The stage play “Terayama Cabaret” starring Shingo Katori, will be performed at the Hibiya Hisei Theatre in Tokyo from February 9 to 29, 2024, and at the Umeda Arts Theatre in Osaka from Tuesday, March 5 to Sunday, March 10.
The play begins the night before Shuji Terayama’s death and tells the story of how he makes a deal with a character named “Death” who appears before him and risks his life with the members of the theater company to create Terayama’s final work.” The play is an original live musical drama with many songs written by Shuji Terayama as well as “Ashita no Joe”.
The script was written by Ryo Ikeda of Yumei. David Leveaux will direct. The cast includes Shingo Katori, who makes his first attempt to play the role of Shuji Terayama, as well as Songha, Kanata Irei, Eri Murakawa, Soichi Hirama, and Ruumi Nagina.
【David Leveaux’s comment】
No bird can fly higher than the imagination.– Shuji Terayama
The purpose of this work is not to “recreate” Terayama. That would be impossible for anyone. It would be even more impossible for a British director. Shuji Terayama placed social and physical “outcasts” at the center of his works. What would he think of the world today? How strange, funny, and outrageously beautiful would the light of his dazzling imagination reveal to us in our stormy times? When this project was proposed to me, I had no choice but not to do it.
【Shingo Katori’s comment】
I will play the role of Shuji Terayama who is about to die.
I will be playing Shuji Terayama, directed by David Leveaux, and I will be putting my present into it.
It is going to be a hot cabaret.
I will participate with a burning heart.
