Endless Shock

Some things never change, but other things do.

For example, Yara never fails to make me cry in the second act, and in this version more effort has been put into fully developing his role.  The young childhood friend owner of Off-Broadway has been replaced with Beverly Maeda, who plays an older female owner.  She not only plays Rika’s mother, but also takes on more of a motherly or mentor role to everyone in the company, including Koichi.  She is the only one who points out potential faults in Koichi’s mindset.  Consequently, Yara is the one who has the Koichi on Shakespeare dream/nightmare, which results in there being more layers to his character and allows for him to show regret and turmoil, making his acting all the more impressive.  Although this resulted in there really being only two characters in the entire plot, it did result in everything feel more collected and solid.

I’m not thrilled with all of the song changes.  I definitely missed “In the cemetery” and “Why don’t you dance with me”.  “Dead or Alive” felt way too Michael Jackson-y, although the lyrics had more of a point than “In the cemetery”.  The loss of “Why don’t you dance with me” is a big mistake in my opinion.  It doesn’t allow for Yara to try and raise up his competitive spirit at all, plus it’s a great number both dance and music-wise.  I was very happy, however, to see that “SOLITARY” has been kept in the program from previous years.

Overall I feel the music and performance aspects of Endless Shock have become a bit lackluster in favor of plot and character development, which is not necessarily a bad thing.  I guess there will never be a version that’s perfect.  As Koichi says himself, the stage is a living thing.  It grows and changes and is never what you picture in your head.

On a side note, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Imai Tsubasa had come to show his support (which explains Koichi’s adlib scene with Rika a bit more).