Translation: Graph Talk Deluxe (Dec. 2010)
Talk Deluxe: Yuzuki Reon & Ouki Kaname
(Graph December 2010)
Chie: In “Takarazuka Floral Dance Scrolls”, dancing and dressing well in those costumes, make-up and such was very hard, but when the people who saw it told me that the nihonmono was beautiful, I felt it had been worth it and thought it’s great to be Japanese.
Teru: I felt the same.
Chie: On opening day, didn’t the Chonpa make you nervous? (Chonpa is a term used in Japanese theatre. It means that instead of a slowly rising curtain, there’s a clapping sound at which the light suddenly goes on and you can see the entire stage.)
Teru: I was nervous! But when I saw the faces of the audience showing an expression of “Waahhh…”, I felt very happy.
Chie: Yes, that was good. But when the light goes on so suddenly, the dazzlingness makes my eyes blink.
Teru: But look, we recently learned from Toyoko-san (Suzumi Shio)…
Chie: That one is great!! The trick where we have our eyes closed before the Chonpa?
Teru: We keep them closed until the “Yo” in “Yo… iyasa”. (Lines from the song that is sung while it’s still dark.)
Chie: Yes, thanks to the trick Toyoko-san invented we are able to not blink.
Teru: It’s completely different!
Chie: We have to teach this strategy to the people who will do the next Chonpa performance. … But if the light board operators by any chance make a mistake and the light goes on earlier, we will be done for.
Teru: (laugh)
Chie: After that I am also very nervous when I sing my solo on the ginkyou.
Teru: It doesn’t have much of a pattern.
Chie: No. At the beginning I want to sing with everyone else…
Teru: Impossible. (laugh)
Chie: Every day it makes me feel nervous. Furthermore, because we use a lot of fans and other props the show itself makes me extremely nervous.
Teru: I once got a fright because my fan slipped from my fingers!
Chie: Really?
Teru: But I somehow managed to catch it.
Chie: Because the palm of our hands are painted white too, our sensations are always different.
Teru: That’s true.
Chie: I am quite afraid of the ginkyou part in the “Sudden Shower” scene. After fighting with a real sword, my fist seems very stiff, therefore I pick up the sword as if I had hit my elbow very hard.
Teru: That’s the meaning of that?!!
Chie: Yes. But during the stage rehearsals, the sword that fell out of my hands was about to fall right into the audience seats, so I frantically pinned it down. (laugh) That’s why every day I am very careful when I let it slip. Apart from that we didn’t seem to have any big happenings so far. If forced to say, occasionally my head kind of got stabbed by Nene-chan’s hairpins. (laugh)
Teru: (laugh)
***
Teru: In the “Sudden Shower“ scene when you are bare-handed and encircled, I like the pose you’re doing mid-way.
Chie: That’s awfully pinpointed. (laugh)
Teru: No, there’s a lot in my favorite scene. (laugh) The fight in this scene is very cool too.
Chie: (feeling awkward) Really? This time, as always, when I put together the pieces of music and the choreography I couldn’t make any sense of it, at that time I was just told to please do it this way.
Teru: Really?
Chie: When I get going and start to fight, everyone gathers around me. But because every time I start moving with a different timing, occasionally there have been false starts, so everyone is all in a flutter.
Teru: (laugh)
Chie: Because if it’s always the same then the freshness gets lost. I love your song “Mugiyabushi”. You sound like a folk music singer. (laugh)
Teru: I studied that way of singing quite a bit.
Chie: The second time you start singing, it’s during a change of clothes for me, so I listen very intently. (laugh) I always think that you’re such an expert.
Teru: Thank you. (laugh)
Chie: After that, I also like the song “Okesa Gensou”. For a nihonmono it has a great arrangement of songs.
Teru: They’re absurdly cool! At the end, after the drums have played, it’s your solo routine again, but this time we get to join in too. (laugh)
Chie: Yes. (laugh) Again, this time after the drums played I thought it was time for the solo, but I was wrong. It was the completion of the drum solo. (laugh)
***
Chie: We really learned a lot from Matsumoto-sensei, didn’t we?
Teru: I was really happy.
Chie: In the rehearsal room she… (Sorry, couldn’t translate the next part)… she taught us how to use our eyes, how to look attractive when returning from the ginkyou, we learned a lot.
Teru: This time I got to dance with her… I was really fortunate. She taught me how to walk and how to hold the props, furthermore she even had a look at my make-up.
Chie: We really learned a lot. …Speaking of make-up, was this the first time you wore shabe make-up?
Teru: Yes, it was also the first time that I had to start all over with the make-up change.
Chie: Eh? No way! You didn’t seem to be in a hurry at all. But even so, no matter how many times we performed, everyone was in a hurry. Me too, I was at my limit.
Teru: Like that, we abslolutely didn’t get enough time in between, I thought, but suprisingly… Now we even have extra time.
Chie: We can’t watch the parts where we are in such a hurry, so from the beginning until now we have no clue about them.
***
Chie: In “An Officer and a Gentleman” you’re a relentless sergeant…
Teru: The nature of our relationship is very different from usually. (laugh) But I had trouble with the first scene. Because there were a lot of lines, I didn’t want to tire out the audience, but I needed to make them understand what kind of a person Foley is and what kind of a place the military is, so I wondered how I should present myself. Therefore, I watched the movie and rehearsed how to express my lines.
