faces that appear in the film.