TRIPLE 4 is a Kageki feature where siennes list their top 3 favorites in 4 different Takarazuka-related categories. Ootori Mayu’s was published in the July 2016 issue, along with Tenju Mitsuki’s.
Again, a lot of these shows I haven’t seen so I have to go by her descriptions.
TRIPLE 4 – Ootori Mayu
Characters I’ve played who are most like me
1. Victorian Jazz, Arthur Conan Doyle
2. Phantom junior performance, the Phantom
3. Me and My Girl, Cedric Parchester
Althought Doyle was a real person, the way Director Tabuchi wrote him was quite close to my own personality…the way he gets carried away with things is totally me (laughs). I was also given a lot of liberty in the performance, so looking back I can almost say it was just me onstage. I really had a lot of freedom with that character (laughs).
Eric (the Phantom) was a really hard role, and I recieved a lot of instruction from Ranju (Tomu)-san who had the real part, but I decided I should start out with the character by finding aspects that were similar to me. And there were a surprising amount of things we had in common…As I got deeper into character I felt ‘he’s really a lot like me’.
On the other hand, with Parchester, I really struggled to get a grasp on the character, so I decided I might as well play it as myself for once. When I did that ‘what would I do in this situation’ part really took off, so I think he became more like me.
Shows that made me cry the most as an audience member
1. Arc de Triomphe
2. The Dancing Girl
3. For the People
I saw Arc de Triomphe while I was a student1, and it made me cry more than I ever had in my life until then. Todoroki-san’s lead role, Ravic, was a gorgeous study in otokoyaku aesthetics, amazingly cool! In the twilight before WWII, a surgeon dies a beautiful death…accompanied by the beautiful music it was so heart-wrenching and I cried so much.
In The Dancing Girl, the heroine was played by my classmate Nono Sumika-chan, and I could feel the amount of passion the performers were putting into it, and the story was both sad and dramatic. I remember being really moved by it.
I know I was actually in Lincoln, but looking at it from the outside, I was delighted to be in the same show with Todoroki-san from Arc de Triomphe – I couuldn’t take my eyes off her in rehearsal for a single moment! It might be because of those incredible days that I would sometimes start crying on stage when I thought about Lincoln…
Favorite songs I’ve performed
1. Phantom junior performance, the Phantom’s song ‘My Mother Bore Me’
2. For the People, ‘For the People’
3. Me and My Girl, Parchester’s song ‘The Family Solicitor’
I love all the songs in Phantom, but in this one, I think the character’s emotions in the moment are expressed the most clearly. Since the junior performance only happens once, everything had to be settled on ahead of time, but I couldn’t sing this song without having Misaki Rion-chan’s performance as Christine to react to. That song taught me how to completely immerse myself in a character’s emotions while singing.
This song from For The People is a number where everyone gathers around Lincoln to sing about their hope for the future, so the feeling of unity was really strong – even the audience would get caught up on it and it was as if the whole theatre came together as one. I could practically feel it. It was unforgettable.
In Parchester’s song, even though everyone around is really proper they get swept up in it (laughs); it’s really fun to watch them start to enjoy themselves, and I’ve always liked it. Being able to sing it myself made me like it even more!
Characters who most make me feel ‘I want to be them!’
1. Elisabeth, Elisabeth
2. West Side Story, Tony
3. PUCK, Puck
Elisabeth was a real person, but of course I first heard of her when I saw Takarazuka’s Elisabeth. At first I feel in love with the show, and then as I researched the historical background, I became more interested in Elisabeth as a person. Of course there’s depth to anyone’s life, but to inspire such a fantastical musical…I yearn for a life with the kind of drama Elisabeth’s had, I suppose.
As for Tony, in the first place, I like the world of 1950s America that he lived in. So while basically I would like to time travel back to that era, I also feel like I want to experience the life of such a passionate, energetic young man; in mere days he meets and falls in love with Maria, to the point of losing his life in the end.
Puck is a fairy, so of course I am really interested in what it would be like to live as something other than human!
1 – The original Arc de Triomphe productions were prior to Ootori’s entry into TMS, so she means mainstream schooling.