This is an excerpt of a longer paywalled interview for Takarazuka Precious about the Moon Troupe show A-“R”ex. The original article was published on December 19, 2007 (archived link).
A-“R”ex star Sena Jun: “I want you to see it the way it feels to you”
The Moon Troupe production A-“R”ex, staring Sena Jun, opened at Umeda Arts Theatre Drama City on December 14. Ogita Kouichi’s pop musical-style play about the brief life of King Alexander III of Macedonia opens with a scene of actors rehearsing the show “Alexander”. In that setting, the story of Alexander/Alex and the people surrounding him develops. Sena Jun told us a bit about how she handled the unique world that Ogita had constructed for the play.
About Sena Jun:
Sena Jun, from Tokyo, is the Top Star of the Takarazuka Revue’s Moon Troupe.
She debuted in 1992, in “This Love Until the Cloudy Horizon”. In 1993, she was assigned to Flower Troupe. In 1998, she had the lead role of the Shinjinkouen production of “SPEAKEASY”. She had the lead in the Bow Hall show “Manon” in 2001. She was transferred to Moon Troupe in 2004, and became Top Star of Moon Troupe in 2005.
From the interview:
So the story develops as a play-within-a-play?
No–while it starts out that way, the whole thing isn’t a play-within-a-play. It isn’t really determined that the borders of the story go from ‘here’ to ‘there’. Therefore, it’s the kind of show where the audience has to determine for themselves whether my lines are being spoken as Alexander or as the actor playing him. It’s really interesting because depending on how you take it, everything could be from the actor’s point of view, or everything could be from Alexander’s.
That definitely sounds like Ogita’s kind of world. Are the costumes like the “hippie” style we saw in the poster?
It’s not all like that, and I have a few different kinds of outfits, but I don’t have any costumes that could be called “ancient style”.
On reading the outline of the story, it looks like the fighting takes place in the background, but are there also parts about political battles and struggles for power?
While there are no tangible battle scenes, as I explained earlier, I think it’s up to the audience to perceive what is what according to their own imagination. Nothing is defined clearly enough to say for sure “this scene is a battle”, “this scene is a squabble with his mother”. I think it should be felt as more than just following the story of Alexander, but as reflecting the conflicts of humanity at the time, or the thoughts of people living at that time.