How do you honor the rich history surrounding an 18th century a Japanese story while making
Photo by Will Shively
it modern enough to be understood by a Western audience?
This was the challenge that Shadowbox Live faced when developing their original musical, The Tenshu, which premieres on Oct. 7.
Shadowbox enlisted the help of Japanese choreographer and director Hiromi Sakamoto and David Mack, author of the KABUKI graphic novels. The project was supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Sakamoto helped with not only the story’s translation from Japanese to English, but with all facets of production, from music to stage design.
“He has a tremendous sense of what it means to work with our culture,” says Executive Producer and CEO Stev Guyer.
Sakamoto visited Columbus in July 2014 to help educate the Shadowbox team about the story’s historical contest. Certain plot devices had to be examined in order to understand the cultural differences between Eastern and Western culture. The Japanese idea of ghosts, for example, comes in great part from a religious belief regarding ancestors.
“It’s such a delicate subject,” Guyer says.
Sakamoto did the play’s first translation. New York University associate professor Nina
Photo by Will Shively
Cornyetz, who has a background in East Asian languages and cultures, also served as a translation consultant. After that, the material went to Shadowbox Head Writer Jimmy Mak, who spent a good month making changes meant to make the final product for relatable to a Western audience. Some of this revolved around simplifying the story’s eloquent language.
“It was more music than language,” Mak says.
Make wrote about six original scenes to incorporate the villain, which he plays, into the script. While the original story mentions the villain, Mak says he thought it would be more enjoyable for a Western audience to see their villain as an actual character.
The goal was to keep the story grounded in Japanese culture while transforming it into just not a modern Western script, but a musical. To that end, Shadowbox’s band, Light!, spent a great deal of time reading the script and listening to traditional Japanese music. Some songs were inspired by modern Japanese pop music.
“Our goal was not to write some heavy metal thing,” Guyer says, but to write music that was sensitive to the story.
The incorporation of traditional Japanese flutes dramatically impacted the musical style, Guyer says. They also purchased a library of percussion sounds from the Far East for their electronic drums.
“They’re gorgeous samples,” Guyer says.
While Shadowbox has produced original musicals before, this was the first time that it
Photo by Will Shively
attempted such an elaborate stage construction.
“This is a first by a mile,” Guyer says.
For stage design, Shadowbox enlisted the help of Joseph Wolfle Jr. at CATCO along with Britton Mauk, a scenic designer from Pittsburgh. Curtains will be stripped, and the band’s stage will be removed. A surface akin to tatami mats will be used, along with a background that looks like a temple shrine. The band will perform on balconies 10 feet off the ground to the right and left of the audience chamber.
One of the focal points of the design will be a hanamichi, a kabuki stage element that looks sort of similar to a runway. The space house left of the hanamichi will be reserved as a performing area for Samurai.
While traditional kabuki theater dresses Samurai in a very specific style, the Samurai’s fight scenes required costumes that allowed for freedom of movement, Guyer says. Similar allowances were made for the costuming of the rest of the cast. Two ghost princesses, Kame and Tome, will dress in a traditional kimono. Minor characters will be dressed in simpler kimonos. And while kabuki, like Shakespeare, traditionally used only male cast members, Shadowbox’s cast will be male and female.
Since many elements of the show and environment will make it appear as if Shadowbox is presenting a kabuki-style show, Guyer says they wanted to make it very apparent to their audience that their musical is a fusion of modern and traditional influences. To help achieve this, they chose a make-up style that is decidedly anime inspired, designed by Mack. Mack also designed the show’s marquee.
Throughout the planning, Guyer says, the team was able to bring the production into the 21st century without violating important parts of Japanese tradition.
“We really want this thing to speak to American audiences as well as Japanese expatriates and Japanese-Americans,” he says.
