This is an talk between Beni and Coto during the run of The Scarlet Pimpernel, published in the June 2017 issue of GRAPH. It’s pretty in-depth and very fun!
chemicalperfume helped with editing and translating! Many thanks as always <3
Talk DX – The Scarlet Pimpernel: Kurenai Yuzuru & Rei Makoto
Kurenai: We’re nearly to the middle of the run. I’ve always wanted to do this show, so I’m so happy during every performance. Therefore, thinking ‘I’ve still got half the run to go!’ makes me really happy!
Rei: Me too. Each week goes by too fast.
Kurenai: Darn right!
Rei: I feel like it’s a better experience for us each time.
Kurenai: Yeah! The power of the audience is really immense. They say ‘one performance does more than 100 rehearsals’, so I really feel like the audience helps us continually improve our performance. It completely changes the atmosphere.
Rei: If I go back and listen to recordings from the vocal rehearsals, it’s totally different!
Kurenai: Yeah! However, a restage performance is really difficult, isn’t it.
Rei: It is.
Kurenai: It’s already been expanded on so much through the premiere performance and the first restage, so figuring out how to perform on top of that foundation is really hard.
Rei: For troupe members like me, who weren’t in the first production, there was a feeling that the audience probably knew the show better than we did, so that was really stressful… But there was also the reverse, where since this was my first time at it I performed as if to demonstrate ‘This is what The Scarlet Pimpernel is!’
Kurenai: Yeah!
Rei: The songs are all really well known—though they’re quite difficult songs (laughs). Every time I perform each song, I feel like I’m working together with the whole orchestra in that moment and it’s always a slightly different result. It’s really fun.
Kurenai: My favorite number is ‘Days of Glory.’
Rei: Oh~!
Kurenai: The power of the people is really important to the whole show, but in that song everyone finally comes together!
Rei: Yeah—but there’s still a lot of individuality.
Kurenai: Exactly!
Rei: It’s so good~! I really like ‘Into the Fire.’ It makes me so excited! My classmate Seo (Yuria) is in it so I asked her ‘Hey~ Hey~ What’s it like to be in that scene?’ Apparently due to the quick-changes and the moving platforms it’s really hard for the actual performers (laughs). But I’m always excited to watch it from the wings! It’s also really popular to watch from the side entrances; it’s always a struggle to get that spot.
Kurenai: Really? (laughs) When I’m doing that scene, somehow I feel like I’m really living. There aren’t a lot of moments like that on stage, are there? (laughs)
Rei: Definitely! (laughs)
Kurenai: I feel like I’m living as Kurenai Yuzuru and as Sir Percy, and that all the other members of the League are living as their roles too. It’s full of courage—it’s a wonderful scene!
Rei: Yeah, yeah.
Kurenai: Since the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel are all good friends, I didn’t want them all to treat me as an older brother type character, just because I was the most senior, so I told them that every time. As a result, I think we all felt like equals, or I hope we did.
Rei: In the rehearsal, there was a definitive moment where your group’s acting radically changed, so I was watching like ‘Wo~w!’ But you know, my team gets along really well too!
Kurenai: (laughs)
Rei: Starting in the Prologue, Deputy Robespierre (Nanami), Mercier (Seki), Coupeau (Sazanami), and I do the offstage chorus together. We perform in the spirit of the French alliance in every show.
Kurenai: I see (laughs)
Kurenai: How about that adlib scene about the clothes Chauvelin (Rei) should wear to the masquerade!
Rei: Oh gosh.
Kurenai: You don’t laugh a bit!
Rei: That’s not it, the truth is I’m really weak to adlibs…
Kurenai: Huh? Really?
Rei: Do you know how much I’m panicking right before then!?
Kurenai: I thought it was excitement (laughs)
Rei: No no no. But listen! You never tell me anything!
Kurenai: But then there wouldn’t be any point!
Rei: So I’m always so nervous… But I haven’t yet broken my vow not to laugh, have I!1
Kurenai: But it’s not like I’m trying to make you laugh there…
Rei: No~, you almost get me every time! And then when the audience starts laughing I really want to join in.
Kurenai: Ah, that’s so hard~ I had that same issue when I was Benedict (in Ocean’s 11).
Rei: Ah~!
Kurenai: There too, even though I didn’t want to laugh at all, Toyoko-san (Suzumi Shio) as Rusty really went all-out with adlibs. She’d use a wig that went bald at the pull of a string, stuff like that.
Rei: It’s a struggle every day!
Kurenai: It was~ I don’t do that sort of thing, generally.
Rei: But, you know, I’m training every day.
Kurenai: Sometimes you can even play off it a bit, right~ (laughs)
Rei: Maybe once in 15 times I’ll give it a shot (laughs) Mainly I just rack my brain frantically but it always ends up like ‘No, no comebacks here!’ (laughs)
Kurenai: The other day, during the final scene on the Day-Dream, a button on my glove got totally tangled up in Aa-chan’s (Kisaki’s) hair.
Rei: That must have been such a hard time! But you were amazing then. I was doing my quick-change, so it was a situation where all I had to go on was the audio, but you did some sort of adlib like, ‘Ah! I love you too much to let you go!’
Kurenai: Yeah (laughs)
Rei: They say to try and make something positive even of accidents.
Kurenai: It’s more fun that way!
Rei: If it was me I’d surely just keep quiet and act as if it hadn’t happened. It’s really amazing that you could announce it to everyone like that and work it into your acting.
Kurenai: Oh, you think so?
