Sunday Review: The Man from Algiers
A Tsukigumi show seems appropriate this week so lets take a look at The Man from Algiers
This review comes with a good sized spoiler warning if you don't want to know who lives or dies in the play you should not click on the link.
I was a bit surprised when I looked at the Wiki and noted that this was a Takarazuka original play and not a piece based on some external source. Why? Well, the main characters isn't the traditional white hat and the nice girl. I found the male "hero" Julien Clair to be a rather unpleasant character and I'm not sure exotic dancer is considered an appropriate career for a Zuka heroine (or do we have more female roles like this?)
I'm a bit confused by the fact that the takawiki synopsis lists Kiriyan's and Masaki's characters as friends since they seem more to be rivals hanging out in the same gang.
Julien has a bad habit of using/dumping women when need be. He starts of by leaving his girlfriend Sabine (Aono Yuki) behind in Algiers when he gets a chance to go to Paris and work for the vice-roy/Kumichou. I guess since Kumichou has a daughter Elizabeth (Ayahoshi Rion) who is single and in suitable age Julien doesn't want a girlfriend to tie him down. Elizabeth isn't immediately completely boiled over by the upstart. Julien also gets a business proposal to take pity on Kuni Natsuki's blind niece Anabel (Hanahi Mira). A proposal he initially takes on and goes on to seduce her.
This apparently makes Elizabeth interested in Julien again, nothing as motivating as the boy getting interested in someone else I guess. Which in turn leads to Julien courting Elizabeth which unfortunately is overheard by Anabel. This makes her completely break down (not sure if sending her down with one of the stage elevators means that she actually dies?) which then pisses off her friend, Mirio, who is secretly in love with her (we'll get back to him.)
Around the same time Julien met up with Sabine again. She has left Algier for Paris and is working as an exotic dancer. Which gives us an excuse for a great dance number but whoever they put in charge of the special angle should get a stern talking to. How can you have a special angle on a star who is doing a dance number and constantly film her from the waist up? Luckily the standard angle works quite well. From what I can decipher Jacques/Masaki and Sabine/Marimo are now an item. There might be something with money involved here but I'm not sure.
Then there is some sub-plot with Seijou Kaito's character which ends with him paying Jacques to cause some sort of scandal involving Kumichou (political rivalry according to the wiki.) I guess Jacques is going for Julien/Elizabeth and Julien's connection to Sabine but I could be wrong. Anyhow Julien brings a gun to a meeting with Jacques in Sabines dressing room and probably plans to kill him to save his planned marriage with Elizabeth.
This fails since Sabine shoots Jacques first. When Jacques' corpse is discovered by one of the girls at the club Sabine tries to make Julien leave and let her take the fall alone. He all of a sudden decides to grow a heart and some reasonably honorable behaviour and suggest that they should run off together. Which they do, but unfortunately 15 seconds before the end of the play Mirio turns up and shoots and kills Julien.
I guess it's a drama so one of the lovers have to die …
While the ending is a little bit too much crammed into a few minutes, over all I really like this show. It is well constructed. While the characters may be a bit unpleasant they make sense. The story moves along at a good pace with some logical motivation for what's happening. Decent songs even if they don't quite stick in my head.
It feels like quite a few characters get some stage time and three decent sized musumeyaku roles plus two onnayaku roles for Kuni Natsuki and Hanase Mizuka (as Kumichou's wife) is impressive. I suspect that's because the play was first performed in 1974, before the top star system was fully in place.
I found it slightly perplexing that tsukigumi's new top musumeyaku only gets two lines in a group scene. She's playing one of Ayahoshi Rion's friends. Looking at this I would have thought that Ayahoshi Rion or Hanahi Mira would have been more in line for promotion but I guess something made them change their mind.