Ashizawa Jin is an illustrator/columnist who seems to have worked for GRAPH since the 1960s (yes, you read that right). His interview column generally gets a new title every year but has been fairly consistent format-wise in recent years. I’m giving him his own tag in the Staff category since he is one of the few interview conductors to be credited by name in the publications.
This interview with Serika Toa was published in the May 2017 issue of GRAPH (while she was still a Flower Troupe member) and seems to have been recorded during or around the production of MY HERO.
Time to Soar! – #4: Serika Toa (Flower Troupe)
Serika Toa is currently starring in in MY HERO. It is a wonderful, confident performance, featuring her standout excellent style, and a sweet mask that had an air of pathos. I’m delighted to see this triple-threat star express the sense of our modern era while full of her own personality. Her always-reliable presence is only growing stronger.
MY HERO was so much fun. Your charisma was on full display, and Mask*J was also very cool. The other Flower Troupe cast members worked hard as well.
Thank you so much. In this show, all the surrounding characters were really defined personalities, and Director Saitou would call them “over-the-top characters”, but I think thanks to those characters it became a really cheerful and fun show. And then in the ‘hero show’ scenes there was a ‘final attack’, right. That unique movement was really fun, and I never dreamed I’d run into a role like this in Takarazuka, so I feel like I turned into a middle-school boy (laughs).
When I put the mask on, I don’t have much peripheral vision, and since I’m doing fight scenes like that, it’s really hard to match my rhythm with everyone around me. During rehearsals my muscles hurt basically everywhere (laughs). The stunt director told me that since I was doing action scenes from a dance background, my forms were different from someone with no experience at all, and the flexibility I have [for dance] is also necessary for stunt work.
Right now you’re in a very important position in Flower Troupe. How does it feel?
That’s right… Around when Embraced by the Seas of Calista happened, my stagetime, and onstage responsibilities, increased suddenly, so I was totally absorbed with what I had to do, and I had so many scenes I needed to memorize, so I couldn’t think about anything but that. But by now, I think I’m able to consider more the state of the whole troupe, and what I can do onstage in order to make Asumi-san’s performance seem even more charismatic.
From your point of view, what aspects of Flower Troupe’s Top Star, Asumi-san, make you think ‘This is where her appeal comes from!’?
I think it might be her mysterious side. Since I’m a person who doesn’t really have a mysterious side. Even though once rehearsals start I’m really close by her, basically with her the whoooole time, she’s still mysterious (laughs). It’s like I can’t understand how she lives her life. That mysterious part of her hidden within her beauty is incredibly charismatic.
As for me, if I had to say, I’m more the type to say what I’m thinking right away, I’m pretty loud, I guess (laughs), even in the rehearsal room I’ll be talking up a storm (laughs), but I’m always wondering what Asumi-san is thinking. But onstage, she transforms completely, so, maybe it’s her strength of will, but I always feel “Wo~ow, amazing, shes so strong~”. Normally she’s really quiet, so much that it makes me wany to protect her somehow (laughs), so she’s a really unique type of Top Star, I think.
Last year was the year you reached ‘Ten Years to Otokoyaku’, but do you agree with that saying?
I think that I’ve reached a position where I can relax more on stage. When I was a junior actress, when thinking “This is an otokoyaku”, I had a really strong feeling that it was an illusion created through my outer appearance, so I would think really hard about how I could make my hand positions look more manly, or the way I moved my legs, and then the senior actresses would tease me saying “That’s a girl!” (laughs) But now, I’m conscious of the internal emotions of the role I’m playing, and I don’t have to put much effort into my physical presentation. I do feel that’s something I came to do instinctively over 10 years.
In that 10th year, you wore a moustache to play Sir John, a very generous-hearted gentleman, in ME AND MY GIRL (role switch with Seto Kazuya); was the role switch very hard to deal with?
I thought it might be difficult to handle, but once the rehearsals started, I could really understand Sir John’s philosophy, so I got into it really smoothly. Apart from that, no matter how hard I tried to play up my age, the age difference with Bill (Asumi), Sally (Kano Maria), or Maria (Ousaki Ayaka) wouldn’t come across clearly to the audience, so on that point everyone around me helped me out a lot, I think. I’d like to try playing a middle-aged man role again (laughs).
After the 2015 Tokyo International Forum production of Ernest in Love, you played Algernon again for the revival production in Umeda Arts Theatre and Chuunichi Theatre. Playing the same role, you must have made some huge new discoveries, correct?
