As previosly announced, SixTONES‘ Yugo Kochi stars in the Japanese edition of Neil Simon‘s stage play “Come Blow Your Horn”. It’s Yugo‘s first leading role in a play.
I will do an exclusive review for Dumpling Box of the musical on its first day at the The New National Theatre in Tokyo!
STORY
Buddy Baker (played by Yugo Kochi) decided to move out of his parents’ house on his birthday. He is fed up with his parents telling him what to do with his life and even trying to decide who to marry. Buddy and his brother Alan (played by Shugo Oshinari) both work for their father’s (played by Yuichi Haba) company, but Alan left home years ago and lives alone. Alan has a real girlfriend, Connie (played by Rei Okamoto), but he is dating multiple girlfriends, neglecting his work, and enjoying his carefree single life. When Buddy leaves home, he moves into Alan‘s apartment.
His brother, who is sociable and popular with the ladies, and Buddy, who is actually shy, do not share the same personality, but they get along well. Alan is pleased with Buddy‘s decision to become independent from his parents, and introduces Peggy (played by Airi Matsui), an aspiring movie actress, to Buddy, who has no girlfriend. While waiting for Peggy to come to his room, he is surprised to find that it is his mother (played by Saki Takaoka) who comes to visit him. Mother had come to the apartment because she was worried about his father’s reaction to Buddy‘s running away from home. As Peggy was about to arrive, Buddy tried to somehow turn his mother away, and while he went to get a cab, Alan received a phone call. His mother responds but leaves without telling anyone the contents of the call.
While Buddy is talking to Peggy, pretending to be a Hollywood movie producer, his father comes to visit him this time. Buddy says, โThe scriptwriter is here. I have something important to tell you.โ He successfully gets rid of Peggy. Father has come to bring Buddy back. Alan comes back and the three of them are at odds when he gets a phone call and finds out that they lost a client due to a misunderstanding. Father fires both Buddy and Alan and leaves.
Three weeks later, the mother, fed up with the father’s antics, comes to live with her sons. Father follows her. Connie appears and tells him that she has decided to give up on Alain once and for all. Alan makes up his mind, asks Connie to marry him, and tells his father that he has signed a new contract for the company. Alan, Connie, and their parents go out to celebrate. As Buddy waits for his promised new girlfriend to visit, she shows upโฆ
Source: https://natalie.mu/stage/news/593660
STAGE REVIEW
I saw the play on the first day, and I hadn’t seen the original play, so it was a completely new story for me.
The setting is an apartment with an impressive mid-century interior. The lower side, covered with gorgeous patterned wallpaper, has a bar counter and fireplace, while the upper side has a night view of the city beyond a large window. Behind the centre of the stage, there was a white double-opening front door, through which Buddy (played by Yugo Kochi) and Alan (played by Shugo Oshinari) engaged in a light-hearted conversational drama at the mercy of the visitors who came through the door one after another.
In the first half of the story, Buddy is a shy young man in a dowdy charcoal-grey suit. However, after three weeks in his brother’s flat, Buddy is inspired by his brother to become a playboy, wearing a dark pink jacket, flashy blue tie and socks, and behaving as a cheerful go-getter. Yugo plays the unreliable Buddy, who tends to be pushed around by those around him, by shrinking down and sitting with his legs slightly together in a gesture. However, when Buddy becomes a playboy, Yugo makes a complete turnaround and expresses the change in his role with his light body language and bright smile. The rapid development from the second act was well worth seeing.
Yugo is able to switch on and off naturally and has a terrific and scary quality that makes it impossible to read his true nature. That’s why this American, light-hearted tension suits him, and his voice is suited to “Japanese dubbing”.
There were many scenes where I laughed out loud. Yugo is a person who, with all that he has learned in variety shows, can do a comedy play without any doubt.
There were moments when I thought: “How can they remember all the dialogue?”, because the amount of dialogue was overwhelming. You could tell they had weeks of preparation to learn the whole script, and then put in the effort to make the play fun.
This is completely in the groove of American comedy. It’s a slapstick play where time passes, but you just giggle and laugh at the jokes that are exchanged in the name of conversation in one room. You can’t miss Yugo‘s transformation from a shy boy to a playboy extraordinaire!
The other cast members were also spectacular. Shugo Oshinari has good voice projection and was very easy to understand when he spoke. Moreover, it was not noticeable at all that this was Airi Matsui‘s first play. Thanks to her extensive experience in dramas, she was able to get through this play without any problems.
Saki Takaoka had her moments of comedy which she handled to perfection and made the audience laugh, especially in the scenes where the phone rang. In my opinion they were some of the best scenes of the play.
I had seen Yuichi Haba in many dramas and it was a pleasure to see his acting skills live. Finally, Rei Okamoto was also able to put herself in the role and interpret Connie‘s range of emotions.
It is a play that makes you think that without those 6 people, it could not be done.
At the first curtain call, the whole cast came out and received an impressive round of applause. At the second curtain call, they all came out again.
Then at the third curtain call, Yugo came out of the white double-opening front door. That’s when he received a fantastic standing ovation.
The announcement of the end of the play began to sound but the crowd kept applauding, so that led to a fourth curtain call, where Yugo appeared again and said: “Thank you very much! We will do our best with the different six of us until the final performance!”, making a reference to SixTONES, which is also 6 members.