Thursday, April 7th, 1988

Note:  This is a series of journal entries from my two years living in Himeji, Japan (1988-1990).  I'm archiving them electronically through my blog.  Last names have been deleted and replaced with first initial only.  For details on this series of blog entries, see this post. 

Well, today was the last official day of spring vacation.  Karl, Linda Lee, and I went to a town called Takarazuka to see the play "Kiss Me Kate".  The play revolves around Shakespeare's "Taming of the Shrew".  What made this play so unusual, is that the cast was all female (much like Shakespeare's day only with all women casts and not all men casts).  Some of them were very believable as men.

 admission ticket

The play was wonderful, the sets terrific, and all in Japanese.  For the first act, I couldn't understand a thing (except that Linda Lee kept telling me what was happening).  For the second act I rented a translator (which was annoying, because it was either behind or ahead of the play, and couldn't be heard at all during the songs).

The dancing was very good, the singing good, and the acting well done.  Takarazuka is a specialty girls school training girls in theater.  They study intensely for two years.  I assume they have classes in "the art of being a man", etc.

 stamp at Grand Theater

Today's show opened with about 50 graduates telling us this was their first show (they danced in the revue at the end), and to please wish them well.  My favorite scene was a very glitzy wedding scene near the end of Act II where Bianca and Lucentio get married.  Everyone is dressed in white glitter and satin, the curtains are silky, arches and pillars, all the lighting in pastel colors with stars in the background...it was gorgeous!

After the show was a 20 minutes glitzy "can can" type review.  Sparkles and lights, disco globes, and fan kicks, waltzing, and flowing gowns- simply eye popping!

We also saw some sights on the grounds after we waited in line for "day of" tickets (we stood in line for an hour to get a number to go inside and buy remaining tickets- we were #14, 15, 16- so no problem).

We saw the dinosaur exhibit, with fairly realistic, semi-moving reptiles.  We also rode through the fairy tale house.  We rode past scenes from 2 or 3 Japanese fairy tales, as well as scenes from "The Little Match Girl", and "Pinocchio"- it was neat!

We had lunch at a fancy coffee lounge (the chandelier was glitzy, to).  (In case you haven't noticed, I'm partial to sparkle...it must be my theater background!!).  We have various snacks throughout the day, and ate at Sato back in Himeji (why do I always write about food?!).

Watched Airwolf back at K's, and now am going to bed...