Nagoya Players Present... The Red Oni Cried & Tsuchigami to Kitsune

By Jason Schleifer

Having just finished up their first musical in over 30 years, Nagoya Players now have two different shows in the works for their winter performance. The Nagoya Players are Trying something a little bit different this year, adapting two classic Japanese stories for the stage and in the process trying to bring a little culture back to the foreign community. 

In The Red Oni Cried, we follow a big jolly Red Oni whose only fried is Blue Oni. Blue Oni is just fine with their mano e mano arrangement, but Red Oni wants to branch out and have some non-Oni friends. More specifically, he wants to make some human friends. Unfortunately for the Red Oni, humans tend to be terrified of Onis (this probably has something to do with their reputation for eating people). We watch as Red Oni tries various approaches, from cooking sweets to general trickery. This one's a great story that is fun for the whole family - or a good way to impress that new Japanese girl whose number you just picked up.

For the second performance of the night, the Players bring us Tsuchigami to Kitsune (The Earth God and The Fox) in its original Japanese format, with English subtitles. Written by the well-known Kenji Miyazawa, this show is set during the Meiji Restoration. The main characters, portrayed as animals, are an Earth God, a birch tree, and a fox. The birch tree is a classic symbol of beauty in northern Japan, and both the earth God and the fox are barking up one particularly attractive birch tree. The fox has traveled the world over and knows all about this new-fangled science thing that everyone is talking about - but foxes are at the bottom of the social class totem pole. The Earth God, on the other hand, rules the land and can do anything he wants - you know, because he's a god - yet his social skills are virtually nonexistent. This reminds me a little bit of the relationship between foreigners, Japanese girls, and Japanese nationalists...

As usual, the show will be held at The Aichi Arts Center Mini Theatre, which is located in Sakae next to Oasis 21. The shows will be performed on the weekend of November 21st and 22nd, with performances at 14:00 and 19:00 on Saturday and 14:00 and 18:00 on the Sunday. You can get tickets a few different ways: Either acquire them from an active member of The Nagoya Players, snap them up online at www.nagoyaplayers.info (click on the Box Office button), or pay at the door (this will cost you more). Ticket prices are as follows: ¥2,500/¥3,000 for adults, ¥1,800/¥2,000 for students, and ¥1,500 for children.

Download a PDF of this article as it appears in the November 2009 issue of Japanzine!

Latest Forum Threads