TOP MANIA! was a 2017 Kageki feature where Top Stars and Top Musumeyaku talked about their work routine during performances. Kurenai’s was published in the April issue.

TOP MANIA – Kurenai Yuzuru, Star Troupe

Before the performance

1) 3 hours before curtain, warming up and rehearsal in the practice room
Go to the dressing room 2 hours before curtain
2) Stage makeup
3) Visualization exercises

Although I’ve eaten my breakfast at the theatre occasionally, in general I eat before leaving the house. On opening days in the Grand Theatre, there’s usually a dress rehearsal in the morning, so I go to the practice room 4 hours before then and begin practicing.

1) Before I go to the dressing room, I’ll do vocal exercises and stretches in the practice room as warmup, and try out things I where I had thought “let’s try it this way” as solutions for problems I noticed the day before. After reviewing things I was concerned about, I go through all my lines and songs.

2) I do my makeup based on my role in the play, so depending on the show, the angle I draw my eyebrows at and the way I draw my eyes, my foundation and all the other colors will be different. The main point is the eyes, of course, but if my skin is in bad shape there’s no point to the makeup, so I take great care when doing the base foundation. While I’m doing my makeup it feels as if I am changing into my character.

3) When I think “I want to respond to this” about someone else’s lines or actions, first I think about where that motivation comes from and why I would do that. Focusing on parts where I hadn’t responded satisfactorily the day before, I visualize not just the basic timings and movements, but re-run it over and over with fine adjustments in emotion so that I absorb everything deeply.

Something that you have to have on your dressing table

I always decorate my dressing table with fresh flowers. Once in a while Aa-chan (Kisaki) will put them there for me. I want to go on stage in an energized mood, so I keep everything around me cute and sparkly. Even my hand mirror and hair dryer are decorated with Swarovski crystals, so they’re super sparkly. I don’t want to use anything un-cute (laughs).

During the show

A must-have for performances
Perfume. I change my perfume depending on the role I’m playing. As one of my steps in putting together a role, I decide ‘this person would probably have this kind of scent’ and collect a lot of different perfumes, then choose from among those. Therefore, sometimes there are times where the role calls for something I never use. Even if it’s a scent I personally don’t like, using it since it suits the role will make me strangely fond of it. But then as soon as the show closes I’ll go straight back to disliking it (laughs). I’ll change my perfume according to my image of the revue as well.

Your beverage of choice during a show
Pocari Sweat and licorice tea from China, also really nice water (laughs). I generally drink about the same amount of everything.

What you focus on during quick changes
Although I’m in a hurry, I don’t rush. I always match up with the time. Definitely, for sure!! I’m always defying the time limits: “I won’t rush just because I’m pressed for time!” Since once before I had a quick-change where I had to change a wig and a kimono entirely in twenty seconds, that gives me a strange sense of confidence since I can tell myself if that went fine anything else will be okay (laughs).

Your favorite moments onstage
The moments when the pinpoint spotlight hits me and the audience applauds. Of course if makes me happy, and coming out like that and getting applause really makes me feel like I’m standing on the stage of Takarazuka. During the shinjin kouen of The Scarlet Pimpernel, the applause from the audience was so huge…I was able to discover how much I could ride on the applause.

How far can you see into the audience?
I can see everything. In the Tokyo Takarazuka Theatre, I can see to the standing area in the very back of the second floor. I can tell ‘oh, there are kids watching today~’.

After the performance

The first thing you do after a show
I gargle with the licorice tea. Next I wash my hands and take off just my eye makeup.  After that I talk to the people I interact with in the play and so on about things that day I think I could have done better, or things where I think I would like to do something some other way.

Do the roles you are playing affect your daily life?
I’ve never had a role rub off on me ever. Even when I’m actually thinking about my role, my emotions aren’t affected by the characters’.

Bonus round

What moments make you really feel like an otokoyaku
After all, I think it’s times when I’m sitting in a chair with my legs spread, or when I have my arms folded in a way a woman wouldn’t do, that I really feel ‘I’m that kind of being known as an otokoyaku’. Onstage, when I was performing as a junior actress, I would think sometimes “Right now I’m being an otokoyaku!”, but gradually those kind of things began to feel normal to me. It’s not that I’m being an otokoyaku, now, but that I’m playing my role, so right now I don’t have such an awareness of it, it just feels like ‘oh, this is how it is’.