my humble opinion: ’Too Short a Time to Fall in Love’ by Star Troupe (2011)

introduction

this time it was not deliberate. I simply checked what I have in my Zuka folder and somehow I remembered that I was interested in the performance named 'Too Short a Time to Fall in Love' from the very moment I read its name for the first time. and somehow it turned out to be Star again. meseems, I shall watch all of the performances by Star available, to get acquainted with the troupe, as I have already began to do this. however, I am afraid I am actually too fond of the Yuzuki-sama-Nene-chan-Ouki-san group on stage. shall I be able to watch performances of the earlier Star?

I wonder how Yuzuki-sama became a Top after Aran-sama. is she (Aran-sama, I mean) not the 'affected' type, the one appealing to the public with her 'suffering' image? though her voice sounds too warm for that kind, I should admit (and actually, it was her voice what made me think better of her)

on the other hand, Yuzuki-sama and Ouki-san seemed to be such great partners. I begin to feel sorry Ouki-san was transferred...

the plot of the show

this time I feel much better. this is the kind I like, the one with many funny moments and characters destined to entertain the audience, as well as serious moments which really make my heart beat fast.

we are all fond of kissing-hugging-dancing-whatever, in terms of' 'rabu-shiin' but this time all this was replaced by a heart-gripping dialogue between the main characters. actually, after the dialogue in the middle of the show I already felt I did not need anything else. how surprised I was when I saw we have more of that! O____O

BTW, I have already mentioned it but Nene-chan seems to be apt to crying on the stage. though there are plenty of sad moments in the shows, methinks, I have seen such real tears literally falling down the musumeyaku's cheeks for the first time.

still, the end spoils it all. my honourable opponents may persuade me as long as they want, I shall never believe that those two should be separated. it is always up to thyself to decide, what is precious to thee, whether it is being with someone you love, or not. in other words, I cannot believe there was nothing they could do with the situation.

those arguments mean nothing to me. what is this? 'I shall never forgive myself' answers Claudia when Michael offers that he stays with her. she thinks he would be better becoming a rich owner of a company, having married with another woman, though he stats the opposite. hey, doth she even believe he loves her? if she doth, how can she say such things?

'for the sake of yours and the future that waits for you' sayth Anthony to Michael. he doth understand it well, of course, he is an expert, he knows better what Michael needs, eh? what a nonsense.

could anyone explain me what the good point of such performances is? the 魅力 of it, the appealing factors? why should I enjoy the story of people who make themselves suffer with their own hands? now with hands actually, with their decisions.

music

it hath been a whole day after I watched 'Romeo and Juliette' and I should admit I like the music in that show, as it is energetic and hath a lot of passion within. still, I cannot accept it as a Zuka's performance.

'Too Short a Time to Fall in Love', however, doth not sound that great and I am certainly not aiming to download it and listen to it with my walkman. at the same time, I like it much better than 'RaJ'. why is that? I am at a loss.

on the other hand, I suddenly remembered of 'The Scarlet Pimpernel' show, which was also a borrowed one - and sounded perfectly 'Zukish'. that makes me think, I was deeply wrong in thinking western musicals spoil Zuka.

where is the difference?

well, methinks the difference is the concept. the concept of the original SP book, the concept of the original musical seems to be very close to the one of the performances of Zuka. on the contrary, the concept of 'RaJ' seems to suppose too 'affected' performing. yes, there are strong feelings in the performances of Zuka, but they are of another kind. mehopes, they are.

the fact I dare to consider as a proof is that the end of 'RaJ' was so 'Zukish'. this means, they could not leave the musical as it was, they could not help making it more 'native'. and the ending really seemed to be in a contradiction with the main story.

what I would like to add is that the person who translated the name of the performance should face the shooting squad, or quartered, or...

now that was a joke. I am just angry about this variant of translation which affects the whole concept. it is NOT 'too short a time TO FALL IN LOVE' but 'too short a time TO LOVE', which means than the main characters had only 4 days to spend together, NOT that they were trying very hard to fall in love with each other and were not able to do this during such a short period. or did I get something wrong?

conclusion

having enjoyed so many sweet minutes of both the love scenes and the comedy moments, I was hoping so much to have a happy ending of a sensible people deliberately choosing the path of being together. I did not get it. if I were asked to perform in 'Too Short a Time to Fall in Love' I would refuse after reading the scenario. nothing could be more ridiculous. it reminds me of my lovely Moon performing 'My Love Lies over the Mountain' which was quite weak even in comparison with 'The Man from Algiers' which also had a bad ending, but seemed to be just a little more logical

to smoothen the bad impression, let us remember the cute moments. actually, I am too lazy to cut all of them, so let me show my favourite one. if only I got it right...
first, they are saying 'ka mo ne' which means 'maybe', and then we have the usual play on words - 'ka mo ne' turns into 'come on yeah, baby' and then goes even further - 'shake it out, babeee~' ^.^