Chie: Being called “Mayonnaise” through the first half has been very irritating. (laugh)
Teru: (speaking like Foley) You mean “Mayoneeeeezuu…”? (laugh)
Chie: Yes… But Zack grows up thanks to the sergeant, so in the end it’s very touching.
Teru: It is, it is. (laugh)
Chie: He’s an expert at stirring up emotions. When I was told “You’ll be the next to DOR”, I thought “Damn you, I will absolutely not!”. (DOR = Drop out on request)
Teru: You were thinking of how Foley told you “Hate me, you will grow as much as you hated me”.
Chie: Yes. It looks as if you’re tormenting me, but you really want to make me stronger.
Teru: Ah, I have so much love… (laugh)
Chie: Speaking of that, once in the rehearsal room, Tomomin (Yumeno Seika) and the other army cadets came up with the topic of “How Foley likes to spend his time off”.
Teru: (Burst of laughter)
Chie: Is he married? Does he have children? What does he do during holidays? (laugh)
Teru: Well, what did they say?
Chie: Apparently he drinks alcohol all by himself…
Teru: Only that?! (laugh) Well, but the truth is, he’s wearing a wedding ring.
Chie: Right! He puts it away before duelling! What? Does he have a wife?
Teru: He was married, but she died and now he’s all alone… That’s how I established it.
Chie: I completely agree! That’s so like Foley!! He was devoted to his wife, he wouldn’t get married again.
Teru: Yes. It seems he’s dedicated the remainder of his life to the army.
Chie: Wow! As for me, backstage in the wings I also follow Foley a lot.
Teru: You do. (laugh) Also, before the hazing you are very much stuck to my back.
Chie: When I was told by the headmaster (Isono Chihiro) that the sergeant was gone, I hurriedly ran after you.
Teru: There has been only one time that I walked by myself. (laugh)
Chie: Yes! Even though you promised we’d go together. After I frantically searched for the sergeant, (I absolutely didn’t understand the next part)… But when I said “Why did you leave before?”
Teru: I said “Sorry, I forgot about you.” (laugh)
Chie: Ah, that sergeant is really horrible.
***
Chie: Because Zack has never lived so close to others before, at first he really hates sharing the same room with everyone else. But it was interesting how he slowly changed those feelings. He isn’t even cruel to Paula anymore?!
Teru: Paula has somehow captivated Zack, right?
Chie: At the beginning Nene-chan was worried too, that in the end when I come to pick her up and she tells me that I had seriously hurt her feelings, too many awful things have been said for her to meekly jump in. Because of the result of our discussion together, Paula has turned into a very mature woman full of motherly feelings…
Teru: Of course.
Chie: Zack told her horrible things like: “I got trapped like a young duck” , but shouldn’t she be a person who worries and thinks: “Because Sid (Kurenai Yuzuru) has died, he is heart-broken. I want to help him.” Nene-chan agreed with that too. (laugh)
Teru: She’s a very mature women, isn’t she?
Chie: Zack has also fallen in love with Paula, but because he doesn’t want to get hurt like when he lost his mother, he pushes Paula away several times. However, I think because she understands those feelings and his loneliness, she wraps him up in her love.
***
Chie: Thanks to the hazing scene I have become muscular. (laugh)
Teru: Your sinews have grown, haven’t they? (laugh)
Chie: But at that time too, the hazing was to properly drill my body, it’s one of Foley’s good points.
Teru: Yes!
Chie: But the really hard part was the duel scene. During rehearsals I thought: “What is this?”… We both relished that this was the worst muscle ache we ever had in our lives so far.
Teru: Really…
Both: (burst into laughter remembering it)
Chie: I couldn’t breath or sneeze. Like the cracks between my ribs were so sore!! Anyway, all the muscles surrounding my internal organs were hurting!!
Teru: You couldn’t even hold chopsticks, you used the opposite hand for eating.
Chie: Yes!
Teru: In the next scene when singing the pledge song, I couldn’t hit my chest with my hand.
Chie: In some respects it was impossible not to move our fingers. Normally in fight scenes, we use some sort of weapon, but this time it’s bare hands. Moreover, the action coordinator was really dreadful! At first he showed us the choreography by being the opponent, then when we had absolutely no idea what we should do, he told us: “Kick! Look here!!” (laugh)
Teru: “What is this?” he said after we did a probing kick, “Do it seriously!!” he said. (laugh)
Chie: Also when a punch missed the face, he scolded: “Hold it right in front of the nose!”. In the part where I get hit in the stomach by Foley, because our teacher hit me for real (laugh), I had a towel wrapped around as a solution. Tomomin who got the same severe treatment said: “I want to go home… (tears)”, right? (laugh)
Teru: When he told me: “Did you understand? Did you understand?!”, I said “I couldn’t see it before…” and my eyes became teary. (laugh) But, thanks to this, I was told that the punching and kicking looked very real on stage…
Chie: It’s thanks to our teacher! But then Foley got Zack to graduate in the exact same way. On the Ginkyou when saying I was going to DOR, Foley didn’t really want me to quit.
Teru: (laugh) Because I felt that Zack was growing-up, telling him to quit… (and then something I absolutely do not understand).
Chie: And like that, while we were seriously fighting man-to-man, the two of us somehow came to an understanding… That’s why in the graduation ceremony I am able to say thank you from my heart. I am even envious of the new freshmen. “This teacher is scary, but he’s a very good teacher”, I’d say.
Teru: (laugh)