Thursday, November 17, 2011

Takarazuka Revue

Last weekend I traveled to Osaka with some friends to watch the Takarazuka Revue put on an all-female musical version of Ocean's 11, in Japanese.  Yes, you read that correctly.  As you may have guessed, Lee decided to stay home rather than accompany the all-girl crowd to the all-girl show.


Friday night we took the train to Osaka and watched the movie (it's based on the Clooney version, not Sinatra's) to prepare ourselves for the show and hopefully to follow the plot a little bit better.  This was especially a good idea for me because my Japanese is the worst in the group (most of them studied Japanese in college). We went out for scones the next morning:


Then headed on over to the theater itself:


The show had just opened the day before. Ocean's 11 in honor of 11/11/11 I do believe, and we went to the 11 am showing of it. The theater itself is pretty small, and our seats weren't particularly close. We rented opera glasses in order to get a better look, and wow do they ever work! You could see every expression, which was great when one character was being highlighted but not so good when you were trying to follow two characters at opposite ends of the stage.


The show had singing, dancing, sequins, and some very odd plotlines, so much so that watching the movie wasn't really a great help! Of course, it was still about a Las Vegas casino heist, but the similarities ended soon after. No pictures during the show, though there were one or two things I wish I'd taken a picture of anyway to show off. During one of the Vegas numbers, the supporting showgirls were all in costumes that looked suspiciously like these guys, but with capes, for no discernible reason. We certainly weren't expecting the Spanish Inquisition during a Japanese version of Ocean's 11!





After the show, we still had most of Saturday left. We went out for frozen yogurt (Lee's note - she created this dish, not the staff, it was a create-your-own-and-they-weigh-it place):


And Mexican food with Yuzu (Japanese citrus) margaritas:


Yes, in that order. We ended the night with two hours of karaoke and a Mister Donut (chain doughnut store like Dunkin' Donuts) run. An excellent time was had by all!

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