I feel like that performing role let me experience how much more of a range of expression I could have if I was able to relax onstage. With it being a role I played before, it felt like I shared part of my bloodstream with the character, so once I called that back it was as if I could feel Algernon’s warmth and heartbeat. The first time, I was thinking over everything in my head. And then after having all this experience, the next time I got that role it was really as if I was living it. It’s not very often you get the change to play a role again that you’ve done once before, so I was given a very valuable experience.
What is your solution when you are struggling to put together a character?
I haven’t really encountered many roles that made me think ‘I just don’t understand them…’. That’s because once I read the script I’ll think ‘There sure are people like that, huh’ (laughs). The hardest was Embraced in the Seas of Calista’s Roberto: I couldn’t really understand him on an emotional level so it was difficult.
Your dance left on impression on me with the Down Town Jazz scene in Melodia, and I’m now paying a lot of attention to your dancing. I always look forward to it.
Thank you so much. I’m not sure if I’m bad at dance, or if it’s just that I’m bad at everything… (strained laugh). I entered the Takarazuka Music School without studying much [beforehand], so I had a hard time once I got in. But at least I was very sturdy physically, so I’m most grateful for that. I’ve never been injured, and I’ve never been severely ill either. That scene in Melodia was choreographed by a foreign choreographer, Choreographer Bryant, so the ways of using the rhythm, and the nuance of the choreo, were unique, which made it really fun. As for things like that, I learned a ton of things from Ranju Tomu-san.
When I transferred to Flower Troupe and saw Ranju-san’s dancing, I thought “Oh, I want to dance like that too!” Of course, there are so many great dancers, people who would make me think “She’s amazing!”, but when I saw Ranju-san dance I thought “I want to dance like that!” Each choreographer has their own habits, I think, but Ranju-san is able to sieze on those specifically in her dancing, and I think that’s what makes her so fun to watch. That was what I wanted to learn.
When I’m being given choreography, what that choreographer is trying to express is very important to me. After that, daily training is most important, as after all if I don’t rehearse daily I won’t advance, but also if I haven’t trained my own body, even if I’m given wonderful choreo I won’t be able to express it properly…
I would love to see how you as you are currently would perform in your lead bow hall, Forever Gershwin. I’m hoping for a revival, but..
I’d love to be able to sing those wonderful songs once again. There are so many well-known Gershwin songs, right?
Flower Troupe has done Japanese-style productions continually, like The New Tale of Genji, and then Snowflake Anthology, so you must be happy as someone who likes Japanese-style shows.
That’s right. My mother used to do Japanese dance, so while I hadn’t learned it myself, I had some familiarity with it, I guess. Once I entered the Takarazuka Music School and started doing Japanese dance I really enjoyed it: Japanese dance has choreography that matches with the lyrics to the songs, right? Western dance uses the rhythm and melody for the choreography, but Japanese dance, for example, if the words ‘peek through’ are in the lyrics, you’ll act as if you’re peeking through something, or if it’s ‘ashamed’, you’ll hide your face with your hand a bit, things like that. That’s so beautiful, and I think trying to make those forms as beautiful as possible is one of the great appeals of [Japanese dance]. You could see it as closer to acting. It’s very difficult unless you practice a lot, since there are so many rules, as well as being able to wear kimono properly, but it’s fun.
In the central ensemble number of Snowflake Anthology, I wore a ‘blue sky’1 wig for the first time, so I was happy about that. I tried my best, hoping to dance stylishly, and found myself thinking anew about how important one’s sightline and such are. I really like ‘theatre of the masses’2, so I often go to watch them in Umeda, and all of them are so sexy, so I was hoping I could convey some of that sexiness. Their makeup is so beautiful, I always wonder how they become such beautiful women even though they’re men. The plays are fun as well, and there’s a lot to learn from it.
Right now, what kind of roles do you want to come your way?
I want to play a villain. Since recently, I keep getting roles of picturebook-perfect virtuous people (laughs). Villain roles are so charismatic, right. And I think it might be fun to say things to people that I’d never dream of saying normally (laughs).
1 – The term used in Takarazuka for wigs made after the partially-shaved historic Japanese male hairstyle.
2 – Taishuu engeki developed historically in the Edo as a more accessible alternative to other traditional theatre types. It features men in women’s roles (Taichi Saotome is a famous taishuu engeki performer) but unlike many other forms of traditional theatre it has mixed-gender casts.