Rei: And for me, thanks to that issue, my quick-change was…
Kurenai: Nice and relaxing?
Rei: Yes (laughs). So from my point of view, that was a happy accident (laughs).
Rei: I always watch the ‘She Was There’ scene from the wings. In that scene Sir Percy (Kurenai) is released from all his turmoil, there’s the mirror behind, and all the lights are on Sayumi-san (Kurenai)… You are just so dazzling there!
Kurenai: Ahahaha (laughs) Really?
Rei: It’s amazing! Because, like, you throw aside the teasing attitude you used with Chauvelin, and how closed-off you were to Marguerite (Kisaki), and it’s as if ‘Sayumi-san’s Percy’ truly exists there. It gives me goosebumps every time.
Kurenai: That scene really has a different atmosphere. See, even if I remember when I did it in the junior performance the exact same scenery is before my eyes.
Rei: Awesome!
Kurenai: But the way it feels to me is different. It’s like I can feel how everyone on the staff is all working together to help bring my Sir Percy to life. I can feel the audience too, and the whole Grand Theatre. And besides, I have to think about how to lead into the next scene.
Rei: Ah~
Kurenai: In the junior performance, when that scene ended I was like ‘it’s over!’ but now I realize I’m seeing it as one piece in the puzzle of Percy’s life. I feel like that’s what the passage of 9 years does.
Rei: That’s true. I really love that scene!
Kurenai: Somehow, this time around, Chauvelin is somehow really helping you break out of your shell, I think.
Rei: Yes.
Kurenai: People mostly see you as this ‘star student,’ right, Makocchan? But you really have a very human side to you, so it’d be good if the audience could see that.
Rei: Yeah…
Kurenai: Well, you’ve already been a great help to me, though. I’m really an unpredictable, spontaneous type of person,, so I’m grateful for your restraint. I think it’s precisely because we’re so different that things have come together so well. But I think if your attitude, rather than ‘it has to be this way!’ was more like ‘maybe I’m going to try that other way…’ then maybe in the future an even more amazing Makocchan will be born.
Rei: Yes… Yeah…
Kurenai: It won’t be as bad as you think.
Rei: For sure. Right now the biggest challenge is just that~ Wah~ You’re so understandi~ng! Sayumi-sa~n!
Kurenai: Chauvelin is a character who messes up a lot (laughs), but it’d be good if you could convey new sides of yourself through the audience seeing your struggles!
Rei: Thank youuuu~
Kurenai: The finale starts out with Makocchan. You look like you’re having fun (laughs)
Rei: I just feel like ‘I can smile too now~’ (laughs) It’s the first time I am given the duty of bringing everyone’s mood up, leading into the rockette.
Kurenai: That really struck me in rehearsals. ‘Makocchan has inherited the position I had up till now.’ So I really understand your feelings in that situation. It makes you really nervous in the beginning! Especially on opening night.
Rei: Gosh, I was so nervous!
Kurenai: And then imagine that being the New Years’ show, where they’re livestreaming it as well.
Rei: Ahhh…
Kurenai: (laughs) So you see I really understand those feelings, and it made me really happy. ‘I’m really passing the baton!’ I thought.
Rei: I…I’ll do my best!
Kurenai: In the ensemble dance I have with the group of musumeyaku, I’m supposed to be searching for Marguerite. It’s got a feeling of longing. Then in the next scene it’s otokoyaku! And it segues into the group sabre dance. Speaking of that, yesterday the sabre was really heavy.
Rei: Eh?
Kurenai: It definitely wasn’t mine!
Rei: They do vary a bit like that. The way the wood feels.
Kurenai: That little weight difference actually made it really hard, because I’m still holding it scene after scene. But to the fans, it’s not Scarpim2 without the sabre dance on the Grand Stairs! That kind of feeling makes me happy somehow.
Rei: Yes! And then Sayumi-san leaves the stage first and that shout as you leave is…
Kurenai: By the way, everyone, that was thanks to Director Koike’s instructions!
Rei: Ahaha (laughs)
Kurenai: Although I might seem as if I’ll just say whatever if you give me a microphone, that was something I was specifically instructed to say. ‘Everyone Dances!3’ ‘Let’s dance! Dance, everybody!’ is what it means.
Rei: You always raise the energy level so much by saying that!
Kurenai: I always make eye contact with you, right Makocchan?
Rei: Yes!
Kurenai: In the duet dance afterwards, the costumes are actually super heavy, so it was really hard but… Aa-chan is so adorable.
Rei: Wah~ Squee <3
Kurenai: Even if she messes up a little bit I just think ‘well we all have our days’ (laughs). I’ll say something if I have to (laughs) but basically she puts trust in me too. So it’s really fun.
Rei: When watching I can tell that you both put your heart into it, so it makes me happy to see. After all it’s your Grand Theatre debut show!
Kurenai: It is! And me, Aa-chan, and Makocchan were all in Star Troupe the whole time.
Rei: That’s right.
Kurenai: Therefore I want to make sure to respect our seniors and the longtime fans. But it’s not like I’m going to take on too much there, I want to enjoy things and show ‘this is how our Star Troupe will feel!’ I want to keep on in the Star Troupe style, in a way everyone can enjoy!
Rei: I’ll follow right behind you!
1 – I’m not sure if Rei is discounting her breaks in the last couple performances of the Takarazuka run (at least) or if this interview took place before then.
2 – ‘Scarpim’ (or ‘Sukapin’ in the Japanese spelling) is the fandom nickname for the show.
3 – English in original.