norathorn:Okada Masaki and Namase Katsuhisa in stage play Kaikishoku ~Total Eclipse~I’ve been pretty

norathorn:Okada Masaki and Namase Katsuhisa in stage play Kaikishoku ~Total Eclipse~I’ve been pretty much ordering my ticket after seeing the poster even before I found out that it’s a play by Christopher Hampton about “the passionate and violent relationship” between Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud (played in 1995 movie adaptation by David Thewlis and Leonardo DiCaprio). Wonder why my literature teacher has never mentioned that Verlaine actually left his wife to live with Rimbaud when she was telling us about their biographies…I finally got to watch it today and I really liked it! Staged by Ninagawa Yukio it has beautiful music, pretty visual and first-class cast. Namase may play comic relief characters on TV all the time but it doesn’t change the fact that he’s actually a very versatile actor with huge theatre experience and his transformation into Verlaine was simply stunning!For Okada it’s a first stage play experience but he did great both technically (his voice could be heard clearly across the theatre even when he was talking into pillow) and emotionally (ah, that devastated expression he had when Verlaine left him in London all alone ;; ). He was charming as sometimes childish, sometimes cruel, sometimes downright crazy Rimbaud. It might be Okada’s halo-effect but I think his Rimbaud also often looked just innocent and sweet.I expected that they will spend a lot of time talking about philosophy and poetry but actually the main focus was the love story. It’s usually being described as young Rimbaud seducing old Verlaine and stealing him from his wife and small child but this time it looked more like a sad story about Rimbaud and Verlaine’s wife trying to get away from abusive relationship with Verlaine (what with Verlaine getting drunk and beating them all the time and finally trying to shoot Rimbaud when he said that their relationship is over)If you wondering whether there were bed scenes or kisses - no there weren’t (a hug one time and Rimbaud’s kissing Verlaine’s hands in the bittersweet final scene. If Okada’s just laying on the bed counts as bed scene there were a lot tho xD)I ended up buying a huuuge poster and program booklet with some pretty pics and interview which I post later <3 Now I am off to watch something with Okada in it :D -- source link

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